Dobaara: See Your Evil movie review LIVE — Saqib Saleem is the only saving grace

For those of you who have seen Mike Flanagan’s 2013 psychological horror film Oculus, Prawaal Raman’s upcoming film Dobaara: See Your Evil is an official remake of the film. Chaos, is what the first 20 minutes of this movie can be described as. A barrage of information is thrown at the audience in a haphazard manner, without a head or tail. The story keeps cutting in a jerky manner every 2 minutes with more and more information being added to it as it progresses. [caption id=“attachment_3480437” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  The posters of Dobaara.[/caption] Two siblings Natasha and Kabir Merchant have always struggled to deal with the death of their parents. But the movie revolves around a haunted mirror in their parents’ home, which is the reason for much dismay in the film. It then traces how the two siblings investigate the horror behind this mirror.

There’s no easy way to say this: Huma Qureshi is painful to watch, as is Rhea Chakravorty. Their is a ridiculous amount of dubbing that is terribly done. Saqib Saleem is the only saving grace as of now, with a mildly believable performance.

Having said that, the entire film started with an interesting element. There was a flashback to the time in England when witchcraft was practiced and was considered a taboo. However the time spent on that was too short as once again, the movie jerked from that scene and abruptly cut to the contemporary world. There’s very little of the horror element as of now. Also. Everyone has a really weird fake accent for some reason? Dobaara seems to be turning out like every other Bollywood attempt at a horror film. Trying, but failing terribly. Natasha is the protagonist of the film, played by Huma Qureshi. Her real life brother Saqib Saleem plays her on screen brother too, and there is some amount of comfort between that translates onto the screen. Lisa Ray can be accused of terrible overacting, as can Huma Qureshi in most parts. The film revolves around a mirror that is treated like its a living breathing thing, constantly being referred to as a person that the siblings have to “kill”. Because the makers threw all the information at the viewer initially, the rest of the movie is spent explaining the various sub plots. Adil Hussain plays the father yet again, essaying the role of Alex Merchant. It is through Alex that the movie gets it element of romance (read: sleaze). The second half is peppered with horror elements - but they’re done in a mediocre manner, without the polish that most Hollywood horror movie posses. The film seems to be trying way too hard. The movie picks up slightly in the last 20 minutes or so, almost having a poetic ending. There is a suspense element, which isn’t very surprising if you’ve seen horror films before. There were a few moments that were shot well, cinematography wise. However mostly, the movie just ended up being like every other badly made horror Bollywood film. The horror elements in the latter half are much better than the first half, and had they managed to do that in the beginning, the fate of Dobaara: See Your Evil could’ve been very different. Watch the trailer here: