- Movie Review: Ghost Stories
- Artists: Janhvi Kapoor, Surekhi Sikri, Shobhita Dhulipala, Mrinal Thakur, Avinash Tiwari, etc.
- Directors: Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar
- Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
- OTT: Netflix
Millions of people in the country in New Year burning sparklers, insisting DJs to play your song at parties and from 12 pm to 2:30 pm, having extinguished, are hoping to see something on TV that makes the beginning of the year a bit shocking, then it is certain that you are watching Ghost Stories. Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar make their films very big. They are also once again joined by Zoya Akhtar and Dibakar Banerjee after Love Stories. But, the result? Let’s find it out.
The first story of Ghost Stories is directed by Zoya Akhtar. A lot of people would be hoping to see Janhvi Kapoor in another film after Dhadak. Janhvi is seen talking on the phone to her boyfriend in the middle of the hovering head and then arrives to take care of an elderly ailing woman who lives alone at home. The nurse wants to get intimate with her married boyfriend by feeding the old lady a sleeping pill. But, the woman to whom she has just been fed a sleeping pill has not slept. The first story of Ghost Stories makes the season perfect. Janhvi sometimes tries to add excitement to horror films by applying lipstick and sometimes wiping it, and Surekha Sikri is a powerful artist. But, Zoya? Nowhere does it seem that this story is of a director whose previous film is Gully Boy.
The second number is of Anurag Kashyap. Anurag makes the colors disappear from the screen to create horror. Movies form around Shobhita’s pregnancy. Like his mentor Ram Gopal Varma, he puts a child at the center of the story. But, where the story starts, it gets stuck right there. There is a crow in this story too. There are books that teach the tricks from conception to motherhood. There is a working husband harassed by relatives and all the dolls. If there is nothing, then it is story of. Anurag’s story takes your test whether you are ready to see the horror in the name of horror? This part of the film does not leave any effect. Shobhita scares less and produces more scorn. Nevertheless, there remains hope that this will be completed in the next two stories.
The third story is a new attempt after Go Goa Gone to establish zombie cinema (cinema with moving corpses) in Hindi cinema. Dibakar Banerjee is still in exile 13 years after his debut film Khosla Ka Ghosla. Cinema has lost from his hand. He has forgotten the old in the course of doing something new. There are two children in a village who are trying to escape from their fathers who have become man-eaters. An urbanite who comes here for a new job gets stuck in the middle of it. A short-sighted short film based on a cheap story has been made the third part of Ghost Stories. The film tests the limits of patience and I keep looking at the clock again and again, what is happening at quarter to two in the night?
Well, the matter reaches the final story, this time the responsibility of scaring is of Karan Johar who has scared the audience with films like Student of the Year and Kalank in the last year. Mrinal Thakur plays the character of a young woman who is married to a boy who can see her dead grandmother. Karan Johar looks desperate to become an five-year-old Anurag Kashyap. Mrinal Thakur is seen stripping off the clothes of Super 30 and Batla House. Avinash Tiwari seems to be putting hold on his career before it starts. And, the story ends without being shocked or intimidated even once.
A horror even bigger than the film shows its ratings on IMDb. Netflix has millions of US dollars to set foot in India. If nothing, then people who understand the choice of Indian audience. The work of Netflix India is in the hands of people who have never done anything creative themselves. These people are just placing bets on big names, they cannot understand anything like story or cinema. Ronnie Screwvala’s film Ghost Stories, which spoiled the first night of the new year, finds two stars in Movie Review. One for the acting of Janhvi Kapoor and the other for the presentation showing Ronnie would be worth crores of rupees from Netflix.
