So going into this movie i really wanted to like this as it was a experimental movie. And the movie started good but this movie gets amature af towards the second half. Dailogue delivery gets laughable, scenes doesn't make much sense and overall you will get cringed. Could have given a bit more effort into the movie.
15 Reviews
Flawed Indian Remake of flawed movie FOLLOWERS (2017)
Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi16 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
VAZHIYE AKA THE PATH follows a social media couple who visit what is reputed to be a haunted forest on a camping trip. After an overnight stay in the forest, they are attacked by a couple of masked men...
This basic concept, as well as many plot details, of this found footage movie are taken from the found footage movie FOLLOWERS (2017), so it is instructive to compare the two. Because FOLLOWERS and therefore VAZHIYE are "twisty" movies, I cannot compare them without spoilers.
Both movies have the same prologue: a person finds an abandoned car in the forest, and is then all of the sudden mortally attacked. In FOLLOWERS, unlike in VAZHIYE, we actually very briefly see the face of the attacker, it is a smiling, seemingly happy woman, which makes the attack all the more disconcerting.
FOLLOWERS then spends the entire first act on establishing the relationship dynamics of an outwardly incredibly fortunate social media couple where all is not as well as it seems, as they first prepare and then go on the camping trip.
VAZHIYE, instead, spends the first act mainly on exposition for the male vlogger and his attempts to gain more followers. It shows him going on a white water rafting/kayaking trip which, however, does not tie in to anything that comes later. There are some beautiful scenery shots, but it should be noted that the gag of "found footage from a Kayak" was already used in THE LAND OF BLUE LAKES (2021), another found footage horror film centered on a camping trip gone wrong.
The couple being attacked by two masked men introduces the first major plot twist in FOLLOWERS: the second act of the movie now goes back in time, showing us that the masked men are a couple of wannabe social media influencers who want to gain followers in an unusual way: to illustrate the dangers of giving up your privacy, they have decided to prank the successful social media couple. They explain how they got much of the couple's information because it was freely shared on social media. Other information, such as the couple's home address, they obtain by calling her and posing as a company that wishes to do a placement deal and send samples to her. They then go visit the couple and follow them on the camping trip. Much of the second act of FOLLOWERS is devoted to exploring the relationship dynamics between the duo, one of whom is a slacker-type and the other may or may not be a psychopath. Their plan is to attack the couple and then immediately reveal that it was all a prank.
In VAZHIYE, the second act heralds the couple going on a camping trip. The relationship dynamics are not explored at all, and so the characters are very two-dimensional. However, there are again some beautiful nature shots. The end of the second act corresponds to the end of the first act of FOLLOWERS, where they get attacked by two masked men.
In FOLLOWERS, the third act is heralded by a second major plot twist: in the middle of the prank attack, and before the two masked men have a chance to reveal that it is only a prank, they are themselves attacked by a group of smiling women. The possible psychopath is killed right away, the male vlogger is taken away, and the female vlogger and the slacker run away. The latter two then join together to find out where her partner was taken to. They discover that it is some kind of a cult of smiling women led by a messianic type in the forest and witness her partner being sacrificed. She screams in horror, which alarms them, and then the cult members begin to chase the two. The slacker had taken the social media couple's car keys and gives it to her as they find her car. Just as he approaches it, the cultists catch up to him and finish him off. She manages to enter the car. In a dark satirical turn, just before the cultists also enter the car and pull her out, she attempts to give a farewell message to her followers.
VAZHIYE rolls the second and third act of FOLLOWERS into the third act: here it is now a some kind of a Hindu cult that attacks the prank attackers, but otherwise the events go exactly as in the other movie, minus the satirical commentary at the end.
FOLLOWERS is actually a pretty good found footage movie up the second major plot twist. After that, i.e. For the entire third act, the movie catastrophically descends into silliness because the whole "cult of smiling women" set-up is never given the necessary foundation to convince the audience of the story turn.
