1920 London: Der Schrecken kehrt zurück

Directed by Tinu Suresh Desai, 1920 London is the third supernatural drama produced by Vikram Bhatt set in that year. The fascination began in 2008 with 1920, which was centred around a ghostly stately manor and an exorcism.

In 2012's 1920: The Evil Returns, the director, cast and locations were new, but the story revisited the themes of possession and evil spirits idea. Desai's 2016 film is set between in 1920s London and Rajasthan.However period correctness is clearly not a priority with the filmmaker as we see Shivangi, a royal married woman with her head uncovered in a Rajput court, and gliding around her manor in the UK with her knees and arms exposed.

This is a fashion forward Victorian era! If one were to dwell on authenticity, it would be hard to get past the changing length of Sharman Joshi's beard and hair.

So let's cut to the plot instead. The life of a happily married young couple in London changes horrifyingly after the arrival of a surprise gift from India. A spirit seeps out and possesses the husband. Shivangi (Meera Chopra) returns to India to seek help as she sees her husband Veer Singh's (Vishal Karwal) health decline dramatically.

Fearing that a dangerous spirit has possessed him, she approaches a renowned exorcist. He turns out to be none other than her former lover, Jai (Sharman Joshi). In spite of having been dumped and served jail term because of Shivangi's betrayal, Jai travels to London to save Veer.

The story relies on pulling off one major twist, but it's a rather obvious one and once you figure it out the sporadic and half-hearted attempts at grisly, jumpy scares ebb away. A jilted lover with black magic expertise is hardly likely to be a saint.

Sharman Joshi tries hard to play menacing, mysterious and repentant but he's just out of step in the part of an exorcist. Meera Chopra is unimpressive as the helpless wife while Karwal spends most of the film lying in a bed being eaten away by the evil spirit.

Besides one extended exorcism scene, and the painstaking make-up that shows Veer's gradual degradation by the spirit, this is a drab effort with hardly a shock sandwiched between all the frills, frocks and Rajput finery.

Perhaps all the horror there was, has been sucked out of 1920.

I didn't really enjoy this movie. I thought the costumes were great, and the actors did a decent job, but so much about it just irked me. The conflict in the movie could have been resolved if characters actually communicated. The english countryside was ok. Bollywood has mostly managed to miss the mark by miles & this film is no different. On the whole, '1920 London' fails as a horror film.

I was geared up to watch this one too. The poster at the movie theater made it look like a great horror movie and I could not wait to check it out. So maybe my hopes were too high going into it.

Basically a woman's husband gets possessed by a ghost and the only one who can save him is a her ex-lover who's love she betrayed and it got him sent to prison were he learned the dark arts.

The movie drags on for far too long, but then half way through the movie there is a really cool plot twist that made the movie so worth seeing. The only problem is, the movie does not end there and keeps going messing up the perfect ending.

My only guess is that Bollywood needs a certain type of ending like Hollywood does and is willing to screw up what could have been a decent picture in order to get it.

The lousy special effects and the god awful acting coming from the main actress could have been forgiven, if they would have ended with the great plot twist.

And I here that this is one in a series of films, and that the others are better and scarier, but 1920 London makes me not want to sit through any to give it a try.

I read a couple of reviews written by some of the respected critics on Friday. All of them had trashed the movie, calling it one of the funniest films of the year. So what did I do…. Went and checked it out on Saturday morning dragging my ever faithful, lovable but very reluctant wife with me.

This is my honest opinion about the film and what I actually felt after watching it.

Plot: A Royal couple - Veer Singh ( Vishal Karwal) and his wife Shivangi ( Meera Chopra ) from Rajasthan are happily settled in London. One day they receive a locket as a gift from one of the Subhedars from their hometown. This is when things start to go wrong . The locket is cursed and Veer gets possessed by a "Daayan" released from it . The evil one seems to be slowly sucking the life from Veer and hence a distraught Shivangi rushes to Rajasthan to find a cure for her husband. She is asked to meet " Mewar wale Baba", Jai Singh Gujjar (Sharman Joshi) who is an expert in dealing with spirits and cases of demonic possession . There is a parallel track here. Jai (Sharman) is also the ex-lover of Shivangi who had been sent to prison by Shivangi's parents. His only crime being that of falling in love with a princess while he is a person from the lower caste (how very original ??). Initially reluctant , he agrees to come to London and help her deal with the Daayan who has possessed her beloved husband. Rest of the film is about how they get about it and finally accomplish their goal.

Wait …… there is also a twist in the film which signals the intermission. Wont reveal it as it will act as a spoiler to the pitiful few who might be actually contemplating watching it in the theaters , especially after reading the reviews written by our esteemed critics !! What a travesty of justice indeed !! This is perhaps ,the only wow moment in the film , something different attempted finally.

What I felt about the film: Hey… not a bad film at all . Compared to the first two films i.e 1920 and 1920 – Evil Returns , this is far less scarier ( my wife will vouch for it …. she actually sat through the whole movie without running away !!) .

The makers of the film time and again stop short of going all out , especially after building the base for really scary scenes .This makes the scenes look ordinary rather than coming out as really scary ones . This aspect could have been covered better. Intentional or not … only they will be able to answer . This may be a let-down for the die-hard horror film buffs who had enjoyed the first two movies of the franchise.

Sharman Joshi has acted decently , so have the rest of the cast . The film comes out as an Horror / Adventure film ( like Shaapit – yoo hoo…. Anyone seen the film ??) , not too scary yet having its moments. Special Effects are good but nothing new has been tried out. This is definitely not a funny film ….. gives you the scares but not to a great degree.

Final Verdict : It is a good attempt but somewhat falls short of expectations. Watch the film in theaters or otherwise without paying much attention to reviews. " Dikhave Pe Na Jao , Apni Akal Lagao".

This movie is the worst installment of one of the better Bollywood horror franchise 1920.If ambiance sound and pathetic CGI generated crows and Daayan give you spoof than this one will surely scare you.The only scary part of the movie was Meera chopra's performance.I was sacred every time she delivered a dialogue yeah she is that bad.The story is damn slow too even though there is a nice twist before the interval that could have salvaged this movie but that too is thrown out of the window 10 mins into the second half.The only saving grace of the movie is Sharman Joshi as Jai.All in all the movie has nothing that made the previous two installments a success.No good music,no horror,pathetic story and even performances are not good.