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Raaz
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'Raaz'

By N K Deoshi
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

“Raaz” director Vikram Bhatt has dared to be different and made a middle-of-the-road film with strong supernatural overtones. He, however, seems to have taken some inspiration from Hitchcock’s eerie style. The film is full of long shot horror sequences marked by over-stretched silences that are broken with spine-chilling sound-effects—the hallmark of Hitchcock.

So it turns out that the spirit of a girl named Malini (played by Malini herself) haunts Sanjana (Bipasha). Who is Malini? She is Aditya’s (Dino Morea) ex-lover. And there is a gory secret to her death.

Troubled

by Malini’s apparition following her like a shadow, Sanjana approaches professor Agni (Ashutosh Rana) who is a half-way shaman with his own idiosyncratic opinions about the dark world.

Armed with Prof. Agni’s admonitions Sanjana swallows the anger at her husband’s infidelity (in keeping Malini a secret) and gears to take on the wandering spirit. The end, of course, sees the triumph of good over the evil.

Mahesh Bhatt has convincingly spun a spooky yarn and Vikram Bhatt has further lent it a sinister edge with his directorial finesse. Rather than straightaway hopping onto the horror-filled chills and sequences, Vikram gradually builds up the suspense and uses special effects deftly to give the viewer the creeps.

After a glamorous debut in “Ajnabee”, Bipasha Basu delivers a serious performance of a frightened girl chased by a wandering ghost. She uses her eyes beautifully, and swings from one emotion to another adroitly. Only she needs to get a command over her dialogue delivery and voice modulation.

Dino Morea, on the other hand, often resorts to hamming and needs to portray his emotions convincingly.

The film’s songs, composed by Nadeem-Shravan, are not in consonance with its spooky theme.

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