Plot:
Four individuals, who are otherwise law-abiding and good-natured, abduct the daughter (Nandita Swetha as Keerthy) of an MLA (Nagineedu). One of the abductors is the victim’s well-meaning cousin. While they want to extract Rs 4 crore from the MLA from a bungalow which they don’t know has been haunted for decades, they are in for a shock when they realize that even Keerthy is possessed. The dance of confusion and errors, of horror and comedy, follows.
Telugu Funda’s take on the primary performances:
- The female artists: Nandita Swetha has stopped offering anything new in done-to-death roles. Navami Gayak at least has got the looks.
- Top comedians: Vennela Kishore and Shakalaka Shankar deliver a few laughs. Their comedy timing is imperfect but it is in a not-bad zone.
- Others: Naveen Neni, Rajat Ragava, Raghu Babu are decent.
- The trivial guys: Nagineedu and Bahubali Prabhakar are seen as Keerthy’s father and a Tantrik, respectively.
Telugu Funda’s take on the merits:
Director Shankar K Marthand comes up with a funny premise. Where horror-comedies have only one female ghost, this one has two of them. You expect the positives emerging from this premise to be magnified. However, the film doubles down on the cliches of the genre (horror-comedy).
Some of the situations in the first half elicit a fair amount of laughs. There are no scenes/dialogues that generate laugh-out-loud moments. But the first half, at the bare minimum, doesn’t bore you.
Since the run-time is a charitable 125 minutes, the climax is not stretched out. Anup Rubens’ background score may not be inventive but, thankfully, it is not loud.
Telugu Funda’s take on the demerits:
The film is thinned out by too many cliches. The second half drags on and on with template-driven scenes playing out without a rhyme or a reason. Despite the presence of well-known comedians (read Vennela Kishore and Shakalaka Shankar), the proceedings look adulterated by run-of-the-mill ideas from the days of films like ‘Prema Katha Chitram’.
The drama involving the two ghosts wears out pretty fast. The director should have used the exciting idea of two ghosts, who are sympathetic towards each other and work in unison, to generate a new kind of subversive comedy.
The situations lose the sheen, with the male comedians maxing out every time they have to deliver slapstick comedy. ‘OMG’ is directionless. The audience can’t care less once it becomes evident that gags are subservient to the story.
Telugu Funda’s Verdict:
‘O Manchi Ghost’ had so much potential. Regular situations and usual comedy drag it down.
Telugu FundaRating: 4/10
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