Aatma review

Rating: 2.5/5 stars (Two-and-half-Star)
Star cast: Bipasha Basu, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Doyel Dhawan, Shernaz Patel, Jaideep Ahlawat
Director: Suparn Verma
What’s Good: Underrated actor of 2012 Nawazuddin’s acting, some scary scenes.
What’s Bad: The unnatural reactions, Undue dramatizing during vital scenes
Loo break: If you get scared, and then it’s recommended
Watch or Not?: For those who like thrillers, like Indian scary movies and enjoy fear no matter what. We categorize it as One time Watch  movie

Suparn Verma’a Aatma, a horror film about an overbearing father who comes back from the dead to claim ownership of his only daughter from his estranged wife, comes across as an attempt to bring some credibility to the genre.

Maya (Bipasha Basu) is a single mother, just divorced from her abusive husband Abhay (Nawazuddin Siddique). Abhay dies in an accident and his ghost is haunting Maya because he wants his daughter Nia (Doyel Dhawan) back. What follows is a very obvious series of events where anyone who offends the daughter meets a gruesome end. Maya has to battle with not only the cruel intentions of her dead husband but she also has to fight for her daughter’s life.

Horror is a difficult genre to get right but we can’t expect special effects to compensate for the lack of a good script. The story progresses with very little thought to character development, actors are introduced so that they can conveniently be disposed off. The film is frustrating in parts because there’s a psychiatrist, there’s a priest, there’s a police officer but none of them can do anything substantial to help Maya in her ordeal. You know every possible victim and each murder sequence plays out without any suspense or build-up to the crime.

Bipasha and Nawazuddin put in an honest effort but are saddled with sad dialogue and a script that’s difficult to rise above. Bipasha tries, with all her might, to deliver a restrained performance with little success. Nawaz, however, owns all the scenes he is in. The custody hearing scene stands out because of his very real and ominous outburst. Moreover, everything pretty much blends in the background when Nawaz holds court, which is not to say that his is a flawless performance.