In my review of FOLLOWERS, I argued that the film should have switched from a found footage narrative to a conventional narrative in the third act. Then, it could have gone back in time again in order to properly set up the cult for the audience and make the events that much more believable. Had VAZHIYE done either this or something else to fix this major flaw of FOLLOWERS in the third act, then my review would have been much more positive.
Instead, it not only leaves the flaw in place-in fact, the movie informs us even less about the Hindu cult than FOLLOWERS does about the "cult of smiling women"-but introduces new flaws of its own: the entire first act of the movie is essentially "throwaway footage", there are frequent scene cuts that last almost a second each, which are both annoying, since they serve no dramatic purpose l, and make me suspect that they are just there (in conjunction with the first act) to inflate the running time; the relationship dynamics of the two duos are not explored at all, giving us little more than four cardboard characters; finally, much of the satirical commentary on the vapidity of social media personalities is gone and not replaced by any other social commentary.
It is really too bad, because I think found-footage movies from non-Western countries can bring new and fresh elements to the genre due to differences in cultural background. There was a nod toward this in VAZHIYE in a scene which depicted a Theyyam performance, a traditional Hindu ritual which was cleverly used as plot device (though with terrible dubbing) to forewarn the two pranksters of their impending fate. Unfortunately, the flaws of this movie overwhelm positive aspects like this and the beautiful nature shots.
Finally, it is my understanding that Indian movies copying or plagiarizing Western movies is a well-recognized problem, facilitated by the fact that Indian audiences tend to only know major Western productions with a global reach, whereas Western audiences know barely any Indian movies at all. I don't know the background to the making this film, but I would have wished that if anything, it would have improved on a story that had ample opportunity for improvement.
This basic concept, as well as many plot details, of this found footage movie are taken from the found footage movie FOLLOWERS (2017), so it is instructive to compare the two. Because FOLLOWERS and therefore VAZHIYE are "twisty" movies, I cannot compare them without spoilers.
Both movies have the same prologue: a person finds an abandoned car in the forest, and is then all of the sudden mortally attacked. In FOLLOWERS, unlike in VAZHIYE, we actually very briefly see the face of the attacker, it is a smiling, seemingly happy woman, which makes the attack all the more disconcerting.
FOLLOWERS then spends the entire first act on establishing the relationship dynamics of an outwardly incredibly fortunate social media couple where all is not as well as it seems, as they first prepare and then go on the camping trip.
VAZHIYE, instead, spends the first act mainly on exposition for the male vlogger and his attempts to gain more followers. It shows him going on a white water rafting/kayaking trip which, however, does not tie in to anything that comes later. There are some beautiful scenery shots, but it should be noted that the gag of "found footage from a Kayak" was already used in THE LAND OF BLUE LAKES (2021), another found footage horror film centered on a camping trip gone wrong.
The couple being attacked by two masked men introduces the first major plot twist in FOLLOWERS: the second act of the movie now goes back in time, showing us that the masked men are a couple of wannabe social media influencers who want to gain followers in an unusual way: to illustrate the dangers of giving up your privacy, they have decided to prank the successful social media couple. They explain how they got much of the couple's information because it was freely shared on social media. Other information, such as the couple's home address, they obtain by calling her and posing as a company that wishes to do a placement deal and send samples to her. They then go visit the couple and follow them on the camping trip. Much of the second act of FOLLOWERS is devoted to exploring the relationship dynamics between the duo, one of whom is a slacker-type and the other may or may not be a psychopath. Their plan is to attack the couple and then immediately reveal that it was all a prank.
In VAZHIYE, the second act heralds the couple going on a camping trip. The relationship dynamics are not explored at all, and so the characters are very two-dimensional. However, there are again some beautiful nature shots. The end of the second act corresponds to the end of the first act of FOLLOWERS, where they get attacked by two masked men.
