Psychological thrillers seem to be Taapsee Pannu’s jam and she runs, cowers and hits back with a lot of gusto in her latest release, Blurr, on Zee5. Unfortunately, the film stumbles too often to draw the viewer in despite being suitably atmospheric and eerie.

A remake of the 2010 Spanish horror-psychological thriller Julia’s Eyes, Blurr gets off to a promising start with a creepy sequence where we see Pannu as Gayatri, who is visually impaired, being terrorised by an unseen person, leading to her death. Pannu gasps awake and tells her husband Neel (Gulshan Devaiah) that she feels like her twin, Gautami, is in trouble. The couple reach Gautami’s house and discover that she has hung herself, which the police say is a case of suicide. And this is where the trouble starts, and not just as part of the story.

Gayatri insists that her twin sister couldn’t have died by suicide. In the dark — a combination of the time of day, weather conditions and convenient power cuts — Gayatri feels the same unseen presence but neither her husband nor the police inspector believes her. Stress about losing her eyesight to the same degenerative disease that caused Gautami’s blindness is believed to be the reason for her paranoia. There are also some genuinely creepy neighbours. So far so good.

But the threads start unravelling almost immediately. Claims are not backed up, statements are left hanging, character motivations are not sketched out, making it really difficult for the viewer to invest in the characters, even the protagonist, and therefore the film itself.

What is the reason behind her insistence that it wasn’t a suicide? If they were that close, how is it that Gayatri never checked up on her sister even though she wasn’t answering her phone for over six months? Why was the fact that Neel lied about Gautami’s eye operation never brought up? Gautami was a famous musician, Gayatri is an anthropologist, but how does that contribute to who they are? What does Neel do for a living?

Without this background, it feels difficult to connect with Gayatri beyond the fact that she was being stalked by a creepy, unseen presence. While there are some genuine jump scares in the first few moments, they lose their impact when they become repetitive. How many times can one jump at a woman bumping into someone who doesn’t appear to be there? Or the sound of footsteps or the slam of doors? The unimaginative background score doesn’t help either.

It is difficult to live the threat when a particularly tense scenario is followed by something entirely unconnected, especially when it is an awkward romance between Pannu and Devaiah who have zero chemistry. The red herrings are a nice touch but the age-old tool of not showing the face of a character is so forced instead of being incidental that it almost gives the film away. There are only two twists in the movie, which come towards the end of the film, that actually create an impact.

The cinematography, for the most part, adds to the suspenseful film, using the lush green mountainous forests and gloomy rain to create atmosphere, but make sure you adjust your screen’s brightness to be able to see everything that’s going on.

Abhilash Thapliyal as the antagonist is impressive, especially because he is able to convey a quiet menace despite being let down by a lack of depth when it comes to motivation and intent.

The film uses blindness both as a plot device and a metaphor that ends up being too on the nose and never fully explained. Blurr has some chills, a few thrills, but it asks the viewers to turn a blind eye towards too many plot holes blurring its impact.