Alone - Die tödlichen Schwestern

When a Bollywood horror movie releases, one keeps no expectations. Because it will either be a remake of a foreign film or some experimental claptrap. With Alone, Bhushan Patel tries to churn out a story told a million times (through its original Thai film, numerous South Indian remakes, Agatha Christie's original novel, etc.) using a terrible cast and poor production design.

Anjana & Sanjana (Bipasha Basu) are conjoined twins from Kerala (what?). When a boy (Karan Grover) enters their lives and gets attracted to one of them, all hell breaks loose. The story is unfathomably idiotic. While one allows a horror movie to go illogical at times so as to suit its rhythmic story, this one goes out of bounds and dances in its boundaries mocking its audience on an astronomic level. While the original novel and the film both were good enough for few thrills, its millionth iteration is nothing short of nonsense.

Bipasha Basu maybe getting more voluptuous year by year, but her acting skills have hardly had any improvement, if not deterioration. She is so bad at screaming, crying, being frightened, sleeping, emoting, terrorizing, and even kissing that it gets annoying just after 30 minutes. The débutante Karan Grover should be made to watch this nightmare in a theater in a loop until he gets flustered by his own awful acting. Grover can be best described as a piece of wood, which will not show any emotions even if burned.

The film has poor lighting, which may have been purposely done so as to make audience believe that it is a horror movie that they are watching and so they are not allowed to laugh. The climax tries to resurrect the whole shindig but ends up sabotaging it with gimmicky twists and flashbacks. There is not a single sequence that one can enjoy. And let me not talk about the screenplay.

The film would sweep the Razzie Awards 2015 if it were held in India, with accolades for Worst Acting, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Production Design, Worst Special Effects, Worst Score, Worst Editing and maybe Worst Picture, too. Such is its degree of dreadfulness that I am forced to rate Patel's third feature a perfect 1 out of 10. It has all the reasons for an average moviegoer to skip it.

BOTTOM LINE: Lets all welcome the first flop of 2015 with unfolded hands and slap it back to where it came from: an abyss of Bollywood rubbish.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? NO

What's Good: The use of all possible creepy elements such as wooden doors that make noises, swing and an overall horrific location. Interestingly, Bhushan Patel manages to infuse a good amount of suspense in the film and stretches it to the very climax even though one starts getting the hints quite early on. The visual effects are quite decent and it seems Patel is getting the hang of it with every film.

What's Bad: Well, I would say a wrong timing of intimate scenes that nearly breaks the link of a 'could have been' gripping tale. Also the spine chilling moments don't come very often and more often than not it is the background score that gives away what's coming, thus leaving you all ready for the scene.

Watch or Not?: Alone is once again not an out and out horror film and so it won't satiate your scary needs or give you nightmares. If you are a fan of Bollywood's horror films then this one is worth your watch. Don't even think of comparing it to its original Thai film by the same name, because I couldn't watch that one without closing my eyes every two seconds. Alone is a decent weekend watch if you have nothing else to do.

As a fan of horror genre, I have always been curious to watch different kinds of spine-chilling and spooky films. I was not expecting much from Alone as the director previously made Ragini MMS 2 and 1920 Evil Returns. After watching Alone, I was not scared at all.

Alone tells the story of love and betrayal between a conjoined twin who have been bonded forever until Kabir arrives in their lives which separates them forever,

Bhushan Patel does well in borrowing scenes from Hollywood horror flicks and embedding them with desi masala with dose of typical Bollywood narration and unnecessary inclusion of songs that will leave you unsatisfied. In fact, the movie will remind you of early 80's Ramsay' classics like Purana Mandir and Veerna which had C- grade actors ,unconvincing blazing lights, big-old broken house. Screenplay is weak. Cinematography is bad. Art direction is worst. Editing is loose. But they are few moments to keep you engaged. Only silver lining is the storyline and commendable performance by Bipasha Basu. Karan Grover was wooden in terms of acting.

