Haunted: More laughter than fear

The bad dialogues, strange dance moves, special effects, eccentric characters, are all guaranteed to make you laugh.

The Indian horror film, Haunted, is one of those films which will make you alternate between laughing hysterically and covering your eyes out of fear.

The film really has nothing new to it and is the typical sub-continent love story, where boy meets girl and would do anything to help her. Except this time, he’s not saving her from an evil step-father, the owner of a brothel or a terrorist; instead, he’s saving her from the evil spirit of her piano teacher who has kept her spirit trapped for 80 years raping her every night.

The rape was what got to me, and will probably make everyone who watches it feel slightly sick. With all the stories of women being molested and mistreated we hear and read almost every day, this topic has got everyone on edge. But personally, I felt that the way it was presented did not do justice to the seriousness of the issue, and filmmakers just caught onto the ‘hot’ topic and incorporated it into Haunted.

Another problem I had with the film, aside from both the lead characters, especially Meera, played by Twinkle Bajpai, irritating me more and more as the film continued, was that Haunted was exactly like Indian and Pakistani horror films from 15 to 20 years ago. The storyline was not much different, the concept of using djinns and bhooths to scare people was pretty similar, the makeup and effects were also nothing new.

At one point, the evil spirit is shown running down tree trunks in the most awkward fashion, which seemed to be inspired by a Twilight vampire, but it really did not have the intended effect.

The film was in 3D, which was cool, but again, because it seemed so awkward, the only way I would describe it would be ‘bad-quality 3D’.

On the plus side, it was fun. The bad dialogues, the strange dance moves, the special effects, the eccentric characters — are all guaranteed to make you laugh and keep you laughing when you discuss the film and recount the stupidity of it all.

So go watch it, but go with an accepting attitude because if you go with high expectations, then you will be disappointed.