Typewriter: A typical plotline and something more

Horror movies are not my cup of tea. All the Insidious and Conjuring movies, in my opinion, are more about techniques of creating tension than ghosts - an area where subcontinental directors fail terribly.

Think about famous shows like "Aahat" or "Sssh! Koi hain". It does not matter how catchy the background music was, you cannot deny that those shows were wobbly visualisations of poor scripts. This is why I used to be very skeptical about ghost shows. 

However, I started watching "Typewriter" on Netflix, mistaking it as a crime thriller. 

Watch the trailer of "Typewriter" here  

To be honest, I figured out at the very beginning that "Typewriter" has the regular ghost story plotline with a haunted mansion, mysterious past, connection with the moon and every other classic element of ghost stories.  

Nevertheless I got hooked to the screen probably because of the neat cinematography, different approach to visualisation and technique in storytelling. 

This is where the "Kahani" famous director Sujoy Ghosh issuccessful. A five episode series Typewriter was written by Sujoy and Suresh Nair. 
It narrates the adventures of three kids Sameera/Sam (Aarna Sharma), Gablu (Mikail Gandhi), Bunty (Palash Kample) and their pet dog forming a "ghost club" out of extreme curiosity over ghosts. 

The kids dissect the book "The Ghost of Sultanpur" by famous ghost story writer Madhav Mathews as a part of their research.

A new dimension opens up before them when the writer's granddaughter Jenny Fernandez, with her son Nick, returns to their home "Bardez Villa" that was left abandoned for years. 

The story starts to unfold after the placement of Madav's antique Remington typewriter into the study again. 

That event leads to many paranormal things like death of people related to the home, and the debut of Jenny's doppelganger. 

It turns out that the roots of all these things was laid years back when Mahadev took help from a Fakeer to cure his writer's block. The Fakeer claimed to have supernatural power and was sentenced to death for his mischief using those powers. 

Before he was hanged, he tricked Madhav into keeping a Voodoo doll that preserves his soul after his physical death. Together, the doll and the writer's typewriter kept Fakeer alive, and would give him back his human form during full moon. 

I personally admired the use of ancient Voodoo magic, which was much more enjoyable than ghosts. 

It is true that the end of the series was not very climactic and was hurried through rapidly resolving contradictions. But it was ended with enough elements left behind to form a powerful storyline in the next season. 

Now, like many other critics, I cannot deny the resemblances of this to Stranger Things. Things is a sci-fi series, Typewriter is about black magic. But there is nothing wrong if it was inspired from Stranger Things.  

For me, it was something more than a simple tale of supernatural powers of black magic. 

The use of a background story for each characters increased its believability. The way the series explores the antagonist Fakeer's childhood, audiences will think twice before condemning him for the way he is. 

The performances were noteworthy, especially the performance of Jenny Farnandes, played by Paolomi. 

Black magic, instead of ghosts, is a nice strategy to hold the audiences to the screen and it's not so gory projection has made it a perfect ghost story for kids. 

I am eagerly awaiting the second season that will enlighten me on some more theories of black magic.