Pizza (2012 film)

Pizza is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language horror thriller film written and directed by debutant Karthik Subbaraj. The film stars Vijay Sethupathi and Remya Nambeesan in the lead roles, with Aadukalam Naren, Jayakumar, Pooja Ramachandran, and Bobby Simha playing the supporting roles.

The story is about a pizza delivery man named Michael who lands in a mysterious predicament, and how it affects his life. The film, produced by C. V. Kumar under Thirukumaran Entertainment, was released by Sangam Cinemas. Featuring music composed by Santhosh Narayanan and cinematography by Gopi Amarnath, it was the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound. Pizza was released on 19 October 2012 to critical acclaim and highly positive reviews for its direction, storyline, screenplay, performances, background score, and plot twist. It became a major critical and commercial success, grossing ₹8 crores against a budget of ₹1.5 crores.

Pizza was the first instalment in the film series, and was followed by two spiritual successors. It was remade in Kannada as Whistle (2013), in Hindi under the same title (2014), and in Bengali as Golpo Holeo Shotti (2014).

Plot
Michael Karthikeyan is a pizza delivery boy who lives with his girlfriend, Anu, an aspiring novelist. Michael does not believe in the supernatural but is afraid of anything paranormal. Anu keeps telling him that he will soon realize the presence of supernatural beings. At first, Michael is confused and scared, and his fears are confirmed when he discovers that a spirit has possessed his boss, Shanmugam's daughter.

Meanwhile, Anu becomes pregnant, and they get married. One day, Michael goes out to deliver a pizza to a customer and returns to the restaurant in shock while covered in blood; he keeps muttering Anu's name. When his boss questions him, Michael explains that he had been to deliver a pizza to a customer named Smitha in a bungalow and recounts the events at the place.

Smitha requests that Michael wait downstairs while she goes upstairs to get money for the pizza. Almost immediately, the power goes out. While waiting downstairs, Michael hears a loud noise from upstairs. Going upstairs to investigate, he finds Smitha murdered and notices a slice of pizza that he had delivered is missing. Horrified, Michael dashes to the door, only to realize it is locked from the outside.

Then the murdered woman's husband, Bobby, arrives, and he believes that his wife is having an affair. Through his cell phone, Michael communicates with Bobby and explains his situation, instigating Bobby to aid him in getting out of the house. Bobby suddenly disappears from the front entrance and is found inside the house, murdered in the same room as his wife, with two slices of pizza now missing. Michael encounters the couple's child, "Nithya," identical to the spirit's name, allegedly possessing the boss's daughter.

Michael tries everything to get out of the house. He manages to contact Anu using the phone and gets her to contact the local police. When a couple of officers arrive at the bungalow, they reveal that four people died in that house: Smitha, Bobby, their young daughter, and a girl named Anu. The police disclose that Michael is a suspect and attempt to arrest him. Confused, Michael does not believe them and attempts to escape.

Michael then sees the police officers getting dragged into the house and killed. Michael, in a horrified state, runs back to the restaurant. While Michael is unconvinced that Anu is dead, his friends at the restaurant start realizing they have never seen Anu. They also notice that Michael's home does not have any evidence that he lived with Anu. Michael continues his search for Anu.

As Michael stops and calls Anu during a delivery, the true story of what happened is shown. The Income Tax Department had planned a raid on Shanmugam's house. Shanmugam, who has diamonds worth around 20 million hidden in his restaurant, hides them in a candy box and asks Michael to deliver them to his house. But Michael has a bike accident and sees the hidden diamonds. Michael and Anu decide to steal the diamonds. So, they concoct a story in which Michael convincingly "forgets" the pizza bag at the "haunted" bungalow. Meanwhile, Anu has left for Kochi via Bangalore with the diamonds, and they plan to settle abroad.

After the phone call, Michael goes to deliver a pizza to a house and encounters a series of events similar to the story he had narrated. Inside, he meets a girl identical to the "Nithya" described in his tale. Michael is locked inside the home with "Nithya" curiously looking at him. The lights then go out.

