1920 London movie review: A witchy love triangle

Director: Tinu Suresh Desai

Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra and Vishal Karwal

The third instalment of the 1920 franchise ‘1920 London’ is anything but scary. Directed by Tinu Suresh Desai, this film is a sloppy take on yet another horror flick. I am still trying hard to fathom what was going through Vikram Bhatt’s mind when he penned down this stale love triangle, with a demon vying hard for some attention.

The story centres around middle-class Jai (Sharman Joshi) who is a voodoo practitioner in Rajasthan. He is head-over-heels in love with Shivangi (Meera Chopra). But as all Indian love stories from the 1920s go, Meera’s royal family isn’t in favour of their blossoming romance. Shivangi is then forced to marry Veer (Vishal Karwal), and move with him to London where they hope to live a happy married life in their huge mansion. The couple is looked after by caretaker Sushmita Mukherjee.

Things, however, take an ugly turn when Veer is possessed by an evil spirit. On seeing the spirit literally ‘suck the life out’ of her husband, Shivangi calls on her old friend Jai to investigate the case. What happens next is something you’ll have to see for yourself. Will Jai be successful in performing an exorcism and save Veer from that evil soul?

Directed by Tinu Suresh Desai, ‘1920 London’ has all the cliché tricks to scare the audience, but falls flat at the end. The 2008 release ‘1920’, which was directed by Vikram Bhatt, was a sincere effort at making a ‘horror flick’ that actually sent a chill down the spine. But like every other sequel, this one does not get better.

Run-of-the-mill dialogue by Girish Dhamija are woven with the most clichéd love scenes. The film’s ‘chill factor’ rests on the shoulders of an ugly witch, who tries hard to scare the audience, but leaves everyone disappointed instead. Her facial expressions tend to have an opposite effect on the audience, as it tends to bring out more laughs than shivers.

I guess we could never match the standards of Hollywood demons on screen, be it the background or VFX. Forget not getting sleep after watching this 120 minute film, you are probably going to dose off in the first half.

Vishal Karwal quite literally slept through his debut film. Meera Chopra looks promising in bits and pieces, but she did a fair job as a timid and helpless wife of a royal prince. And Sharman Joshi? Sigh. Is he still the same actor who gave such fine performances in films like ‘3 Idiots’ and ‘Rang De Basanti’? His act here is so awful that the witch performs better. Sharman should surely spruce up his acting skills now, along with his appalling acting in his previous series of flops, which would easily chuck him out of the race. Supporting cast Arun Bali, Gajendra Chauhan and Sushmita Mukherjee are just above average.

The scariest scene in the film, where the demon plays hide and seek with Meera and Jai, turns out to be a comic one. The film ends up being a cliché love story rather than a horror flick.

Music by Sharib-Toshi is just avoidable. I was so engrossed in finding the purpose to watch the film that I completely missed the songs.

‘1920 London’ is a clear miss this week. The couple making out in the dark beside me was perhaps more entertaining than the film.