Director Pawan Kripalani despite being junior to director Vikram Bhatt, who released his 3D horror film Haunted last week, sets Bhatt aback and flies ahead with his neatly carried out execution in Ragini MMS.[break]
After quite sometime, Bollywood finally gets a real horror thriller that gives you blood-chilling experiences while watching the movie.
It’s another story that Ragini MMS, somewhere looks like a clone of three movies put together– Love Sex Aur Dhoka (LSD), Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Nonetheless, the movie however finds its own niche and gets you grabbing your friend’s wrist tightly all through out its two hour duration.
Debutant director Kripalani blends three primary elements – horror, sex and real life giving equal attention and care to each, that makes the film realistically fearful. Subplots of a movie shot is less than 30 days have been well taken care of.
Producer Ekta Kapoor, known for popular Hindi soaps and bad feature films, has tried her hands at horror genre in 2004 through Krishna Cottage, which turned out to a disaster at the box office.
As the producer of Love Sex and Dhoka, she made a comeback and with Ragini MMS, thus proving that experience come along with the learning process.
In Ragini MMS, she not only takes care of her investments, she also slams many realities of Delhi, the capital city of India where MMS controversies took place.
Take for example the leak out of MMS of high school students of Delhi Public School, that remained in the headline for sometime.
The characters – Uday (Raj Kumar Yadav) and Ragini (Kainaz Motivala) are also made to look realistic.
Ragini is portrayed as an uptown girl donning a tank-top, denim shirt and hot pants while her uncouth, abusive boyfriend buys dozens of condoms and plans on taping their sex video secretly. Foreplay comes first, with terror following soon after.
Uday and Ragini are a couple, heading out for their weekend celebration. Uday takes Ragini to a secluded house rigged with hidden cameras all over.
While Ragini is deeply in love with Uday and trusts him fully, Uday however is not an honest lover and can give up any relationship at the cost of becoming an actor.
He wants to shoot a sex-tape with Ragini. They both are unaware that the house they are celebrating their weekend in is haunted.
The steamy twosome in no time starts to turn into a murderous threesome. Plots that go hand in hand with the screenplay get you screaming often.
The ghost unlike in many other horror films is neither wearing the clichéd white bed sheet nor is holding a candle. Mostly, the ghost is in the feeling and the spirit is in the atmosphere, often invisible succeeds in getting you to the edge of your seat most of the times.
For a horror film to have its real feel, silence is one key element. Unlike in Vikram Bhatt’s recent release it’s the sound that scares you the most, in Ragini MMS, it’s the expressions that engulf fear into your soul.
Sound effects are there for as much as the movie requires. There are enough of silent moments, skipping false alarms into the minds of the viewers often when it’s not time to be horrified.
Another good thing about the movie is that although Ekta Kapoor has copied the formula and the format of the movie; she however has ensured that the style and panache in Ragini MMS are maintained in their own discipline.
The only thing that sets you back is all that smooching and foreplay that stretches like soft porn being screened in a large projector. Indeed children below 18, should be strictly restricted from going to the theaters.
Screening at QFX Cinemas
The writer is Program Officer at Indian Cultural Centre
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