Finally, Ram Gopal Varma saves Hindi cinema from a summer full of atrocious movies! This wasn’t playing in my area so like some unfortunate people, I had to wait to rent a crisp non-pirated DVD of this exciting new move. This movie was such a fun ride compared to all the crappy movies like Tere Naam, Mein Prem Ki Diwani Hoon, and Chalte Chalte. So refreshing to watch was this movie that it suddenly restored my faith in Hindi cinema AGAIN. Thanks, Mr. Verma:) This movie was funny, stylish, kinda scary, and crisply edited. Now, take a journey with me to the thrilling sat kahanis:
Opening credits. Sameera Reddy does an hommage to James Bond opening scenes. You see her and some other female dancers & their shapely silhouettes a La James Bond opening scene stylee. I thought it was rather cool to watch, actually.
Prologue: Seven attractive young actors. Three girls, two of which whose names escape me except for the girl du jour, Sameera Reddy and four guys whose names I don’t know as well. These 7 kids are stranded in a forest. It’s night so they decide to go into the forest & tell each other ghost stories. All except one. Some fat dude in a yellow shirt. He stays in the car holding a hunting knife.
Act 1: I Married a Ghost - Antara Malli and Sohail Khan.
Karan (Sohail) and Anjali (Antara) are newlyweds and travelling in an SUV by night. The car stalls and so Karan reaches for a flashlight & goes out to try to fix car. Anjali reaches behind her to get a can of soda & a book already expecting this to take time. She waits....then hears a noise that sounds like something gooey and thick (like a human body) getting crushed. She jets out of the SUV and sees a bloodstained flashlight identical to Karan’s. She’s freaked. She goes into the thick of the forest and finds the hands of her husband emerge from quicksand as the rest of his body is submerged. She tries to save him but to no avail. Then...Karan suddenly startles her from behind. She is shocked & she retells the events that lead up to that moment. She then rushes Karan to get out of the premises because she is scared. As they embrace inside the SUV, the rear view mirror only shows a reflection of Anjali and not Karan. Quelle bizarre.
Girl #1 wants her jacket so she goes back to the car to get it. On her way, her throat get’s slashed. Killer unknown. We think its the fat dude. In the meantime, the kids are ready to share another story ---
Act 2: Smoker’s Nightmare - Saif Ali Khan and some dude that looks like Uncle Fester from The Addam’s Family.
This is mera favorite kahani! Saif is a fashion photographer (and he is FYNE as hell!) that checks into a hotel where the owner also doubles as a concierge. This no ordinary concierge. This dude abhors cigarettes and his hotel is satiated with No Smoking signs in every corner...and yes, even the rooms. As Saif was about to smoke, the owner warns him & says that it is a No Smoking hotel and snatches the pack of cigs away from Saif. Saif finds the whole thing strange so he demands the return of his cigs from the concierge. They argue & Saif decides to leave the godforsaken hotel. He reaches the lobby only to find the doors padlocked to the max. Stunned and aghast, he has a confrontation with the concierge. The concierge then takes Saif to the basement. Here we see various, decaying bodies wrapped in plastic. These are the sins these people paid for lighting up a cigarette in the hotel, I guess. He then tells Saif that in six months they will meet again & he better not still be a smoker. Six months later a real cute dude that looks like Andre Agassi walks in & Saif is the concierge. Agassi dude lights up a cigi & Saif stabs him in the throat. The original Uncle Fester concierge dude is all smiles as he watches Tom & Jerry on TV.
Guy #1 is hungry & wants something to eat. He excuses himself to head out to the car to get some snacks. But snacks aren’t on the menu tonight, sweetie. Death is. More blood, More goo. I like this:) Camera pans on the remaining four friends as they laugh & share more stories ----
Act 3: Teacher, Teacher - The actor from Salaam Bombay, Bawandar, Asoka, and Earth 1947. A character actor. Don’t know his name but he’s good.
Teacher dude is a meanie. He’s the type to slap your hand really hard with a ruler. He seems to especially enjoy hitting this one particular little girl, Pramila. Until one day, she hands him a notebook of a finished homework. Well written & well versed, he is puzzled that the little girl had learned so much in so little time. He confronts Pramila’s mom to tell her about his spooky past. He tells her about a little boy he murdered by pushing him on the roof. How that little boy would always write an AUM sign on top of every page on his notebook. And how Pramila does the exact same thing. The mother dismisses him as a loon so he wanders off in the night as the little boy from his past tells him that from this day on, he will be crazy.
Girl #2 wants to get a blanket. She heads out to the car. Whack! Shrlupp! Slash! She’s dead. Poor thing. She had the cutest outfit, too. Three down, four to go. Two guys are left w/ Sameera and the fat dude is still at large.
Act 4: Bad Apples - Shilpa Shetty & Sanjay Kapoor in probably the weakest story in the movie. She buys a bag of apples from the apple dude & the apples are cursed. She gets an eerrie feeling about them so she throws them out. The apples reappear in the fridge. Sanjay eats one. She is freaked. She goes to sleep. In the morning she cannot find her hubby. He disappeared. In horror, Shilpa runs out to the street where various people are ravenously munching on apples. She goes to tell the police but...the police turns into an apple. In fact, the whole town turns into an apple. At this point, I wanted Shilpa to eat the damn apple so she could just go away. This story sucked. Thumbs down.
Act 5: MTV’s Punked Indian Stylee - Vivek Oberoi & Nana Patekar. The second coolest story out of the 7.
In fact, it’s so good, there won’t be any spoilers for this. Just think of it as a hitchhiker movie with a twist of MTV’s Punked ( In India, I guess they have a similar show called MTV’s Bakra) but instead of Ashton Kutcher, we have Nana Patekar---who is 10 times cooler anyway:)
Guy #2 wants to chill in the car. He’s had enough of horror stories so he goes to the car. He opens the car door and finds the fat guy’s neck all slashed. Then his neck get’s slashed. Splatter! Ooze! More goo! And all along we thought the fat dude was psycho.
Act 6: Purab’s World - Aftaab Shivdasani & Isha Kopikkar. A bizarre & humorous story about an insecure guy that gets what he wishes for...and then some! No spoilers for this coz its a good one!
Act 7: ...And then there were Two - Sameera & Guy #3. Who is the killer? Who is the freak? And when you die a violent death, does your soul stay content? Or do you just wander in the darkness looking for unlikely suspects for your mayhem?
You’ll just have to watch, won’t you:)
Ram Gopal Varma, you ARE the future of Hindi Cinema! All Hail You!
PS...the non pirated DVD has lotsa extras including that cool Sameera Reddy dance video. Check it out.