If you don't end up chuckling at some of the so-called spooky sequences, there is a chance that you might find Raaz - The Mystery Continues scary.
Now, what do you say of a horror film that besides sending a chill down your firm spine at few moments also ends up tickling it without intending to. This Mohit Suri -directed film is both scary and funny. Scary because it is, at its base, a collage of corroded clichés from popular horror movies that have been watched to their death. Clichés like a pair of hands emerging from the bottom of a bathtub to spook its sexy bather. Or lamps and lanterns going off before the ghost makes its presence. Or the grotesque faces in the mirror. Clichéd they may be, they are still potent in pumping your adrenaline and giving you some goose flesh.
The fun part comes from its plotline. Imagine a horror film that creates an anticipation of taking you in the deep dark world of an evil spirit only to dash it with a laugh-worthy plot about a righteous man who was murdered because he wanted a polluting pesticide plant shut down. Now, the evil spirit of this good dead man tortures the story's leading lady only because she had desired riches while casting aside morality in a day-dreamy, romantic moment of hers. Common Mr. Director, you must be joking. If that's a sin then the whole freaking world is full of sinners.
Kangana Ranaut plays Nandita, a ramp model in love with a documentary filmmaker Yash ( Adhyayan ), whose sole mission in life is to falsify all the old-age superstitions of 'the shining India'. Chickens come home to roost when his own girlfriend begins to get haunted by a spirit. She is also stalked by a man who seems to know something about this spirit. This man, Prithvi ( Emraan Hashmi ) is a beer-guzzling painter who sees visions of Nandita's doom and - perhaps having nothing better to do - paints them on canvases.
Prithvi forewarns Nandita about his visions, and when his predictions do come true, the haunted heroine decides to ditch her career-inclined, selfish boyfriend and hitch with the stalker to a hilly town in Himachal where the whole mystery behind the evil spirit is unravelled.
The movie starts off well and soon limps when the focus shifts to the lacklustre love story between Kangana and Adhyayan. The newcomer who is getting a relaunch after committing professional hara-kiri by starting off with a forgettable role in Haal-e-Dil (you remember?), Adhyayan fails to make a mark this time around as well. The guy just doesn't have any screen presence and he needs to see a good hair dresser, pronto.
Emraan Hashmi puts some momentum in the story with his late entry. And though he glowers through most of his performance, Emi boy manages to hold your attention. Looking haunted is perhaps something that comes naturally to Kangana Ranaut who, by now, is getting quite predictable in her 'girl interrupted' kind of roles.
Mohit Suri uses background music quite well to create moments of anticipation and give you sudden jolts in some well executed spooky sequences. To be fair to the flick, it has one or two scary sequences that could freeze the faint at heart in their seats. The songs may not be worth a Golden Globe but they aren't bad. The cinematography is pretty okay, and there's a poorly done VFX sequence at the fag end when a herd of hairy and hatte katte bulls attack the already haunted heroine and she takes a nosedive into a well to unravel the mystery.
You wish the movie to end there. But the misery continues...
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