There is a charm to B grade horror films, at least for some of us. The eternal fight between good and evil turned into a parody of monsters, ghosts, haunting and the human spirit; a lack of intensity, just thrills and laughs. That's why the Scream series was such a popular franchise and Final Destination continues to spawn sequels that get hammier as they go along. Horror is a fun, mindless ride, unless done with the intensity of The Shining or The Exorcist, films that haunt you long after they are over. But then we are talking B horror here, not classic horror. And it is B horror that you expect from Vikram Bhatt's Raaz 3 - the cheap thrills, barrel of laughs, paisa vasool variety. Bipasha Basu does kala jadu (black magic) - can anything be more enticing?
Bipasha plays Shanaya, a reigning film heroine who will do anything to hold on to her number one position, Esha Gupta plays Sanjana, her unwitting rival who becomes the object of her obsession, and Emraan Hashmi, a top director who is enamoured by both. It's an interesting premise that naturally leads into hot item numbers by both heroines as a pining Emraan Hashmi looks on. Intersperse this with an evil spirit, the fine art of casting a spell, a control freak starlet and another who is a babe lost in the woods and you have a potentially explosive thriller, but even so, Raaz 3 doesn't quite explode.

The special effects are great, the glamour factor is very much there with both Bipasha and Esha looking drop dead gorgeous, but it doesn't manage to create the layers that a Ring 3 does or closer to home the brilliant Nagina that Sridevi-Rishi Kapoor snake movie that made it all seem so plausible in that day and age. The script of Raaz 3 by Shagufta Rafique is weak in that there is room for a lot more human suspense in the story, but it gets lost as the romp with the supernatural is dealt with in a cartoonish manner. For instance the part when you find out that the women embroiled with the supernatural are sisters is something that could have been dealt with a lot more effectively. Human tragedy adds to horror films, think Sidney finding out about her mothers chequered past in the highly spoofish Scream series. Vikram Bhatt and his writers should pay more attention.

Ultimately Raaz 3 is more a cheap thrill ride than horror. the evil spirit, Tara Dutt, played by a rather wooden Manish Chowdhary could have been a lot more sinister. Evil men should be goodlooking at least and when they transform into otherworldly creatures, should be fantastical enough to have you transfixed - a blob crawling with maggots is too much of a put-off - or else Bipasha's mating with him would have been much more sinister.

The songs are okay, not a patch on the lilting tunes of the first Raaz, a romaticised version of What Lies Beneath that made the film such a big hit. Ultimately Raaz 3 shows that while Bollywood has come a long way with special effects, they can still lose the plot with formulaic, mundane scripting. Bipasha as a kala jadu wielding temptress could have cast a far stronger spell had the filmmakers played their cards right.

That said, Raaz 3 had a great run at the box office earning well over 70 crores, close enough to the Bollywood's coveted 100 crore club. It was doing well but Barfi! put a damper on it. That said, Raaz 3 held its own alongside Salman Khan's nonsensical box office Ek Tha Tiger. Goes to show that the taste of the Indian audience has yet to evolve. The hysterical, brilliantly enacted rom-com Shirin Farhad Ki Tou Nikal Padi and the critically acclaimed Gangs of Wasseypur made money but did what is considered below average business.
Depends on what you want to see really, if its hot babes and B horror with a mindless but very homegrown desi plot, go for Raaz 3.
 
– Muniba Kamal

*CINEMATIC SUICIDE
**FORGETTABLE
***WATCHABLE
****COLLECTIBLE
*****AWARD-WORTHY