There are mainly only two formulas of making Horror movies in Bollywood. One is to easily go for an urban scary tale inspired from the foreign horror films famous in various parts of the world. And second is to go back to our own tried and tested formula of Ramsay brothers involving Kings & Queens of the past era. Vikram Bhatt tasted success with "Raaz" made on the first one and now comes up with "Shaapit" made on the second formula mentioned above.
His latest venture reveals the secret of a curse being faced by only the girls of a family from many generations. When the young lead couple of the story deeply in love, are told about this curse by their parents, then instead of compromising with the situation, they decide to go on a search for the evil spirit and finish it off. The same plot was earlier used by Ramsay brothers in their 1984 movie "Purana Mandir" and now Vikram Bhatt uses it again with some re-touches of his own along with the new advanced technology and gimmicks.
Initially, the movie does well to keep the viewer interested. The ground work to introduce various characters and situations is well worked upon and impresses. But on the later stages, the story loses the grip and starts boring you with its prolonged sequences and proceedings. However, in the first hour, "Shaapit"' has few worth watching scenes like the one where the boy goes for stealing a cursed book from the library and when the girl sees an old lady lying on the road in front of her car. But post intermission the movie relies heavily upon the action scenes between the human and the spirit and those too are stretched to a great extent.
Ideally a horror movie should never be lengthy enough, leading to loss of interest. It should be very fast and quick, which scares you off at once and doesn't provide any dull moments for thinking. Unfortunately, Shaapit scores very low in this direction as its quite lengthy requiring a great amount of trimming from its director. Post interval, even after the whole secret has been revealed to the viewers, they still have to wait too long for the movie to get over. And that proves to be the biggest drawback of an otherwise average Shaapit.
The special effects used in various scenes are also in huge contrast with each other. At one end the graphics representations are good enough to scare you off but at the same time, they are very childishly done in a different scene. For instance, in the climax scene, where the water starts pouring in from the broken wall, you can clearly see "the blurred chroma cutting edges" around the characters and elements. (Readers having the knowledge of graphics and editing would easily understand what I am referring to.)
But there is one major contribution made by the movie in the form of "Aditya Narayan", who is a complete natural in front of the camera and is really a blessed child of the Holy Creator. He is the best example of the fact that a Star Child is just not given a chance due to his family connections. He was chosen for the role only because the director could see that he can act. Aditya, not only looks smart and fresh on screen, but he also delivers a polished act without any signs of nervousness on screen. Along with his singing, acting is another aspect of his future career, for which he should now seriously plan and think, as we are willing to see more of him pretty soon.
Shweta doesn't get much scope on screen as most of the time she is lying on the hospital bed in coma and gets no major scenes to show her talent. Thankfully Rahul Dev is not over the top this time and makes an impact. Debutant Shubh Joshi acts well with great confidence and rest all in the cast do justice to their roles as required. In the music section, two songs seem to be interesting while watching the movie. Especially "Tere Bina" has got the pain of separation and love. But still the music is not as rich as compared to the earlier hits given by Vikram Bhatt. Background music is loud at times but rightly provides the scary moments too when needed.
On the whole, "Shaapit" is not a very fine horror flick, coming from the house of Vikram Bhatt this time. It has an interesting and watchable first half but crashes down to a large extent later on. The only worth mentioning merit of the movie is "Aditya Narayan" who forces you to notice him and his acting skills with élan.
