Kajal Aggarwal marks her digital debut with this horror show as Jennifer Matthew, aka Jenny, an ambitious director of a TV show titled ‘Dark Tales’, which showcases real stories of ghosts and black magic. When the TRPs of the show begin to drop after a rather bold episode, Jenny realises that the only way to save the show from being pulled off the channel is to capture ghosts on live television.

The show is haunting for the wrong reasons

This seven-episode series begins with the crew of the show ‘Dark Tales’ introducing themselves on camera. We’re told that Jennifer (Kajal Aggarwal) is the director, Sekar (Vaibhav Reddy) is the art director, Kalai (Anandhi) is the makeup artist, Aravind (Daniel Annie Pope) is the anchor and so on. Just as you begin to tire of the lengthy opening, there’s a scene that could be right out of Final Destination. However, it goes nowhere and never dovetails with the larger narrative.

After they release an episode that involves a ghost molesting a woman, the show faces some serious backlash. So much so that the head of the channel wants to pull ‘Dark Tales’ off the air. To save the show, the crew begins searching for a real haunted house and finds one in which pots and pans fly off the shelves. Jenny decides to capture the spirit haunting the house on live TV. When the crew arrives at the haunted house, they meet its inhabitants, a helpless and terrified family of three, including a spooky young boy. After they go live, the crew find themselves locked inside the house with the angry spirit.

A horror without horrors

To call Live Telecast a horror show is misleading as there’s nothing scary about it, not the story or the effects. The makers attempt to add some heft by giving the ghost a backstory but it’s a case of too little too late. The cast, especially Kajal Aggarwal, are uniformly over-the-top. As a result, their survival matters little to the viewer. The show is occasionally funny and it’s those moments that offer tiny molecules of relief.

WATCH OR NOT
Live Telecast has few scares, a reed-thin story and a lot of hammy acting.

Creator: Venkat Prabhu
Starring: Kajal Aggarwal, Anandhi, Vaibhav Reddy, Daniel Annie Pope
Language: Tamil
Streaming on: Disney+ Hotstar