FIRED

India, 2010, 87 minutes, Colour.
Rahul Bose.
Directed by Sajit Warrier.

Most horror films these days, going for the scares, frights, blood and gore and special effects can seem rather silly, even ludicrous. But, often that doesn’t really matter for the fans because they accept the non-sequiturs and even the absurdities as long as it’s a good show.

Fired starts eerily enough but soon becomes as manic as its protagonist and, before too long (it is an 87 minute film), it heads towards the top and tries to go over.

While it is set in London and used some location photography, it is very much an Indian film. It concerns an Indian company with many Indian employees. And the sensibility is very much colourful Indian and emotions up there on the screen.

Rahul Bose portrays the new CEO who has manipulated his way to the top – and then sacked 121 of the staff. As he complacently moves into his new office, strange things begin to happen, especially when he goes down the corridor and finds the masked staff sewing up their victim’s eyelids – and we know we are in the realm of dreams and hallucinations. Has he taken too many anti-depressant pills. Is his conscience taking over and playing havoc with his psyche – all the devices for a haunted house story are included for a haunted office story. And then there is the spectre of former lover and sacked employee, Ruby – and the security guard who seems to bring some sanity and realism into the torments of the CEO. And so on, with some gory face destroying touches to keep us alarmed.

Actually, it is very much like a Japanese ghost story in plot and in the dreams and the appearance of the Ruby spectre. They have probably made it already.

1. The Indian style, sensibility, the London setting, the Japanese ghost story style, the combination?

2. Drama, terror, horror? Blood and gore? Psychological terror and the consequences?

3. The city of London, the exteriors? The city, roads and the woods? The atmospheric score?

4. The interiors, offices and corridors, the lifts, the basement?

5. The rational explanation, an overdose of antidepressant tablets?

6. Joy and his decision, the interview, selling the sackings, the paper clips and the information, CEO, sacking a hundred and twenty-one?

7. Joy in himself, work, competition, Ruby and the relationship, the phone calls from his wife, the daughter? Arnold and giving up as CEO? The guard and his help? His ruthlessness, pleased with himself, his new office, the door tags, smiles?

8. The initial nightmare, the sewing up of the eyes, his watching, the masked assailants, waking, and the repetition at the end of the same dream?

9. His wife, the phone calls? Anger at Ruby? The reminder of the pills?

10. The devices for the haunted house as for a haunted office? Dolls, the dinosaur toy, the phone ringing, the music, the champagne bottle, the coffee boiling, the rooms and corridors? How effective?

11. The strong performance, Joy holding the film together, the build-up to his mania?

12. Ruby, the sack, the relationship, her being a ghost and a spectre, her different appearance, vengeance, her face coming off? This Ruby as Joy’s creation of her in his imagination? Her sewing the eyes?

13. The guard and his work, sense of realism, his help, leaving the building, driving Joy, Ruby’s appearance, the crash, his disappearance? His being the surgeon with the eyes?

14. The increasing gore, blood, faces tearing? The group and its vengeance?

15. The finale, the facts about the case? A moral fable in horror style?