Ghost: Confused Ghost

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When a film begins with a doctor on duty doing the “naughty-naughty” with a nurse in the hospital before the resident ghost bumps one of them off, you know what to expect — loads of sex and gore.

When a beauty queen plays a doctor who shows up for night duty in a pink one-shoulder dress or when Shiney Ahuja, a rich detective who goes to work driving topless cars and those sports bikes from Dhoom without a helmet, you know how serious the filmmaker is about earning points for realism. In fact, the film begins with a costume credit (the clothes are by the director too).

One look at the make-up and special effects and you know we are in Ramsay Brothers' territory.

After the first two killings, you wonder if the delicious premise of this film is about a ghost who believes in Happy Endings. Not kidding, this ghost gives her victim a nice item dance before eating his face off. Unfortunately, this is also where the Censors come to the party.

Before the ghost could chop assorted body parts, the Censors decide to do that to the film. Hence, most of the gore is shown with a photo negative feel. And the sex dries up too.

Ghost is not just a B-movie in designer clothes. It has greater ambitions. One moment, it wants to get into Shiney Ahuja's angst and daddy issues and the other, it makes Sayali Bhagat quote random paragraphs from the Bible before setting it up for a crucifixion scene involving a certain Mary and suddenly, the doctor and the detective decide to take a holiday together in some resort. This poolside lounging would surely offer some clue about the serial killing ghost who specialises in mutilating body parts and pulling out the heart. Then, there's the science versus religion, sceptic versus believer debate that's been done to death in horror films.

The lack of focus and the tendency to break into songs further slow down the pace in this confused film that is not sure how exploitative it should be. So if you are expecting Shiney to repeat his Sins and Sayali to do an encore of The Train , tough luck. Why the abstinence after all that foreplay?

A sluggish gore fest that could've done with a little fleshing out.

Ghost

Genre: Horror

Director: Puja Jatinder Bedi

Cast: Shiney Ahuja, Sayali Bhagat, Julia, Tej Sapru

Storyline: A hospital becomes a hangout for a ghost who takes a few years to remember she needs revenge

Bottomline: This exploitation film promising gore takes itself too seriously instead of sticking to gore, sex and violence