'Haunted' is scary in its own right

Film: Haunted 3D (A)
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Cast: Mahakshay Chakraborty, Tia Bajpai, Arif Zakaria, Achint Kaur, Mohan Kapoor
Ratings: **1/2

India’s first 3D horror film has arrived. Haunted 3D wastes no time using spooky background music and stunning visuals to scare you.

One would have expected the beefy Mimoh, no, Mahakshay Chakraborty, to add to the gore factor, but no. A trimmer, dishevelled Chakraborty donning a leather jacket and a scarf neatly wrapped around his neck only induces a giggle or two.

Rehan (Chakraborty) is an angry young man (or is it just his face?) who is on his way to salvage a multi-crore property deal by solving the mystery of a haunted property.

After a fancy video conference, and a haunting tune on the piano, our man encounters the ghost Meera (Bajpai). Heck, the ghost even throws up a letter written 80 years ago.

Rehan now knows that the screaming banshee was once a piano-playing little girl under the care of Margaret (Kaur).

On that day long, long ago, she was left alone with her paedophiliac music professor Iyer (Zakaria). A rape attempt later, Iyer is left with a cracked skull and dies on Meera. The obsessive soul, however, decides to haunt Meera. Not only does his ghost haunt her, it decides to rape her (horrid memories of the Tabu-starrer Hawa torment us).

After Meera commits suicide, her soul is captured by the evil professor and continues to rape her every night. Ghost copulation? Really? Rehan resolves to rescue the girl ghost and boom! Time travel!

While Bhatt’s treatment coupled with 3D did scare the bejesus out of us, Chakraborty’s lost and helpless baby-face, which is a welcome change after the jarring look he sported for Jimmy, instantly induces giggles.

Bajpai does her job decently but doesn’t exactly shine through. The hero of the film, hands down, is the 3D effect which works wonders for a fairly interesting plot which otherwise would have been ruined by the flat performance of the leading actors.

The music, with the exception of the love song, is decent, but we didn’t come out humming any of the tunes. The background score is jarring in parts but again is instrumental (quite literally) in adding to the chill factor of the film.

Our verdict? It is definitely worth a watch if you liked the horror films of the 1980s. Why? Because this one is a sweet mix of slick 3D effects and an old-school story. But be prepared to face some yawning moments while the narrative lurches forward.