When I think Bollywood. I think of lite feel good musical dance numbers, with gorgeous outfits on the men and women. And catchy tunes. Horror, Thrillers, Mystery and Suspense, don't come to mind though. And this, to my Western eyes, is like an abstract comedy.
I think it would have been a better movie, shorter even, if the writer and the director had made a definite choice. Either gone for outright Thriller-Horror, Comedy-Mystery, Supernatural-Suspense or Musical-Romance, instead of an awkward mixture of them all.
I'll have to say more than once I thought the director must have seen "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and tried to give it a Bollywood twist. My first film was Bride & Prejudice. Which I thought was acted well.
This seemed like what a Western Audience would consider a straight to video cheese fest.
The acting was over the top, at times it felt like they were intentionally trying to parody western thrillers, but when you saw them try to inject the dramatic crying, screaming or fear, it felt out of place.
The viewer was left wondering when one of the actors would wink at the camera. More than a few times when the audience was supposed to be horrified, we could only snicker a the absurdity.
I watch a lot of foreign films, and even though I don't know Hindi, I have to say they did a poor job subtitling the film. Sometimes it was difficult to read the white lettering against the bright background.
The villain was particularly amusing, at least to me, because he came with his own mood music. The supposed surprising twist, actually felt like a cop out.
The lead couples were handsome/pretty enough, and the musical numbers made it worth my rental fee. I'd suggest it to someone as a musical- comedy, but I'd tell them to just fast forward the rest of the movie, because it wasn't worth the effort of reading. If you're determined to read a whole subtitled Hindi flick, then check out the superior Romantic Drama 'Namasteay, London'.
But I was not scared..unless that's really what they think is horrifying in India. 1 out of 10 for what it's being touted as. 6 out of 10 for it's unintentional quickness & ability to illicit lots of laughs, and it's musical/dance numbers. Enjoy :)
