Bollywood success formula:
Steal plot from 3-4 good foreign films+special effects+a pinch of sleaze+lots of marketing= decent box office
Going by this principle, Haunted 3D is likely to recover its money and probably make a killing too. That however, should do nothing to qualify this as a decent story. Vikram Bhatt is probably guilty of being repetitive for quite some time now. He should have stopped making horror films after the runaway success of Raaz. All his subsequent horror flicks just seem to be copycats of the first one, with a few modifications.
A man arrives at a haunted house with a spooky setting. What is intriguing about Indian ghosts is their overwhelming love for colonial styled houses. It appears even as spirits we Indians cannot let go of our love for the Goras.
Ghosts are known for their weakness for flesh, but this one goes a step further. Apparently the evil spirit in this story raped a woman to the point where she killed herself. Now this licentious bhoot has been continuing to "rape" his victim’s spirit for the past 80 years, and apparently wants to continue for all eternity(no wonder then he is pissed off by any visitor who might spoil his fun).
After receiving his bit of scare, the hero finally manages to salvage some old letters which reveal the heart-rending story of the victimised woman. A mystic does some magic stuff to send him 80 years back in time and modify the course of events leading to the present haunting( a touch of Back to the Future). After a whole lot of tribulations, which range from outright stupid and preposterous to plain boring, the hero finally manages to send the spirit to the netherworld. Having accomplished his "mission", he returns to the present to find the haunting obliterated.
Apart from the special effects, nothing really sticks. And the actors are crap as well. Mahakshay(Mithun’s son) is barely passable, Tia Bajpai can only indulge in sleaze, rest of the actors are just avoidable. The next 3D movie should hopefully have some story as well.