In FOLLOWERS, the third act is heralded by a second major plot twist: in the middle of the prank attack, and before the two masked men have a chance to reveal that it is only a prank, they are themselves attacked by a group of smiling women. The possible psychopath is killed right away, the male vlogger is taken away, and the female vlogger and the slacker run away. The latter two then join together to find out where her partner was taken to. They discover that it is some kind of a cult of smiling women led by a messianic type in the forest and witness her partner being sacrificed. She screams in horror, which alarms them, and then the cult members begin to chase the two. The slacker had taken the social media couple's car keys and gives it to her as they find her car. Just as he approaches it, the cultists catch up to him and finish him off. She manages to enter the car. In a dark satirical turn, just before the cultists also enter the car and pull her out, she attempts to give a farewell message to her followers.
VAZHIYE rolls the second and third act of FOLLOWERS into the third act: here it is now a some kind of a Hindu cult that attacks the prank attackers, but otherwise the events go exactly as in the other movie, minus the satirical commentary at the end.
FOLLOWERS is actually a pretty good found footage movie up the second major plot twist. After that, i.e. For the entire third act, the movie catastrophically descends into silliness because the whole "cult of smiling women" set-up is never given the necessary foundation to convince the audience of the story turn.
In my review of FOLLOWERS, I argued that the film should have switched from a found footage narrative to a conventional narrative in the third act. Then, it could have gone back in time again in order to properly set up the cult for the audience and make the events that much more believable. Had VAZHIYE done either this or something else to fix this major flaw of FOLLOWERS in the third act, then my review would have been much more positive.
Instead, it not only leaves the flaw in place-in fact, the movie informs us even less about the Hindu cult than FOLLOWERS does about the "cult of smiling women"-but introduces new flaws of its own: the entire first act of the movie is essentially "throwaway footage", there are frequent scene cuts that last almost a second each, which are both annoying, since they serve no dramatic purpose l, and make me suspect that they are just there (in conjunction with the first act) to inflate the running time; the relationship dynamics of the two duos are not explored at all, giving us little more than four cardboard characters; finally, much of the satirical commentary on the vapidity of social media personalities is gone and not replaced by any other social commentary.
It is really too bad, because I think found-footage movies from non-Western countries can bring new and fresh elements to the genre due to differences in cultural background. There was a nod toward this in VAZHIYE in a scene which depicted a Theyyam performance, a traditional Hindu ritual which was cleverly used as plot device (though with terrible dubbing) to forewarn the two pranksters of their impending fate. Unfortunately, the flaws of this movie overwhelm positive aspects like this and the beautiful nature shots.
Finally, it is my understanding that Indian movies copying or plagiarizing Western movies is a well-recognized problem, facilitated by the fact that Indian audiences tend to only know major Western productions with a global reach, whereas Western audiences know barely any Indian movies at all. I don't know the background to the making this film, but I would have wished that if anything, it would have improved on a story that had ample opportunity for improvement.
Probably one of the best
chffhorrorfestival22 June 2022
Most reviews here seem fake
samskarebyaha24 August 2022
A highly-enjoyable found-footage effort
kannibalcorpsegrinder12 July 2022
Attempting to jump-start his channel, an aspiring Youtube creator and his girlfriend set out to look into the stories about a haunted section of woods nearby that would be perfect fodder to explore for his channel, but when they arrive find a far greater evil than they expected.
