Cast
Hina Jawad as Maya
Ahmed Abdul Rehman
Anam Malik
Sheikh Mohammad Ahmed
Zain Afzal
Rasheed Ali
Ali Aftab and Jawad Bashir (guest appearances)
Director: Jawad Bashir
Producers: Hina Jawad, Sana Sulman and Zara Hamid
Story: Hina Jawad
Screenplay: Hina Jawad
Release Date: 12th June, 2015
Box Office: RS. 2 Crore
Maya the first horror film of Pakistan is also the first venture of Jawad Bashir as a film director. On their directorial debuts, people usually choose successful genres such as crime stories, romance and comedy; however directing horror movies is a big risk to take that too by a person that is known more for his sitcoms and light comedies.
Nonetheless Maya is a positive sign from Pakistan film industry that it wants to move beyond song and dance numbers and gun trotting sequels.
The movie Maya is based on an actual paranormal event that took place in Denmark as claimed by the writer Hina Jawad who also plays the main lead. The story is somewhat predictable, a group of friends spend a night at a big farm house which by coincidence happens to be near a graveyard.
Incidentally desecrating graves is also the favorite pastime of some group members and while doing so they unleashed an evil spirit Maya. What follows next is anybody’s guess; the evil spirit tries to kill the five friends.
Instead of a maulvi, a priest and a church are shown which indeed proves that the film does not follow the usual Pakistani pattern. The entire cast is young and this is the first acting venture for most; Hina Jawad’s acting as the evil spirit Maya is quite commendable and she has really stolen the show. Zain Ahmer as Sam and Sheikh Ahmed as Amir have put up an impressive performance.
Maya has all it takes to make a horror movie, an evil spirit, a graveyard, church, priest and gory scenes which should not be viewed by the children. Jawad Bashir has maintained a good grip over the movie and his direction is slick; however the same cannot be said about the background music. The movie Maya has its flaws but it is worth seeing; a good effort by Jawad Bashir.
