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During the British Raj, tiger hunting (shikar) was extraordinarily prevalent, institutionalized, and destructive. It was driven by state-sponsored culling, advanced firearms, and imperial vanity.The scale of hunting shifted from a highly controlled, traditional royal ritual under previous eras into a full-scale ecological onslaught. This campaign drastically reduced India’s tiger population from an estimated 40,000–45,000 down to just a few thousand within a century.

Amal Neerad and his obsession with stylised cinematic making style, gave us in 2014 one of the best and most technically well made movies ever in Malayalam, "Iyobinte Pusthakam", a movie nobody needs an introduction to. It's a timeless classic, not just for its cinematic shots or an absolute brilliant ensemble of cast, but how it, as a movie is executed.

I re-watched Iyobinte Pusthakam recently and just realised certain aspects of the movie that i did not notice previously, and my admiration for this artistic masterpiece just got elevated again. Iyobinte Pusthakam is a full-blown, stylised historical period fiction wrapped in the cinematic anatomy of a Spaghetti Western and classical tragedy. Yes, it actually uses a very common recurring theme of old western hollywood genre, but carefully camouflages it in the settings of Munnar, but with the social settings of colonial and 60's Kerala, and thus creating a perfect balance between a stylised cinematic troupe, with real elements of historic identity.

The narrative spans from the early 1900s through the post-WWII era (culminating around the late 1940s and 1950s) in the high-range tea plantations of Munnar, Travancore. Co-written by Gopan Chithambaram and Syam Pushkaran, the script operates as an intersection of Shakespeare's King Lear (the aging patriarch dividing power among treacherous versus exiled heirs), the biblical Book of Job, and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov:

The Patriarchal Axis, Lal as Iyob—the fiercely loyal slave turned ruthless plantation overlord.

The Sibling Dynamic: Chemban Vinod (Dimitri) and Jinu Joseph (Ivan) channel raw, unhinged brutality and calculated greed, contrasting Fahadh's brooding, morally grounded Aloshy.

The Disruptor: Jayasurya as Angoor Rawther—a razor-sharp, eccentric antagonist with one of the most distinctive anti-hero screen presences in modern Malayalam cinema.

The Subversive Supporting Roster: Padmapriya (Rahel), Lena (Kazhali), Vinayakan (Chemban), Isha Sharvani (Martha), TG Ravi, and Aashiq Abu.

Iyobinte Pusthakam is arguably one of the most meticulously engineered genre hybrids in Indian cinema. It doesn’t just mimic Hollywood; it weaponizes the formal grammar of the Spaghetti Western and transplants it into the misty canopy of the Western Ghats.

The cinematography is just brilliant, Amal Neerad shot the film himself on wide lenses, using natural mist, high-contrast chiaroscuro lighting, and slow-burn pacing to turn the Western Ghats into a mythical, lawless frontier.

Lastly, the most impressive part of the movie, CAST. Like goddamn, this movie has a wide range of main and side characters, wide ensemble. But, each one of the characters, are so meticulously good at playing their character so well, that its almost impossible to not notice how impressive each one does their part. From the British Landlord to Padma Priya, everyone has such a natural yet impressive portrayal of their role. How can anyone forget Jayasuriya's Rawther? I consider Rawther to be one of malayalam cinemas best introduced antagonist. Intimidating and Cynical, and fills the screen with his presence everytime he is on camera. Thats what a 10/10 casting looks like.

Even after so many years, it remains a rare benchmark where unapologetic visual indulgence and literary narrative substance completely elevate one another. A rare specimen of an Indian movie, that I will always go back to.

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Saw this movie randomly simply because couldnt find anything better to watch, a few years ago. No expectations, no hopes, no prior knowledge or anything about the movie. Went in with an absolute clean slate to watch.
Boy, safe to say, what a movie this was. Just an absolute cinema. Never thought I would walk away with such a great impression about a random movie, but here we are. Re-watched it again, still feels so genuine and meticulously made. After watching the movie, it felt like almost watching "Shutter Island", but set in Kerala, not in respect with the story line, but how the movie is actually made, the technical brilliance of the movie is just soo good and polished, that the geographical location itself feels like a character of the movie. The dark and grim and desolate "check-post", gets a personality of its own.

Cinematography is so well made, that as a viewer, one actually understands the existential dread of the surrounding, and the cinematography is able to translate it to us, just like the doomed "shutter Island". Just like Ashecliffe Hospital (shutter island) isolated its patients by sea and storm, EVP isolates its characters with sheer drops, dense fog, and a terrifying frequency of lightning strikes. When you're stuck in a tiny wireless outpost where nature can literally fry you alive, paranoia is just a natural survival mechanism. Written by real-life cops (who also gave us Joseph and Nayattu), the script strips away standard cinematic gimmicks. No unnecessary songs, no bloated exposition, just a slow-burn descent into guilt, claustrophobia, and macabre psychological reckoning.

The acting by the titular characters, by Soubin and Sudhi is just phenomenal, especially Soubin, how he portrays the character and his slow descent into a non-chalant monster, just brilliant and awesome.

Most thrillers rely on a flashy cat-and-mouse game or a high-speed chase. EVP went the exact opposite route: it anchors you to one spot and lets the slow-acting poison of isolation and internal guilt do all the work, and by the end, it is impossible not to draw a parallel with Shutter Island on its technicality. This why i think it is one of malayalam cinema's most underrated thrillers, just a spot on movie.

If you haven't watched it, I recommend you do!!