Production
The short film director Karthik Subbaraj intended for Jigarthanda to be his feature debut; unable to obtain financing as he was untested in directing big budget films, he instead decided to make the much lower budget Pizza. Originally, a story taking place predominantly within a house was planned; after the idea of including a pizza delivery man stuck in the house occurred to Karthik, he completed the script in 20 days. C. V. Kumar agreed to produce the film because he liked the script. Vijay Sethupathi, when asked how he was cast in the lead role, replied, "I used to regularly leave my photographs in the film institute. I got to work with Karthik Subburaj in many of his short films and then he approached me for Pizza". Ramya Nambeesan accepted to do the film after being impressed by Karthik's narration. After playing a rural character in Kullanari Koottam (2011), she was excited to portray a contrastingly modern and urban character. Pizza is the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound. Karthik has stated that some distributors wanted the climax changed as they were not impressed with the change in genre it depicted, but he refused as he considered it the film's high point.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack album and background score was composed by Santhosh Narayanan. The lyrics for the songs were written by Kabilan, Arunraja Kamaraj, Muthamil and Vineeth. Pizza is Santhosh's second album after Attakathi. The audio rights for the soundtrack album were purchased by Think Music. The soundtrack album for the film was launched on 6 September 2012, at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai.

The album received a mixed review from Behindwoods, stating that "The album stands out for its experimentation with the songs being targeted totally at the youth. The couple of instrumental pieces add more embellishment" giving a rating of 2.5 out of 5.

Release
Pizza was released on 19 October 2012 by Sangam Cinemas Chennai, in 300 theatres initially and the number of theatres was increased to 600 after the film's positive response. It collected ₹ 1.85 crores within two weeks of release, and its final worldwide earnings were roughly inr 80000000 against a budget of inr 15000000.

Critical reception
N. Venkateswaran from The Times of India gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote that director Karthik Subburaj displayed a "strong control of the medium and gives abundant display of his narrative skills", going to add: "If he maintains the quality of his menu and future offerings, Karthik [...] is sure to become one of Kollywood's top directors". Sify termed the film as "delicious" and described it as "entertaining and at the same time different in its approach". Malini Mannath from The New Indian Express described Pizza as "offbeat, intriguing and gripping, and nothing like what you've seen on Tamil screen before". A reviewer from Behindwoods stated, Karthik Subburaj played "all the cards required to make a quality horror suspense film with a thrilling screenplay, deft camerawork, strong performances, eerie sound effects and music".

IndiaGlitz wrote: "If the success of a thriller lies in bringing the film-goer to the edge of the seat, Pizza does it. With right toppings in the form of a taut screenplay, deft camera work, eerie sound effects and nice background score, the movie manages to leave a mark". Vivek Ramz of in.com rated it 3.5/5 and cited that Pizza was a "well made suspense thriller that keeps you guessing for most parts". Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu and Haricharan Pudipeddi from Nowrunning criticised the first half of the film. The former claimed that the second half of Pizza has a "reasonably enjoyable tanginess, but to get to that you have to sit through the protraction of the first" and that "the screenplay [...] doesn't render much help", while the latter concluded that the film displayed "signs of a craftily executed thriller, but falls short of satisfaction due to erratic narration", giving it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Accolades
2nd South Indian International Movie Awards
 * Best Actor Critics – Vijay Sethupathi
 * Best Debutant Director – Karthik Subbaraj
 * Nominated—Best Film
 * Nominated—Best Cinematographer – Gopi Amarnath

Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards
 * Vikatan Award For Best Screenplay – Karthik Subbaraj
 * Vikatan Award For Best Cinematography – Gopi Amarnath
 * Vikatan Award For Best Editing – Leo John Paul

7th Vijay Awards
 * Best Story, Screenplay Writer – Karthik Subbaraj
 * Best Crew
 * Best Cinematographer – Gopi Amarnath

Legacy
The success of Pizza turned Vijay Sethupathi into one of the most sought-after actors in Tamil cinema. Along with Pizza, he scored back-to-back successes with Sundarapandian (which featured him in a negative role) and Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom in the same year resulting in a rise in his popularity. Film critic Baradwaj Rangan stated that Sethupathi had become "[...] sort of [an] indie-film star, the first ever in Tamil cinema". The film also established C. V. Kumar as a producer who went on to produce films with innovative themes throughout his career. Pizza and Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi became trendsetters and sparked a short-lived boom of short filmmakers making their feature debut in Tamil cinema.

Sequels and remakes
A sequel Pizza II: Villa was produced and released the following year by the same production house. The sequel did not carry on with the characters from Pizza, and was a spiritual successor instead. A third film in the series, Pizza 3: The Mummy, was released in 2023. The original film was dubbed in Telugu, remade in Kannada as Whistle (2013), in Hindi under the same title in 2014, and in Bengali as Golpo Holeo Shotti (2014).