The suspense is built from the very beginning of the movie. College students, a healthy mix of boys and girls, are gathered for a game of spin the bottle at the edge of the forest in Ooty. It’s a game of fun, laughter, coyness....and because of coyness someone gets hurt.
The girl runs into the forest, the jilted boy running after her. Suddenly everything is dark, the sun has disappeared. She had run into the thickness of the trees, playing the blushing innocent to a T, laughing as the boy is calling for her. An evil presence, the chill of death races up her spine, and she stops laughing. She hears a piercing scream. (Yeah, now she gets scared). Next thing we know, she is in the hospital, filled with demons. My biggest question: what was that in the forest?
The first plateau in the climax is where we meet our happy couple, Aditya (Dino Morea) and Sanjana (Bipasha Basu). They are in a noisy nightclub, where a handful of dancers are onstage singing that everything is shaanti shaanti. But not everything is shaanti, something is wrong with this picture.
This beautiful bride is sitting alone, while her husband talks business with important clients. Sanjana tries to talk to him, she takes drugs to fill the loneliness, and in the end she freaks out and takes the keys to drive home. Sobbing, her tears blinding her vision, she drives. Suddenly, she feels that very same chill of death as the college girl. Creepy whisper: ’’Saaaaanjanaaaa’’. Eyes wide, she loses concentration, flips the car and lands in the hospital.
Aditya is there when she wakes up. A miracle she didn’t die, the doctor says. Sanjana is ready to give up on their marriage. Aditya just hasn’t put in the time or effort. On the opposite side of the room hangs a beautiful picture of Ooty. ’’Why don’t we go to Ooty?’’ she says. ’’It’s where we met, fell in love and married. We can rekindle our relationship there.’’
My Thoughts: Great, go to Ooty, bad things are going to happen to you! Let me snuggle closer to my pillow for protection and comfort.
Lovely flashback to a better time, when Aditya and Sanjana are in love and happy, then back to the creepy stuff!
Strange how there’s a misty fog that never seems to lift......
Just as Sanjana is beginning to calm down, strange things begin to happen. Lights flash, the house rattles, blood drips from the ceiling, strange screams in the night. Her husband is sleeping in the bed next to her, she hears this scream. Instead of waking him up, she flings open the doors and tremble-foots her way into the forest! I was fairly quaking in my slippers, yelling at the screen Don’t go into the forest, you fool!
Now what is this thing that is terrorizing the innocent citizens of Ooty? What does it want, and why does it want Sanjana?
Yah ek raaz hai. (Now please, no low ratings because my Hindi is bad!!)
Now for the Particulars
Bipasha Basu plays the perfect ignored wife. She is believably irrational, drug dependant, and jealous. She’s like a little pet that needs constant attention. I didn’t like how the character needed constant reassurances of her husband’s affection. She is a big girl, can’t she spend some time by herself or with friends? Bipasha’s rendition of such a pathetic woman was praise-worthy.
Dino Morea, the little we saw of him, also acted well. It wasn’t the best performance I’ve ever seen, but he was believable. He always said the wrong thing at the wrong time, though we can’t blame actors for the misgivings of the scriptwriters.
Malini, the raaz, the chill, the scream, the ghost, was very well played by who else but Malini herself! Excellent level of murderous inclinations radiating from this beauty. She scared the living daylights out of me.
As far as scary movies go, I thought the fx were more corny than freaky. The only bone chilling thing was the scream, and perhaps the creepy Saaaanjanaaaa whisper. Other than that, it was very mediocre, and I was disappointed.
The music didn’t do the creepiness of the film any justice. The music didn’t match the mood the director was trying to create. In the lovey flashback, though, I thought the songs were great. It certainly created a sense of love and happiness. Now if only they could have duplicated that on the emotion flip-side.
The plot was well written. There were no holes, nothing left open for question. Everything fit together like a puzzle. Although it was a Bollywood version of ’’What Lies Beneath’’, it had its own essence. It was not a direct copy, and I was impressed at how smooth the plot really came out.
Why, then, was I Scared?
This movie might not have been particularly scary for any other normal movie-goer. However, I chose to watch this movie alone, at night. What can I say, I like to scare myself.
This movie did it’s duty by me. It had me sitting at the edge of my seat, screaming things at my deaf TV like: Don’t go in there! Why are you walking in the fog alone? Oh God, she’s in for it now! It had me freaked right out, enough that I had difficulty walking calmly to my car at night (there’s a forest near my house). Even today, I get a chill, and hear that creepy voice whisper ’’Saaaaaaaaanjaaaanaaaaaaaaa..................’’ (not my name, but it’s creepy enough, right?)