I’ve just watched Connect today, and felt it was decent, more than watchable, but nothing beyond. They have a very good concept: a possession and exorcism story that takes place through video calls, with a narrative revolving around covid that we can relate to, that brings us into the world of the characters.

But, the execution while really good, is not really ambitious. From there, it’s the tried and tested possession and exorcism tale. If they had tried to incorporate covid more into this horror story instead of using it as a lead-in, or maybe explored the issues the kid was grappling with more deeply, this would really live up to the great concept they had and brought it to international standards I think. I also didn’t really like the acting apart from the little girl who I thought was phenomenal. Anupam looked like the director just put the script behind the camera and he was just reading it, Sathyaraj and Nayanthara were just going through the motions of acting. Maybe bad direction here.

But, the movie does use the video calls concept really well and what they have achieved is still very novel for Tamil cinema. I like how the cinematography really emphasises the loneliness and disconnect they feel. They outdid themselves with the set design which is comparable to larger budget international films too. And this is one of those few Tamil movies where you don’t notice the sound mix being bad at all, in fact it is excellent and lives up to expectations even for horror audio, save for one or two tiny moments I felt the audio was not there during Nayan’s scenes (Audio of a knife being placed down by her was missing during a kitchen scene, and her voice was not in the mix for a portion during the climax, choosing to only have audio for the screaming demon instead. Maybe it could be a stylistic choice to show that it’s online hence audio isn’t so clear).

Also without spoiling, there is a scene with a kid and a face mask that was brilliantly set up and paid off. That was actually the highlight of the movie for me. Watch in theatres, as a Tamil horror movie with sound mixing and art direction of this great a quality, and the consistently good cinematography, should be appreciated.