I’ll admit that Aseq isn’t a bad film. It’s not as much a horror movie as it is an exploration of the supernatural, or jinn, to be precise. I wasn’t expecting much, but I liked the story, especially the way it ended. It seems that the makers didn’t let their imagination run wild and tried to keep things grounded. Of course, there is no grounded way to show a jinn, but at least there wasn’t this overt quality that ruins the horror that comes with revealing who’s who and what’s what beforehand [which is mostly the case with Bollywood]. It is only at the end of the movie that the jinn is revealed. Till then, the story kept me interested and made me wait to see how things would unfold. But if you are looking for a very scary movie that will jump-scare you, Aseq is not for you. And it doesn’t aim to be so, either. Here’s more.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Aseq’?
A month after Ronit Puri, aka Ronnie’s breakup with Priyanka, he meets Lail at a parking lot and falls in love with her. But then, slowly, Ronnie begins to have these unnatural experiences that he cannot explain to his best friends, Adi and Sarim. He loses his sense of time, hallucinates, and can even hear unusual sounds and noises. He remembers how Priyanka had promised to ruin his life, and after coming across a book of the occult in his room, he starts to believe that Priyanka is using black magic against him. Sarim and Adi also realize that something supernatural is up with Ronnie and reach out to Priyanka, but she has no idea about it. Sarim, who has been subjected to the supernatural as a kid by his father, realizes that it isn’t Priyanka but Lail who is doing all this. She is the jinn who has latched herself onto Ronnie. Ronnie doesn’t believe his friends when they tell him about it. But upon looking up the security footage from the parking lot the night he met Lail, he sees himself talking, but there’s no one in front of him. This is when he realizes that Lail isn’t human. Ronnie, Adi, and Sarim figure out a way to grab her, and they put her in a bathtub filled with water and ice. These are supposed to kill the jinn, as they are created from fire. Unfortunately, the ice and water only force it out of its human form. With no other way out, Ronnie stabs himself. This destroys the jinn’s motive of being with him forever, and it thus leaves. In the end, we find that Ronnie is alive, and the jinn is looking for the love of her life somewhere else.
Excuses
While Priyanka has nothing to do with supernatural occurrences, there is one scene where her words showcase the egotistical side of us humans that often gets the better of us and forces us to disregard love and insecurities. When Ronnie mentions his doubts over her cheating on him, she points out all the bills that she is paying for him and how he overlooked them all. Well, it is one thing to expect your partner to appreciate what you have done for him or her, and it is a whole different thing to use what you have done as an excuse to defend yourself against doubts that your partner has that might be true. Just because you have been paying your lover’s bills for a long time doesn’t justify cheating on him or her just because you are exhausted or fed up (and perhaps looking for more, but not from your partner). It doesn’t make sense. You chose to do things for your partner, and if you have a problem, you need to talk rather than find an easy way out. Your actions can be justifiable if your partner isn’t considerate of your actions and only takes advantage of them, but in Priyanka and Ronnie’s case, it isn’t so. Ronnie evidently loves her, and it was she who walked out on him because he doubted her rather than being thankful. Well, to this, I say, good riddance. And it turns out that Ronnie was right. Priyanka is back with her ex-boyfriend. So maybe, at the end of it all, she just needed an excuse to leave. The vulnerability that resulted in Ronnie due to the breakup must have attracted the jinn toward him. Speaking of which, we come to the most important aspect of the film.
Aseq
As per the movie, an aseq jinn is one that falls in love with a particular human and isn’t ready to leave. But there’s more to aseq jinn or aashiq jinn in theory. There are different kinds of these based on how they exploit their victims. Some love the body, some love a particular body part or parts, and some even commit violence against their victim, like rape. Some try to take over the partner of the victim to gain sexual pleasure from the victim. The jinn in the movie seems to be a combination of one who takes over a victim (Lail) and one that falls in love with another victim (Ronnie). Now, there are two ways to look at this. Either the jinn wanted to sexually exploit Lail by taking over Ronnie, in which case it would mean that the jinn is either a lesbian or a bisexual considering that it is female (as it appears at the end of the movie). [I know how bizarre it sounds, but we have to consider it]; or the jinn’s victim was Ronnie, and it was just using Lail’s body to lure Ronnie towards it. The relationship between the jinn and Lail is confusing, as we do not know if Lail is a human or a jinn. Both are possible because jinns are believed to be shapeshifters. They live in a parallel world that we cannot see. While throughout the film we get the impression that the jinn wants to be with Ronnie (and not Lail), it is the ending that keeps us from coming to a conclusion.
‘Aseq’ Ending, Explained: Where Is The Jinn Now?
At the end of Aseq, we see that Lail, aka the jinn, is still searching for a lover. But why? Ronnie is still alive. If she wanted to be with him so desperately, why look for someone else? At this point, we need to consider that Lail is not a human but just a human form that the jinn has taken to search for her next victim. Maybe she has realized that Ronnie would rather die than be with her, which is basically what anyone would think, and so she has moved on. What I want to know is what the motive of a jinn is. Why does it look for hosta and pleasures in the human world and not their own? Do they just want to cause harm, and that’s all? If that’s the case, then they aren’t really different from humans. The only difference is that when it comes to jinn, we have a choice. When it comes to humans, we have no choice but to endure the pain that is inflicted on us unless we bring an end to it by stabbing ourselves. This is because no amount of water or ice can rid us of those who take advantage of our love to hurt us. I may sound harsh, but that’s just how I feel things are. This isn’t to say that it is always our loved ones who hurt us, but when they do, it hurts the most. Well, Ronnie is free, and so is Lail, and both will look for partners again.
