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Other Critic Reviews
Alas, "1920" has a scary story to tell.
By Subhash K Jha  1 Stars
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2 stars 1920 doesn't manage to hold your attention throughout. It's scary in parts and funny at times. Don't expect much at the box-office.
 - Ashok Nayak    Fri, 12 Sep 2008
With the success of Ram Gopal Varma's 'Phoonk' there is renewed hope for horror movies. In the current decade there have been just a handful of films from this genre that have succeeded at the box-office and the 2 names who have successfully directed horror flicks are Ram Gopal Varma (Bhoot and Phoonk) and Vikram Bhatt (Raaz) who is also the director of 1920 that released today. 1920 features newcomers Rajneesh Duggal and Ada Sharma.

The year is 1920 and the house is isolated in the wilderness has a secret. It is waiting for the curse to come true. For years everyone who has bought the house and tried to pull it down has died under strange circumstances. It is like the house has a will and a life of its own.

Arjun (Rajneesh Duggal) and his wife Lisa (Adah Sharma) move into the house and he has been given the task of pulling it down and making a hotel there. The haunting begins.

Strange and inexplicable events start taking place. The curse says they will not survive. The only thing they have that is true is the love they once shared, which is now under the shadow of doubt. They will have to depend on the love and faith if they are to come out of this alive.

Horror movies must be one of the toughest genres of movies to make. The script has to be tight; execution has to be such that it should succeed in scaring the hell out of the audience. The camera work, background music and dialogues have to be perfect too. Else, the result could well be what I experienced while watching the second half of Vikram Bhatt's 1920. The audience in the theatre was laughing their heart out. The post-interval portions suffer due to its slow pace and bad direction.

Amongst the positives; in the first half Vikram Bhatt did manage to scare, he also succeeds in making the movie unpredictable to a certain extent. The cinematography is one of the best in recent times. The special effects are easily up to Bollywood standards; background music (Salim Suleiman) too is great.

Ada Sharma rocks in her debut with a great performance; she sure has a brilliant screen presence and was a perfect choice for her role. Rajneesh Duggal is good for a newcomer but not very consistent. Raj Zutshi is good.

To sum up, 1920 doesn't manage to hold your attention throughout. It's scary in parts and funny at times. Don't expect much at the box-office.


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