Raaz Reboot

Modern Bollywood horror films tend to unintentionally induce humor, and this fourth installment in the popular Raaz franchise is no different.

Shaina (Kriti Kharbanda) and her husband Rehaan (Gaurav Arora) have just moved to Romania, the birth place of Count Dracula. While Shaina is hoping to start a family here, Rehaan is preoccupied with something, which the audience have to assume to be what the title suggests (a secret). He behaves like he has ants in his pants and refuses to help her with her mission despite of it being a tempting one. As one can predict, it doesn't take much time for Shaina to experience ghost- like occurrences in the mansion that they live in, and before soon, she is possessed with a so-called spirit. Rehaan regrets his recent rude behavior with his wife, and scrambles to make her sane again, with the help of psychometric, the only new and interesting topic in the whole film.

I will say this straight out: there's nothing new in the film, which we could have easily guessed, given that the title suggests pretty much everything it had in store for us. Life of a seemingly happy couple turns upside down when one of them gets possessed whereas the unaffected one tries to pull some strings and chants "Hail Mary!" along with that weirdo of an exorcist to make the person sane again. Typical story-line straight out of the horror genre shelf, with some tweaks here and there in dribs and drabs. Emraan Hashmi comes out of a possible fugue state and enters the scene halfway and convolutes the plot just so people could distinguish between the films in the franchise in future. Otherwise, no one would be able to tell the four films apart from each other, save the mercy of the non-recurring actors.

There are lots of problems (or errors, as I like to call them here) with the plot and the way the characters speak with each other. Of course, the CBFC was right when it accused the film of using f-words non-sparingly. The ghost in the film seems to be a real performer, providing glimpses of her repertoire while she is in the act of scaring other characters. Her diction is pretty narrow and words obviously hated by CBFC takes up half of it. The fact that the plot unfolds in an exotic place like Romania does not even start to help the film from slipping down the drain.

Hashmi is the only bearable person. Poor man's Karan Singh Grover, Gaurav Arora, looks like he came right out of the Love Games (2016) sets and pretended he was kicking up a fight with his co-star of that film, Patralakeha. No chemistry between any of the couples in the film, unless you consider contrived scenes involving foreplay as romance.

Hasmi's films are usually a one-time affair, but this one did not even get the songs right, which is a travesty.

BOTTOM LINE: Vikram Bhatt's "Raaz: Reboot" tries to reboot itself by manually going to the Windows start menu, clicking on the Power option, and then confirming Restart. The only problem is that before it can complete the action, it gets the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, which can only be rectified if you "shut down and then try again". Skip it!

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? NO

Raaz Reboot is one of the most anticipated movies of this year and this franchise is quite successful. Maybe the previous movies were not critically acclaimed but they are all commercially successful. It is a horror movie franchise and the story lines of those movies are different from each other. The first Raaz movie is a very good horror thriller and a very commercially successful movie. Then the predecessors have not achieved the good rate but commercially successful. For the success story of this franchise, I was eagerly waiting for this movie.

The producers took Vikram Bhatt as a director and this is a very good decision because he is a very good horror movie creator. They cast Emraan Hashmi and I think this is the best decision for this movie. I know Emran Hashmi is a good actor. His previous venture Azhar is not a successful movie but he shined in that movie. And for this movie when the performance is concern he is equally good. Kriti Kharbanda is OK but nothing to shout about. Gaurav Arora is strictly OK.

The direction of the movie OK but not great. The director had to concentrate on the story and the story is not quite imposing. The script and the screenplay are not rigid and there are plenty of plot holes in that. Editing is very choppy and music is not great.

After all, this is a Raaz Franchise and very anticipated movie for this years so you can take a chance for this movie.

Vikram Bhatt's direction style has become outdated. He hasn't changed a bit, but still manages to build a nice excitement that feels good. I still stand by my statement that Vikram Bhatt is the only Indian horror movie specialist surviving. Every actor has performed above average and it's a well-made product. After a long break, horror movie lovers can slightly wet their tongue in satisfaction.

Storyline Rating: 3 Content: 3 Commercialization: 2 Entertainment: 3

Acting Rating: 3 Kriti Kharbanda: 3 Emraan Hashmi: 3 Gaurav Arora: 3

Direction Rating: 3

Music Rating: 2

Cinematography: 3

Editing: 4

Raaz Reboot has the same old stuff that we have seen a zillions times.Raaz Reboot is mediocre fare and may appeal only to fans of the Raaz franchise.Most of its horror sequences are so random that they evoke laughter instead of fear. That can never be a good proposition for a horror film.Though the film has a few scary scenes, it ends up being a clichéd love story instead of a horror flick. The music by Jeet Ganguly, Sangeet and Sidharthy Haldipur is melodious, especially the title track. However, the movie doesn't really offer you a solid reason for watching it. I would go with 2/5 for this successor of Raaz franchise and would advise not to watch it and go for 'PINK' instead of it.

Regular ghost story who are defeated by love. I think the movie is good not bad but it could been far better.