Aatma (2006)

Deepak Ramsay, Hansana Ramsay, Kavita Ramsay, Tulsi Ramsay and Gangu Ramsay. With a crew like that you know it's the famous Ramsay clan that's out to scare you again, and here's a slightly forgotten very late entry in their impressive list of horror movies: Aatma, a ghost movie with some elegant splashes of exorcism and eroticism. Not bad at all actually and only three damn euro's on play.com! Get it! Even if you don't like it, that's cheaper than cheap - and it includes shipping!

Some dude is killed by his gangster brother and he wants revenge from beyond the grave! First he forces himself upon a nice doctor and his girlfriend, and wants them to tell the world about the murder - but they are mostly scared of this ghostly beast and the dude turns his revenge towards his brother and the people behind him and tries to kill them and everyone else he sees!

Like most movies from the Ramsay clan Aatma is a very simple movie. Characters getting chased by a supernatural entity, black and white magic is used and people die. That's more or less what I need from a movie, at least some evenings when I want to turn of the brain and just relax without feeling depressed. Aatma is a gorgeous flick and it's odd how I didn't know about it until last week, when I found it and ordered it without even reading any reviews. Come on, it's a movie from the Ramsay family! Can't be bad!

And Aatma isn't bad at all. It was released in 2006, but the style and atmosphere is more from 1986, including a spectacular kung fu fight, a colourful exorcism and some very light gore (including a graphic autopsy, a throat ripping and a fun exploding head). The visual effects are well-made and we're talking both new computer generated effects and old-school, and both fit very good together. Even including the fashion, this is more an eighties or early nineties production than something from the last few years. It's not important for me, the past is just another way of claiming something that was bad then is good today. If the movie works, no matter how simple storyline, that's the most important thing.

I just have been prepared because of the names involved, but Aatma is also more sexy and "graphic" (graphic the Bollywood way) than many other Indian movies I've seen. There's actually kissing and rolling around in a bed, not to mention a lot of not so well-dressed ladies poking around in darkly lit corridors. Could be good to know for those interested.

My boyfriend, who watched part of the movie, also informed me that most of the music was "borrowed" from a computer game called God of War - and it's a damn fine and powerful soundtrack, very bombastic and classic and fits the movie very well.

Aatma is very cheap to buy on DVD and the UK release looks excellent in anamorphic widescreen and with good colours and sound. Well worth those three Euros including shipping it cost me.