JOIN USAn ageing actress, her almost obsessive desire to stay at the top and destroy her rivals – all of this sounds like fodder for a good drama, and it is a theme that has been explored several times. Trust Vikram Bhatt to add ghosts, flying cockroaches and strange graveyard rituals to that concoction to give you the horror that is ''Raaz 3''.
Bipasha Basu plays Shanaya Shekhar, a top actress who is so obsessed with her success she will do whatever it takes to hold on to it. When a younger actress begins to upstage her, she gets desperate. And by desperate, I mean really desperate. So much so, that she agrees to enlist the help of a spirit, who promises to torture Sanjana (Esha Gupta).
Of course, in order to this, someone needs to keep spiking Sanjana’s drinking water with a few drops of cursed liquid. Enter Aditya Arora (Emraan Hashmi), Shanaya’s seemingly meek boyfriend who is apparently so indebted to her for giving him a break as director that he willingly agrees to poison Sanjana. Of course, any sane person would have told Shanaya to seek professional help, but not our man.
Aditya proceeds to do as told and Sanjana’s nightmares start. Hands shoot out at her throat from television screens, people die, there are mysterious sounds and doors creaking and even a lengthy scene that involves thousands of flying cockroaches, all of which is in 3D.
At some point, Aditya realises that what he is doing is beyond crazy and tells Shanaya he cannot go on. But Shanaya is past listening, almost bordering on the insane.
Bhatt employs all the clichés of a horror film — dead bodies, graveyards in the middle of the night, black magic, maggot-infested ghosts and much more. Unfortunately, not much of it is scary and apart from making you jump out of your seat a couple of times, “Raaz 3” won’t provide any more thrills or chills.
The 3D is completely ineffective and why it was employed is a mystery. Bhatt, of course, uses some skin show, an Emraan Hashmi kissing scene and plenty of song-and-dance to distract the viewer from the horror element, but it is all for nothing.
Bipasha Basu tries a bit too hard to act crazy, but it’s nonetheless effective. Emraan Hashmi pretty much sleepwalks through his role. Esha Gupta has one standard, scared-out-of-my-wits expression throughout the film.
““Raaz 3″ is neither scary nor thrilling. This is a nothing film — one that will leave you cold afterwards and one that you will forget before you even get home.