Synopsis – Conjoined at birth, Anjana and Sanjana were twin sisters who lived by one promise made to each other – ‘We will always be together. We will never separate’. Mysterious circumstances lead to the death of one while the other survived. Years later, the ghost of the dead comes back to haunt the surviving sister. Why was the promise broken?

My Take – I am not a big fan of horror movies, but eventually an interesting plot always attracts me. For years, Bollywood has made many attempts to make that perfect horror film, while some have succeeded the rest have failed miserably. The basic concept of “scaring us to death” has been eluded by our Indian directors in spite of repeated attempts. Most of these films turn out to be mostly unintentionally funny. This remake of the 2007 Thai film, which remade as the Kannada language Charulatha (2012) & dubbed in Tamil, Telugu & Malayalam. While the those versions were pretty good, does it mean the Hindi language version would match up to it? or at least be a decent attempt to tell an already sold plot? Well no! The story follows the conjoined twins Anjana and Sanjana (Both played by Bipasha Basu) who share a strong sisterly bond through out their life. But once Kabir (Karan Singh Grover) enters their life, both the girls fall in love with him. But Kabir ends up choosing Sanjana.

As Kabir leaves town to pursue higher studies, in a heated moment between the sisters, Sanjana demands to be separated from her sister. But during the surgery, Anjana dies. Cut to present, when Sanjana and Kabir are together and they happen to return to India as Sanjana’s mother has a stroke. On arrival, Anjana’s spirit begins to haunt their residence & disrupt their lives. Bhushan Patel has directed two horror sequels (1920 – Evil Returns & Ragini MMS 2) in the past and some where the technique of direction does remind you of his old films, & that isn’t necessarily good. It seems he has forcefully induced the “horrex” formula into the film, hoping to receive the same results as his last year’s critically panned but commercially successful Ragini MMS 2. The use of possibly all the cliche filled elements such as wooden doors that make noises, swings, a creepy theme tune and an overall horrific location add nothing to the already drag film. Yes, the effects are pretty good for a Hindi movie and the special effects too manage to scare you a little bit. The film has poor lighting, which may have been purposely done so as to make audience believe that it is a horror movie that they are watching and so they are not allowed to laugh.

The climax tries to resurrect the whole shindig but ends up sabotaging it with gimmicky twists and flashbacks. Bipasha Basu maybe getting more voluptuous year by year, but her acting skills have hardly had any improvement, if not deterioration. This is probably her 4th horror film in a row. She is so bad at screaming, crying, being frightened, sleeping, emoting, terrorizing, and even kissing that it gets annoying fifteen minutes into the film. Bipasha Basu is the true horror queen but somewhere her acting too reminds you of the other horror movies she has done in the past. TV actor Karan Singh Grover makes his big screen debut with this film, while he may be the only saving grace of this film. He maintains a good screen presence & showcases a variety of emotions, but somehow it seems all his efforts were drowned in his excessive/ unnecessary biceps display. On the whole “Alone” is another bad attempt at horror for Bollywood, while some may appreciate the novelty of the plot (especially if you haven’t seen the original), or else it it can make up for a decent weekend watch that will probably make you laugh more and scare less. Fail!

Director – Bhushan Patel

Starring – Bipasha Basu, Karan Singh Grover, Zakir Hussain

Rated – PG15

Run Time – 133 minutes