Overall, a bad film in every context. Avoid at any cost. Below average 1.5 /5

Nowadays Bollywood horror movies suffer a lot due to its predicted story line and failed to connect audience of today's generation. If we keep rest of the movie just concentrate on movie "Alone" same thing goes with it. As we know every movie is divided into three sections- beginning, middle and ending. Here, comes first foul in the beginning of the movie tarot card reader informs Sanjana that something lost thing of her will going to come soon. So, we can easily predicate that something wrong had happen with Bipasha Basu. That's what the rest of the story. Screenwriter failed to make a grip of suspense for audience. Like every horror movies in beginning ghost try to kill the hero till the interval film has already reached to its climax then back- story revealed and then attempt are being made to kill a ghost. The whole pattern is same for this movie "alone" The whole film is merely entertaining and scary. Many English dialogs ruin the Desi pattern. There are many repeated scene where Sanjana sleep on her bed ghost arrived we have already seen such scene in many Indian horror movies and audience well remembered the movie called "Hawa" in that movie Tabu was lead actress. I think this might be a reason why our Indian audiences prefer to watch Hollywood horror movie since its serve something new and different. Let's talk about the Exorcist, Grudge, The Conjuring the latest where we see that possessed ghost come out from the cupboard. So, something new feed to the audiences they love them, it does not mean feed anything but it is responsibility of screenplay writer to develop the sensible scene. That's hit inside audiences mind. A worst part of it, there was a scene where we see that Anjana room has been locked for many years after her death which is very common. I remember one of viewer says this room definitely going to be unlocked and her ghost will come out. See how it is easy to estimate story line, well this obvious affect other viewer later they show lack interest in that movie. Kissing scenes are injected forcefully I think just to attract mass audience especially B grade movie goers. Also, the middle of movie clearly indicated that triangle love story is going on. In the end, the same happens: sister kills sister for love. A sister's ghost comes to take revenge. After interval the movie goes very fast, unnecessarily. Last scene was torture rather than emotional. First, twist reveal it was Sanjana kills Anajana but the second twist confuse audience when Anajana confess killing of Sanjana. I remember when I was in lift I heard one of audience says if director had given permission to extend the movie might he would suppose to turn the story line by Anajana to Sanjana and whole circle go on. Oops I forget to mention that one thing about the movie to be enjoyed that's the only thing the music. This movie does not deserve anything if you want to spend nice time with your girlfriend than go and take her because you can make her laugh by funny ghost.

Okay forget about a good story backed by believable acting. All I expected to at least have few good scares when I was sitting through this humdrum which was such a mind numbing experience. The Horror genre in Bollywood has never been much innovative. We always get to see the same recycled thrash with recent trend being making remakes of some regional horror movies of other countries. This one based on a Thai horror movie with same name, which has been already remade in Tamil and Kannada. OK, its adapted material still it could have been at least watchable with good direction and pacing. But, Alone is void of any suspense or tense build-up which I believe the essence of any horror movie. The overdrawn climax filled with banality of flashbacks which seems a bit intriguing compared to rest of the film, at closer look opens up glaring plot holes in the whole script.

The plot revolves around conjoined twin sisters Sanjana & Anjana (Bipasha Basu) and the man they both fall for same man Kabir (Karan Singh Grover). But it seems Kabir only loved Sanjana before he went of to London for studies. Well all this is past though, in present day Kabir and Sanjana are married. Anjana had died in some accident when they had surgery to separate themselves. The romance in the plot simply is blank and loathed with over the top kissing(more like eating). There seemed to be no characteristic highlight of Sanjana that made Kabir love her and not her sister, after all they both looked the same. OK leave it, coming back to the story all the characters' native place was Kerala where all the incident of Anjana's death had happened. After her mother falls ill and is in hospital, Sanjana and Karan come to Kerala to her mother's house. No guessing what will happen next with them in the house. All of this almost takes 45 minutes of the run time which could have been easily done in 15 minutes. Again forgetting that boring wait, I was ready to be spooked by the ghost haunting them in the house. Apart from 1 or 2 moments, which were nothing more than cheap jump-scares consisting of sudden loud noise there is nothing scary. The same creaky noises, doors opening, piano playing on its own are used. There is also a local housemaid and her daughter-in-law just to add more characters to the screenplay apart from the 2 lead. Both talk to each other in Hindi despite being from Kerala. Towards.Towards the end we also have a Tantrik Baba with all his ho- hum and suddenly he is gone telling that the ghost is still residing somewhere in the house. They still stay there, so that we would witness a twisty climax thinking we would leave cinema surprised. Alas! The ending did not make any sense at all considering the ghostly behaviors throughout the film. No spoilers. Anyways I hardly cared as the wheels had already worn out by then.

The whole house and the surrounding shots supposed to be scary were unoriginal and uninspiring. Apart from the twist the flow is monotonous. Then again, not only we have to withstand the illogical twists and turns, but also the bad acting of it two leads. Karan Singh Grover's debut is a misfire with his wooden expressions. While, Bipasha does the same bland screaming, crying and such stuff, nothing new from her forgettable other's like Creature,Aatma,Raaz 3,etc. The characters are mostly one-dimensional lacking any motive. There are many small things and holes which I am too tired to touch upon. The length of the film really makes it a boring experience, its not even so bad that it will make you laugh. No it does not have that angle, takes itself too seriously. Director Bhushan Patel's previous 1920 Evil Returns and Ragini MMS 2 sucked and he does nothing different here. Above all that, the most annoying things where the songs. I can bear a bit romance along with horror but romantic songs? what the hell?!?! That too 4 of them.Neither they were refreshing nor hummable. Thus, nothing works in Alone and there was not once I felt it was entertaining. Literally waste of time. Terrible direction, acting, screenplay and cinematography. Forget quality of those elements, actually they are absent.

Another bad film at the start of 2015 after 'Tevar'. Bipasha Basu must stop with here horror-love , actually Bollywood should give the genre a break. Being neither scary nor funny, Alone is one of the worst horror films I have ever seen. Forget horror, this is probably down into one of the worst ever films I have watched. Highly avoidable.

RATING:[0.5/5]