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Star cast: Karan Kundra, Nishant Malkani, Ravish Desai, Hasan Zaidi, Aparna Bajpai, Radhika Menon, Nandini Vaid, Sheetal Singh
Director: Ayush Raina
What’s Good: The film is laden with spookily created jarring sounds and successfully builds the fearsome aura.
What’s Bad: The film is heavily inspired from flicks like The Exorcist along with the climax turning into a bhoot-fair of sorts!
Loo break: May be
Watch or Not?: Vikram Bhatt’s expertise over the genre is impressionable but Horror Story isn’t the best of his work. The film uses too many ideas from popular films like The Ring and lacks tremendously on elaborating the writer’s imaginative bent! It is a brazenly written, uninspired work lacking originality and freshness. You can easily give this one a miss unless you are desperate to scare yourself, in which case I assure you, the film will need a great deal of effort from your side to numb you off!
User Rating:
The film begins with a man walking up Hotel Grandiose into Room No. 3046 and jumping off the building. The story swiftly cuts to a nightclub where a bunch of friends are gulping down shots to bid farewell to one of their closest buddies. News flashes show that the Hotel is shutting down for good, and that’s when spooky stories about the haunted place unspools to the gang!
The friends in a gusto of being foolhardy decide to go check out the place. Like luck would have the property is indeed haunted by a witch who wouldn’t stand anyone loitering around there. The friends are soon pinned down by the paranormal intervention as each of them will have to pay for entering the haunted land!
Horror Story Review: Script Analysis
If you have seen 1920 or Haunted, there is no new reason why you should waste time watching this film. There is nothing new that Horror Story has to offer to you. Its name itself speaks volumes about the genius of its makers. It’s very on the surface and too obviously scary! I am not a fan of the horror genre but there are a few commendable horror flicks whose brilliance has left me utterly spellbound. This one was quite bland as one can easily estimate what would the next move be.
A bunch of 20-somethings prodding the supernatural just for fun was a juvenile cue to begin the film on. However in parts it tries to engage you or grip your attention, partly succeeding in the same! The secret of 3046 takes excruciatingly long to unfold and remains sketchy till the end. The need to point out the spirit as mentally unstable was quite funny.
As the story advances, it takes up a very stereotypical path. The climatic, chills-down-your-spine moments are sparse. I almost celebrated when the evil witch ticked off the foolish 20-somethings as foolhardy and adventurous are distinctly different, which our generation ignores completely.
For the positives, I did notice that this film strictly maintained the storytelling without introducing any sleazy romance! The spook value of the story is built by instances like the patient had claimed that she was married to the Satan. I personally found greater originality in Ek Thi Daayan despite the sluggish second half, but Bhatt dishes out old formulaic ideas of horror. His ghost even wears the same make-up from the films we have seen before. Like a popular critic once pointed out, people have forgotten the art of scaring but waste more time creating a repulsive feeling in you! It’s the lack of inspired writing and fresh thinking in a genre India hasn’t explored much.
Horror Story Review: Star Performances
A bunch of new faces, most actors are mediocre. Karan Kundra does a fine job among the new faces while the rest pass away leaving no impact.
Horror Story Review: Direction, Editing and Music
Director Ayush Raina does an average job. I wouldn’t say the film was horridly atrocious simply because this week has given me such painful films that relatively this could be called blissful. However as a standalone, there is nothing extraordinary about this film. Neither does it scare you ferociously that you have chills down your spine or blood going cold! You’ll be unnerved at times and for most you’ll sit through it patiently. The film doesn’t make you too restless and that itself explains how it lacks in the thrills department.
Also, in the second half the film does show a promising pick up as the pieces of the puzzle finally settle together but the climax is done very shabbily which fails the product. There are too many loose ends and unanswered questions!
In the end there are too many spirits with no back story teaming together to try hard to scare us! I never figured out who was the girl who committed suicide. For the messy end the film couldn’t swell, or it could have surely made for a better movie! Entertainment wise there’s nothing too mesmerizing for horror buffs to enjoy. The film’s music is ordinary and even the background score seemed repetitive and overused!
Horror Story Review: The Last Word
Horror Story lacked the fearsome flair which makes good spook stories. It can’t be called a disaster but will easily be spelled as rough copy of innumerable flicks! It isn’t massively crackling or overtly brilliant, but you’ll manage to squeak and shriek in bits! I am going with a 2/5 for the film. There’s just one line I have to say here – C’mon Bollywood, show some extra ordinariness in this genre, we can’t make such poor copies of popular flicks all the time!
Horror Story Trailer
Horror Story releases on 13th September, 2013.
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