It is fitting that a film about the ominous hold television has on our lives should be released in a week in which yet another television channel was launched.

13 B Fear Has A New Address, written and directed by National Award winning Vikram K Kumar, is a sort of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun meets Bhoot.

So, a large and incredibly conflict-free extended family living in a high-rise building gets spooked via their television set. The women - mother-in-law and two daughters-in-law - who have no life outside the house, are addicted to the routine saas-bahu television serials.

When they move into their swanky new apartment, they find a new addiction – a serial called Sab Khairiyat in which a family exactly like theirs has moved into a new house.

Life starts to imitate art – first in a good way – just like on the serial, the brother gets a promotion and the perennially failing sister passes her exams. But soon things start to get really nasty.

Oddly enough the women who are glued to the serial never notice that it mirrors their lives but the younger brother, Manohar, played by R Madhavan, realises that all is not quite what it seems.

Kumar’s malevolent television concept is novel and for some time at least, he keeps the plot simmering. There are nice little touches; the milk in the house constantly curdles, a pet dog refuses to come into the apartment because he senses the evil.

Even the other gadgets seem to develop a mind of their own: the lift refuses to transport Manohar in any direction; photographs of Manohar taken on the cell phone inside the house are always skewed; and a rice pressure cooker becomes downright dangerous.

There aren’t any genuinely frightening moments but Kumar bungs in enough creepiness to keep you guessing and waiting. The new twist on reality television, with characters on television foretelling life down to exact dialogue and gestures, is eerie.

But despite the novelty and relevance, 13 B never rises above strictly average.

For one, the pacing is uneven. There are endless ominous shots of the elevator shaft, a blind neighbour, whose only function is to add to the creepiness makes regular appearances and a few insipid songs slow the plot down further.

The loud background music bludgeons your senses but the bigger flaw is the script. When the explanation for all the strange happenings finally comes, it is so convoluted that even a character in the film is forced to remark: “Oh God, this is getting damn confusing”.

Also, Kumar doesn’t flesh out the family members, who for reasons I couldn’t figure out, are constantly shrieking at each other. So we are never engaged enough with them to really care whether they live or die.

Madhavan works up a sweat playing the haunted husband and Poonam Dhillon is charming as the serial addicted mother-in-law, but finally 13 B is too laboured and twisted to be deliciously terrifying.