An official remake of the very popular and very scary Oculus, Dobaara: See your Evil even has the original film's director and co-writer Mike Flanangan as its executive producer.
The skeletal structure is similar – an alleged evil mirror that destroys all the lives. All attempts to reign it in have fallen flat through history and each time it manages to ensnare its victims.
But will it happen dobaara?
Huma Qureshi and Saqib Saleem play onscreen siblings trying to grapple with the consequences of their parent's death. We get a glimpse of what might have happened with the Merchant family through flashbacks and constant to and fro of timelines.
Adil Hussain, who plays Alex Merchant, seems a changed person after he buys an antique mirror to decorate his studio wall.
Things slowly spiral out of control and the kids lose both their parents to what they believe to be is the mirror.
After being reunited as adults, Natasha shares an elaborate gizmo set up to kill the mirror. For a horror film, the scares and chills take a while to come.
Director Prawaal Raman bids his time and while cinematographer Anuj Dhawan’s camera manages to get the eerie vibe just right, the actual hair raising moments are far and fewer in between.
As we near the climax, some goosebumpy scenes do get us to sit straight but there is just not enough meat to let the horror genre buffs to sink their teeth and nails into. All that we end up asking is – mirror mirror on the wall, where is the horror after all??
Our rating? 2/5 quints.
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