Raaz 3

joh ek zinda aurat ek zinda mard ke saath karti hai, tumhe woh mere saath karna hoga. Bardasht kar paogi? The ghost tells Bipasha Basu before having sex with her. This scene alone deserves a movie ticket and proves yet again why most of our Hindi horror movies turn out to be comedy-scare fests.

Raaz 3 has Shanaya (Bipasha Basu) as a fading superstar and Sanjana (Esha Gupta) as the newbie who is on the way to topple her stardom. One award night in spite of an astrologers confidence that she will win the award she loses out to Sanjana. This makes her give up on God and she crosses over to the dark side thanks to a friendly ghost who uses black magic to make life hell for Sanjana. Shanayas reluctant partner in crime is her director/boyfriend Aditya (Emraan Hashmi).

When the film ended I could not understand if it was trying to be a drama or a scary flick. The script is just like the ghost shown in the film who is stuck in a world between earth and the world beyond. In fact by the end of the film I thought it was the story of the ghost wanting to nail Bipasha so he creates this entire situation in her life. To be fair some of the scares are good especially the one featuring flies coming out from the wash basin. The good old 3D effect of things flying in front of your eyes was best used in this scene.

The film moves from not bad to am I watching a horror film to did I land up in a Ramsay film. Only if the film had stuck to being a horror film, I would have liked it even though it was the cheesy kind but this felt like watching two different films mixed together. Emraan Hashmi is used like a yo yo swinging between Bipasha and Esha. Esha tries her best to do the scared/ disturbed/ tortured routine but doesnt come across too convincing. Bipasha gets her meatiest role in a long time and she gives it her best shot considering her limited talent. Horror still remains a genre yet to be cracked and re-invented in India and with Vikram Bhatts another attempt at it he is still way behind in achieving that.

Word of mouth Not as good as 1920 but not at as bad as Haunted and Dangerous Ishq. Raaz 3 like its ghost is stuck somewhere in between.

Rating 2.5 (Average)

Ticket meter Worth 100 bucks.

Raaz is a film that talks about insecurities and jealousy's in an actresses life. Shanaya (Bipasha) stops believing in God when she loses out on a popular award for the best heroine and starts worshiping the devil. Then begins a journey of good vs evil.

Black magic as a topic is very well illustrated in the film and makes even non believers take notice of it. The mythological reference to God and how evil destroys you eventually after initial gain is well driven home.

The two scenes that stand out in this horror thriller is the Maids death scene and Esha Gupta attacked by bugs scene( 3d is well used).

The music which is always a highlight of Bhatt Emraan films disaappoints. Plus the songs in the second half start appearing quite randomly.

Excellent performance by Bipasha Basu, as she almost plays the hero & heroine. Esha(Sanjana) is good but gets overshadowed by Bipasha.

All said and done, a decent effort by Vikram Bhatt that is a timepass watch. Check it out if you're bored.

I did not watch large parts of Raaz 3 mainly because I dont like to see yucky melting skulls and I am morbidly scared of cockroaches. There are also a couple of scenes where the music slowly builds up to a crescendo which means at the end a scary creature will jump out of nowhere. This gives you enough time to close your eyes and miss that part altogether.

The story is about an actress Shania whose star is on the wane thanks to a young new actress. In an attempt to regain her top position in the industry, she resorts to black magic and ropes in her Director boyfriend to assist her. He has to keep giving the other actress poisoned water and she is soon possessed by a pret atma. In a totally unnecessary twist, the younger actress also happens to be Shanias half sister. Well, the directors falls in love with the younger sister and then is caught in the middle. What happens next is the rest of the story.

The scary parts look quite good in 3D but they are unfortunately only situational. There are no mental games being played, just straightforward skulls, hangings and cockroaches. This works quite well up to a point but after that gets a bit predictable and boring. What will the pret atma do next is not that suspenseful 2 hours into a film.

Emran as the Director is efficient. Esha Gupta as the younger sister has an innocence that is nice. That could also be a function of not being a very good actress yet, but she comes off well. It cant be easy to take off your clothes and imagine being assaulted by cockroaches. Bipasha has to look evil throughout the movie and she perfects the stare in the first few scenes and then just freezes it there. I think she could have done a much better job showing how desparation can make you stoop to bizarre levels but she is not able to pull it off.

Overall, I would say this is not a very bad movie. I am not an expert on horror movies (the only other one I saw was Help with Bobby Deol which was a horror show for obvious reasons) but I am guessing it could have been scarier if it had been more clever in its methods of frightening the audience. The second half drags on for too long and becomes too much mumbo jumbo stuff. See it once if horror is your thing or you are going out on a date. Or else skip it.

Raaz 3 is a challenging film that on the one hand pushes the envelope of the horror genre of film making in mainstream Hindi cinema while also re-establishing the dulled out career of its lead Bipasha Basu.

Bipasha is a down in the dumps super star whose career is on the wane. The sole reason for this is the new star on the rise, Esha Gupta, who also happens to be Bipashas half sister (they share the same father, because it is so common in the world we live in aint it). Emraan Hashmi is a director who in order to repay the Karzz of being allowed to sleep with Bipasha, connives with her to do Kaala Jaadu on Esha and destroy her career. Only problem in this perfect plan is that he falls for (and sleeps with but of course) the second heroine too and has a conscience that suddenly awakens to set the wrong right. Sceptics might frown at the fact that in a supposed film industry, Bipasha and Esha seem to be the only tow heroines Emraan the only director but then artistic liberty bhi toh koi cheez hoti hai, duh!

It is not just this stupendously convoluted and layered script that takes Raaz 3 notches above competition. The film boasts of the best of the best coming together to create a horrifying experience one wouldnt easily forget (it is a stated horror film if you have forgotten, duh!)

