Writer and director Jay K makes his debut in Hindi films with ‘Dybbuk’. The film is the Hindi remake of Jay K’s Malayalam film ‘Ezra’ (2017). ‘Dybbuk’ stars Emraan Hashmi and Nikita Dutta in the lead roles. Though ‘Dybbuk’ is an official remake of ‘Ezra’, but the actual story is based on the Hollywood film ‘The Possession’ which was released in 2012.
The story shows that a married couple Sam Isaac (Emraan Hashmi) and Maahi Isaac (Nikita Dutta) shift to Mauritius from Mumbai for work purposes. In Mauritius, they start living in a colonial house and one day Maahi brings an antique wooden box with some Jewish language engraved on it. After Maahi opens the box one night, from then on, strange things start happening to them. One day Sam’s old friend cum Catholic priest named Father Gabriel (Denzil Smith) visits the couple in Mauritius and senses the strange things which are happening and later he explains about the wooden box that it’s called Dybbuk, which is an ancient Jewish folklore. Dybbuk is a box where a dead person’s spirit is kept in it to fulfill its revenge afterwards by possessing a weak human to accomplish its goal. The priest suggests Sam to contact a Jewish Rabbi, who can help them get rid of the Dybbuk as well as the bad spirit, then somehow they managed to get rid of it.
‘Dybbuk’ doesn’t have many horror elements or frightening menace and the horror sound effects could have been better. Compared with the original one, ‘Ezra’ was much more breathtaking and the actors played far better in their respective roles. ‘Dybbuk’ is totally a scene-to-scene remake of ‘Ezra’, but still, it couldn’t make it worth watching. The story goes a lot faster than the original one.
A lot is expected from Emraan Hashmi as he has become the master of horror films. All his other horror films such as ‘Raaz: The Mystery Continues’ (2009), ‘Raaz 3’ (2012), ‘Ek Thi Daayan’ (2013), ‘Raaz Reboot’ (2016), etc., were too good to watch and his acting was marvellous. But in ‘Dybbuk’ he lacks that enthusiasm. He seems not at all involved in the story. But still Emraan Hashmi and Prithviraj from ‘Ezra’ both have really done their parts quite well.
But as the female character, Priya Anand from ‘Ezra’ played far better than Nikita Dutta. Nikita Dutta’s acting, her way of expressing dialogues, her way of looking at Emraan with pale eyes are not at all impressive and enjoyable. There is no seriousness seen in Nikita’s acting. Playing the role of the possessed woman, she literally lacks the depth. On the other hand, Manav Kaul’s acting as Jewish Rabbi is quite good and mentionable. His hard work shows up. Denzil Smith as a Catholic priest is so foreseeable.
Overall, ‘Dybbuk’ is a bit dull and not catchy enough compared to other horror films. The second half of the story is so predictable that one can just feel indifferent watching it. Even after remaking the whole movie scene-to-scene, director Jay K couldn’t make any improvement and rectify the wrong parts and 112 minutes are totally wasted.
‘Dybbuk’ is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Videos.
Rating: 2/5
