Razz Reboot Movie Review

The reboot of the ‘Razz’ series, fourth in line to haunt us, is about a ‘Strigoi’ played by Emraan Hashmi. In the bedeviled nation of Romania, this is an evil individual who comes back from his grave to visit the people he has had some issues with while he was alive. The vampire tradition has certainly been good revenue for tourism in this East European country. Aficionados and makers of horror movies have had a grand time here, and the makers of this film have brought to us a collection of endless footage of winter and darkness and forbidding architecture. They have presented this to us, virtually unedited.

The movie is about a jet setting couple from Mumbai who are here for business. Rehaan (Gaurav Arora) is a venture capitalist in the ‘post Lehman Brothers era’, as he puts it, who sets up companies and then inflates their value. His wife, Shaina (Kriti Kharbanda), is a former model, who once had a torrid affair with Aditya (Emraan Hashmi) in Mumbai before she decided to split with him. But even though she is now married to Rehaan and settled abroad, Aditya has apparently been stalking her, and we gather that she has got a court order for him to stay away from her.

Still, she has a thing for him, and when she finds her home being haunted by a spirit who then possesses her, she fortuitously bumps into him and they do the infamous kissing thing for which actor Emraan Hashmi has long been celebrated. It is not revealed as to what else he is doing in Romania, and nor does she ask, but Aditya poses as her saviour, and says he has come to rescue her, both from her husband and the ’Strigoi’.

The film is replete with cliches, and for a horror film this is disastrous. No ghost can scare you if you are contemptuous of its modus operandi. Shaina starts levitating and mouthing expletives as in The Exorcist. Furniture moves around. Exorcists from two different cultures turn up and a combination of Christian and Hindu chanting begins. However, though the film fails to scare, there is a moment of some amusement as the Romanian Church is called in to assist. When the designated priest waves the Bible around and recites the ‘Lord’s Prayer’, the spirit suddenly taunts him about the choir boy he once molested. Shocked at this revelation, ‘His Holiness’ beats a hasty retreat.

‘Razz Reboot’ is a lazily made film, with wooden acting, and a script so shallow, it could well have been entirely conceived and written on the flight to Romania. In short, this is an unprofessional production, a horror film executed in such a second rate manner that it ends up eliciting raucous laughter from a audience that has come prepared to be scared out of its wits.

BollywoodEmraan Hashmihorror filmIndian cinemamovie reviewVikram Bhatt