‘Video’ movie review: One for the attempt, despite the faltering frights

Srinidhi Bengaluru’s Video begins with news of a camera discovered in the woods. The footage found inside eventually leads to a group of missing youngsters who ran the popular Kannada YouTube channel Tharle Gang. The film arrives at a time when the Kannada YouTube community is increasingly being questioned for its low-effort and sensational content.Something about how commonplace YouTube has become is almost exhausting. Everyone with a camera and a mic seems to have a channel of their own, each video beginning with the now-familiar, “so guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel.” There is no measure or yardstick for what constitutes good content anymore. Anything and everything is deemed “content”, almost stripping the word of its very meaning. In such a landscape, it is not surprising to see Tharle Gang hit 1M subscribers despite churning out questionable material.

For a while, Video holds a mirror up to the increasingly chaotic world of online content creation. Subscribers become “family” for these creators, who regularly do “giveaway videos”. Tharle Gang decides to gift their followers a thrilling experience — a video of the gang spending a night at one of the most haunted places in India. For the gang and the current generation of YouTubers, gadgets are indispensable (which explains the abundance of unboxing videos). As they set out for their risky adventure, we see them gather all sorts of cameras, from a GoPro to Meta AI glasses.

The film moves with the rhythm of a daily vlog, a phenomenon that seems to be reaching a saturation point in the Kannada YouTube space. Along the way, it sprinkles in several pop-culture references. Sameer MD, known for his “investigative videos”, plays himself, opening the film with the backstory of Tharle Gang. There are also nods to DV, the popular Kannada moto-vlogger, and Instagram sensation “Ammuku Dummuku”, who goes by the rather peculiar name and boasts a whopping 240K subscribers.

For those unfamiliar with this ecosystem of young influencers, it can seem like an entirely different world. That said, if you aren’t familiar with them, you aren’t really missing out on much either.

While Srinidhi gets closer to capturing the reality of YouTubers, his writing fails to elevate the film as it moves into horror territory. The movie needed characters with a little more edge than what we see. One of the gang members, Madhura, suffers from severe anxiety and is particularly afraid of the dark. We see others convince her repeatedly to take part in the risky challenge, turning her apprehension into a recurring plot device. Instead of returning to this trope, the film could have delved deeper into other characters’ psyches and explored what drives them to take such risks.

Bharatha, who plans the entire scary exploration, is clearly driven by the pursuit of a ‘video’. He is willing to go to any lengths for content — from battling extreme crowd congestion to capture the ‘Ambari moment’ during Mysuru Dasara to convincing his gang members to spend a few hours at a feared school deep in the interiors of Odisha. Madhura and Bharatha emerge as the more defined characters, but the rest of the gang lack distinct personalities or motivations strong enough for us to root for them.

A premise like this called for a much pulpier treatment. The humour is weak, which is surprising, considering Srinidhi’s jokes worked well in his debut web series, Jerax. Several scenes also linger longer than necessary, an odd choice given their lack of impact.

One thing the movie gets right is the jealousy simmering among the gang members. We have seen countless “so-and-so exposed” videos on YouTube, where friends can quickly turn into foes in the pursuit of online attention. That is why a heated conversation about fame and genuine talent feels surprisingly relatable, even though it unfolds at a rather bizarre moment in the film.

Some creatively imagined sequences blur the line between reality and fiction. However, these moments also highlight a larger problem: Srinidhi takes far too long to get to the horror, which becomes a drawback for a film billed as a horror thriller. Horror, like comedy, is subjective, and one doesn’t need to be an ardent fan to sense the high that the genre offers. I wasn’t brutally shocked by the events. The scenes hesitate to go into the over-the-top gore territory. The narrative tension that Srinidhi tries to build sort of drops, because the mystery is unmasked a tad too early.