Director: Bhushan Patel
Cast: Aftab Shivdasani and Tia Bajpai
Rating: 2/5
Not too scary enough to make you jump off your seat
'1920 – Evil Returns' yet again proves that we still have a long way to go in order to attain excellence in making horror films. The films have clear traces of Hollywood classics and how the stereotypical nature of horror films take away the originality from the script.
The movie starts with Smruti (Tia Bajpai) who is forced to stay inbound by the evil spirit who turns things worse for her. Yet again, like every horror film in Bollywood, there is someone who tries to help the victim but her efforts go in vain. In this case it is Smruti’s servant who tries to escape from the situation and makes her meet her lover Jaidev (Aftab Shivdasani).
Both consider each other dead and are living a miserable life without each other. Things take a sudden turn when her lover poet Jaidev finds Smruti near a riverbank. But he is unable to recognize her, yet he takes her home as he feels the connection with her. Smruti too doesn’t recognize him but still decides to be at his mercy at his place. Same old story, can we have something new please??
Nonetheless, moving on, there is Jaidev’s sister Karuna (Vidya Malvade) who doesn’t approve of his kindness on stranger Smruti as she is also warned that she is haunted by an evil spirit by the keeper of the cemetary. Further, Jaidev too consults the cemetary keeper to find out for ways to get her out of the evil’s trap.
We wonder what is it with Vikram Bhatt who is so interested in horror stories that he comes up with them one after another. The story which he wrote along with Amin Hajee hardly has anything new to offer, but yet they went ahead to make a film that plays on stereotypes. Bhushan Patel’s direction was like old wine in a new bottle which unfortunately didn’t taste quite well.
Aftab who got a solo lead after a long time thoroughly disappoints with his performance and shows no effort to get back to winning towards acting with whatever script he had in hand. Comparatively, Tia Bajpai who did a great job in 'Haunted 3D', delivered a decent performance in this one as well. Vidya Malvade and Sharad Kelkar, in their supporting roles are however not up to the mark.
Songs nonetheless are a decent try. Chirantan Bhatt whose composed music for the lyrics penned by Shakeel Azmi, Junaid Wasi and Manoj Yadav have done a good job with the album. With films like 'Skyfall' and 'Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurrana' releasing this week, it appears that the journey of '1920: Return of Evil' will be short-lived.