Matinee 2024

Arun Adarsh Sabu is from an affluent family and owns a haunted property that carries with it a heavy sense of history. His friends, chasing a quick payday, press him to sell the place, hoping to loot him through the deal. They break into the creaking house, where the air thickens with eerie sounds—soft anklets tapping and other unsettling noises—that send shivers down their spines and test their nerve.

The plan to cash in quickly begins to unravel as the house itself seems to resist their greed. Slowly, the friends realize that Arun may still be present as more than a memory: a ghostly force that watches, unsettles, and unsettles them further with each step they take inside. The tension tightens as memories of Arun’s life and his relationship with Akshara surface, revealing a heartbreak that outlived him.

Arun confesses that he had loved Akshara deeply, yet she had vanished for days and then reappeared, saying she had passed a German test and would go to Germany. Arun claims she had once told him she could not leave him, but now she makes the decision to go, and Akshara reacts with cold resolve. She leaves in a waiting auto, sparking Arun’s lingering ache and prompting a desperate attempt to reach her as he clumsily slips from the top floor and dies. In his dying moment he longs to utter a final word—an apology to Akshara for his lingering love—but the moment passes without voice.

When his friends return to the house, they discover that Arun’s spirit can hear them and, in a way, touch them. He asks them to bring Akshara back so he can fulfill his last wish. Akshara arrives, and Arun again speaks to her through the haunting quiet: he apologizes, declares his enduring love, and implies that the house now belongs to her—even if only as a memory. Then the haunted space seems to vanish.

A reveal arrives through a skeptical friend: Akshara might be a big cheat, accused of pretending love to several boys, a claim tied to an ashramam whisper he heard. This accusation fuels Akshara’s anger, insisting she is driven by money and that the house should belong to her. The tension peaks as, with the house under her control, everyone else is told to leave.

As Akshara gazes at a wall photo of Arun, she learns that the house was built by Arun’s mother, a truth that seems to awaken Arun’s spirit in the image. His face in the photograph turns red and he appears to tell her he will not leave her, and the doors and windows begin to shut on their own, trapping her inside. One friend reaches out toward another in a final, uneasy moment, and the group is left to confront the consequences of greed and the power of a place that refuses to be owned by selfish desire.