There's a lot to like with this one. Among the better features here is the traditional and formulaic setup that introduces everything and sets the film off rather nicely. Introducing his channel's content and the frustration at its lack of growth hints at the need to be spiced up with more appealing content while also setting up the idea of the journey to the mysterious area nearby. None of this is particularly original or unique, but it nicely serves the function of getting the group out into the woods nearby away from help. It's also helped along nicely by the constant check-ins with his girlfriend and the gorgeous travelog footage to create an impressive starting point. That setup provides the film with some creepy moments once everything gets going. After arriving at the spot in the woods, they go hiking through the area providing some immensely atmospheric sequences. These take on several impressive attributes, from the random walking through the woods filled with chirping bird calls to the fishing adventure, or the strange encounter with them inside the tent at night which sets the stage for the chilling finale to come. The twists and turns that emerge here are quite enjoyable, introducing the hunters and their quest to track down and knock off the various intruders resulting in the frenetic chases to get away from everyone. While there's a lot to like, this one also has a few issues. The main drawback featured here is the wholly unnecessary and outright confusing storyline involving the kidnappers getting involved in the story. They come out of nowhere with no build-up or proper introduction, have no proper plan spelled out for the whole operation, and waste large amounts of time. It comes about either through flashbacks showing them trailing the couple the entire time or stopping the film cold for a native dance performance that doesn't need to be there. With the formulaic setup also coming into play, these aren't completely detrimental but bring the film down somewhat.
Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.
There's a lot to like with this one. Among the better features here is the traditional and formulaic setup that introduces everything and sets the film off rather nicely. Introducing his channel's content and the frustration at its lack of growth hints at the need to be spiced up with more appealing content while also setting up the idea of the journey to the mysterious area nearby. None of this is particularly original or unique, but it nicely serves the function of getting the group out into the woods nearby away from help. It's also helped along nicely by the constant check-ins with his girlfriend and the gorgeous travelog footage to create an impressive starting point. That setup provides the film with some creepy moments once everything gets going. After arriving at the spot in the woods, they go hiking through the area providing some immensely atmospheric sequences. These take on several impressive attributes, from the random walking through the woods filled with chirping bird calls to the fishing adventure, or the strange encounter with them inside the tent at night which sets the stage for the chilling finale to come. The twists and turns that emerge here are quite enjoyable, introducing the hunters and their quest to track down and knock off the various intruders resulting in the frenetic chases to get away from everyone. While there's a lot to like, this one also has a few issues. The main drawback featured here is the wholly unnecessary and outright confusing storyline involving the kidnappers getting involved in the story. They come out of nowhere with no build-up or proper introduction, have no proper plan spelled out for the whole operation, and waste large amounts of time. It comes about either through flashbacks showing them trailing the couple the entire time or stopping the film cold for a native dance performance that doesn't need to be there. With the formulaic setup also coming into play, these aren't completely detrimental but bring the film down somewhat.
Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.
HIGHLY recommend
indieworldfilmnews22 June 2022
Horror...my favorite genre. This was the BEST horror movie I have seen in a few years. I was very excited for this movie "Vazhiye" and it was so much better than other FF movies.
100 % Horror!
100 % Mystery!
100 % Thrilling!
100 % Horror!
100 % Mystery!
100 % Thrilling!
A very entertaining movie that you have to think about.
MariyaBc22 June 2022
The acting of the film was very believable and realistic, the special effects (and yes they are some, I think,)are surprisingly good for a low budget flick but the main standout feature of this film has to be the story.
It was pretty crazy
hollywoodnfc22 June 2022
One of the best 'Found Footage' experiments!
hollywoodcinemabeatzfestival13 June 2022
Employing found footage in a way that actually makes sense in the context of the plot, Vazhiye is the story of two Youtube vloggers that decide to make a documentary film about a mystery land, where they confront perilous, nightmarish situations. That feels frighteningly plausible.
Good flick
cinemabeatzofficial22 June 2022
One for the found footage fans
indieworldfilmfestival22 June 2022
The practical effects in this and seemless CGI are really impressive and had me cringing in some parts with just how gory it was. A lot is left to your imagination caused by the out of control camera, but found footage is almost its own genre by now so this sorta thing is to be expected.
Successful experiment
dileepthariode22 June 2022
A re-introduction to the term "horror".
cffindia22 June 2022
FF fans deserve to see it
hollywoodfc22 June 2022
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