First off is Bipasha Basu. She, like her character, is looking to resurrect her sagging career by going back to where she began, Raaz franchise and Vishesh films. So it is not a surprise that she acts like this was her first film too. She definitely believes in the director and his capabilities and hence is not bothered by the fact that in scenes meant for her to showcase her histrionics; all that we can see is either her ample cleavage or her never ending legs. With Raaz 3, Bipasha will be back where she belongs to (hopefully out of sight).

Emraan Hashmi, obviously tired from all the acting he did in Shanghai earlier this year, revels in a role that demands him to do nothing more than shove his tongue down any open mouth. His character of a director with a heart hopping in and out of beds of his heroines is crafted progressively to represent the modern Indian man, one who knows how to silence his hysterical woman in a jiffy (use his tongue of course. Duh again!).

He effortlessly (sleep)walks through his role mouthing tough dialogues and enacting challenging scenes- one sever one that comes to the mind instantly is the one where he is asked by a bra clad Bipasha cavorting on his shirtless torso to look into her eyes instead of you know where. Roles like these make Emraan the asset he is to the industry.

Esha Gupta, the leading light of generation next of Bollywood impresses well too, she dances like a mannequin, emotes like a wooden chair would, and is a dream in the parts where she has to act scared. To ably support her is the Evil spirit she is possessed with, in makeup that is an ode to the Ramsay Brothers School of filmmaking. He grunts like the neighborhood grandpa with an upset stomach and is as menacing as Dolly Bindra sans makeup. He is also secular, for he can be contacted with Hindu mantras whilst sitting in a Christian grave.

That brings us to the real hero of this enterprise, Vikram Bhat, that genius who revived horror with Raaz a few years ago and is now hell bent on putting the genre back in the grave with his series of faint hearted friendly horror films that do not scare.

After Dangerous Ishq this year,Raaz 3 is the next feather in the directors cap.

Vikrams special accomplishment here however is the amazing 3D that has improved leaps and bounds, for now not only can Hindi cinema show us bricks from a wall breaking on to our faces in 3D but also throw cockroaches from a sink to gross one out further.

Raaz 3 is challenging film to sit through; it is a challenge not to run to the nearest library and look for spells from the occult to cast on the makers of this movie. Vikarm Bhat better check the water supply to his house for the next few months, for in the world of the occult, what goes out comes back to you too.

Raaz 3 relies on jump scares and those are the worst kind. Worst not because they scare you, but because they go well with a term popularly known as "cheap thrills". The 3D is absolutely terrible; especially one sequence where cockroaches swarm the screen and you can see this technology being used in all its gimmicky disgrace. Although, there is one scene where large amounts of trash hurls towards the screen. This made complete sense within the context of what we were watching. If your standards of horror are low and literally anything scares you, Raaz 3 can be sufficiently scary. If you look past the unintentional humor, that is.

The film is set in the big bad world of Bollywood. The film industry, apparently, comprises of only 3 people here, a director and two actresses. Shanaya Shekhar (Bipasha Basu) is the reigning Bollywood queen. She believes in God and is supremely confident that she will win Best Actress at an awards ceremony (there is apparently a connection between the two, bear with me for 3 more sentences). She even gets up from her seat long before her name is announced. But when Aditya Arora (Emraan Hashmi) announces Sanjanas name, her world turns upside down. She stops believing in God. 5 seconds later, she chooses the dark path and intends to destroy Sanjana. The representation of good and evil is not just black and white but unbelievably simplistic.

Shanaya hatches a plan after making a deal with a demon (The demon is called Tara Dutt) (That's like so cool). Since she is sleeping with Aditya, she uses him to do the dirty work. There are dialogues like "If you love me, you can be stupid for me".Not like she minds getting her hands dirty and doesn't take too much time to become the big bad bitch. The rest of the film is a bizarre concoction of several horror films (from Ramsay to Insidious)

The original Raaz was, in fact deeply unoriginal too, as it shamelessly lifted What Lies Beneath (2000). The only thing this film has in common with its absconding parent is the echo of the name: Sanjana. Despite not being the best horror film, that film did well in 2002 as it managed to create good atmosphere. Those are the kind of horror movies I find tasty, the ones that engulf you in the creepy atmosphere and chill your spine instead of jolting you out of nowhere.

Esha Gupta plays Sanjana who offers a grammatically awesome "Whiskey on rocks" to her guests. There is an X-Ray pocket to remind us of the impending doom (Thank you Vikram. You savior, you). A tantric, like a good host, instead of saying feel comfortable says something like: "Aap inn kabaron ke beech mein baith jaiye". After a horrifying encounter, which involves a gory beheading, they start doing what every normal human being must do - make out! But the biggest WTF moment comes when Aditya is finally telling Sanjana the big secret and suddenly a song starts playing in the background. For about 15 seconds she has her ears covered and we hear a song. This is gold if you want to learn how to screw up a good cinematic device.

I absolutely love horror films. Even the campy ones from Horror of Dracula (1958) to Drag Me to Hell (2009). Vikram Bhatt should be my favorite director in Bollywood today but he is most definitely not. Every time I go for a film of his, I come out wearing an expression on my face that only a Twilight film could vex me with. Albeit, I do want to applaud the film for showing a bit of reality. People working in the movies definitely need to be better people than this.

One final message to all filmmakers working in our country: Alfred Hitchcock did not just make Psycho. He is NOT a horror film director. Suspense/ mystery/ thriller were the genres he mainly specialized in, horror came as a bi-product. Try James Whale, Roman Polanski, Jacques Tourneur, Dario Argento and David Cronenberg. Okay fine, just try John Carpenter, George Romero, Wes Craven and Sam Raimi.