Mane Number 13 Movie Review: Fails to scare audience

Mane Number 13 Movie Review: 'Mane Number 13' which is the fourth Sandalwood film streaming directly on OTT is based on the same old template that many horror films have been made. In other words, it's old wine in new bottle. There have been some half-baked movies in this genre in the recent past. Some of them are intentionally bad, and some, despite the best efforts of directors, have ended up just being awful! 'Mane Number 13' is also one among them which treads beaten track.

'Mane Number 13' begins with five goofy characters, three men and two women, who work together, party together and live together heading to a weekend party and accidentally mowing down a woman, who strangely happens to be their friend. Then the film jerks straightaway into its main theme. Two years later, five techies Nishok (Ramana), Nancy (Varsha Bollamma), Preethi (Aishwarya Gowda), Karthick (Praveen Prem) and Aswath (Sanjeiv) move into a new rented home 'Mane Number 13' (House Number 13), which is haunted by a history of death of a family. On the very first night at the new home, the five friends witness terrible things and, soon one by one gets killed in most mysterious manner. The mayhem starts at 12 am with one after another going missing and being found dead. For instance, Aswath found dead in the washing machine. The entire film is shot in one house. Director Vivy Kathiresan's desperate effort to keep up the suspense as to the reason for the mindless killings fails to fool the audience.

The approach to the subject is very casual and that element of horror is totally missing as the director adopts the same old formula in portraying series of violent murders. Unnecessary scenes spoil the fluency of narration. When it comes to performances, except Ramana rest of them are just supporting cast.

The film is produced by Krishna Chaitanya, who is known to rope in fresh faces and set a trend for horror films with such blockbusters as 6-5=2 and Karva. But 'Mane Number 13', his horror hat-trick film proves to be a dud.

Written by Nischith N