User Reviews

I spent 10 minutes watching someone enjoy there cereal a bit too much.

Having been told by a close friend over the years about the Churel mythical creature for years,I've been surprised by how few depictions it has gotten on the big screen. Viewing the line-up for the online Cine-Excess film festive,I was shocked to find a film involving a Churel listed in the line-up,leading to me gazing into the black lake.

View on the film:

Deciding to release the soundtrack before the movie came out, writer/director/ editor/production designer/cinematographer and camera operator (!) K. Pervaiz closely works with composer Burning Tapes on binding an incredibly textured score.

Tapes and Pervaiz layer each shimmering dark synch note with a rustic, subtle ambiance which keeps the fantastical Churel grounded to the earthy horror.

Putting every penny she had into the production, director/ cinematographer Pervaiz weaves an incredibly subtle,ultra-stylised tale with long hanging wide-shots on muted colours opening up a sinking Horror atmosphere, which the audience sips as Aarya peaceful secluded time away from family in the Scottish highlands, is broken by the blazing red of the scarf becoming entwined in her life.

Filmed in England, Scotland and Pakistan, (where in a deeply conservative village,Pervaiz bonded with the locals and got exquisitely haunting shots. Pervaiz shatters the false sense of calm from the opening act with astonishing nightmare-logic surrealist set-pieces, burning with textured red from the rage of the Churail.

Unraveling each thread of the scarf, Pervaiz links Aarya and the Churail together with shudder-inducing, hair-pulling terror manifesting itself in the ghostly mirage of the Churail emerging into the light and entering the frenzied close-ups of Aarya.

Dedicating the film to Jyoti Singh, who on December 16, 2012 was brutalized and murdered by six men on a bus, with Singh dying from the attack 11 days later, the excellent, thoughtful screenplay by Pervaiz explores the monstrous act of brutality which causes the violent monster Churali to be born from the violence.

Receiving the red scarf from her Auntie Ayenah, Pervaiz gradually threads the abrasive horrors of the Churali into Aarya's blood-stained dreams crossing over into an increasingly suffocating reality, as Aarya looks into the black lake.