Dhund – The Fog (2003)

Much excitement surrounded the release of Dhund – The Fog on the basis that it was being touted as the return of the Ramsay Brothers in some shape or form. Advertised as “The Ramsays’ Comeback”, the film is in actuality not a Ramsay production at all and doesn’t even bear the famous Ramsay Films banner. The only real connection is that Shyam Ramsay has been roped in to direct this mystery-horror-thriller and, for most Bollywood horror buffs, one Ramsay is still better than no Ramsay.

Once the disappointment of the film not carrying the official Ramsay stamp of quality had been drowned beneath a couple of stiff Malted Vanilla Shakes, the lights were dimmed and the much-anticipated chiller was bunged into the DVD player.

The opening scene features a wealthy-looking drunken Thakur type arriving at a bizarre warehouse full of mannequins. The fellow proceeds to douse the place with petrol before setting it ablaze, but just as he does so he is attacked by a shadowy figure that promptly strangles him to death. Apparently the killer manages to vanish into the darkness while the warehouse is consumed by flames.

The next half hour is devoted to the building of a romance between a foursome of typically brainless teenagers. The two lads are advertising hotshots on the lookout for potential models, whom they discover in the form of two bimbettes played with appropriate vacuousness by newcomer Aditi Govitrikar, recently crowned Miss Universe or some similarly prestigious title, and her equally decorative sidekick.

Once the obligatory MTV-style songs and dance sequences have been dispensed with, the film begins to develop in a rather intriguing fashion.

A beauty pageant is announced and Simrin (real-life beauty queen Aditi Govitrikar) enters the competition. Having apparently won every contest she has ever participated in, much to the disgust of a childhood rival and fellow beauty contestant, she once again looks destined to walk away with the honours.

The rival beauty reluctantly withdraws, convinced that she is destined to finish second yet again while Simrin saunters off with the laurels. Her Shahrukh Khan lookalike brother, Irfan, complete with an exceptionally unfortunate haircut, decides to take matters into his own hands. Determined to comfort his bratty sibling, he promises her that this time victory will surely be hers.

The deranged brother begins telephoning Simrin and issuing dire warnings. Initially he threatens to kill her if she dares enter the pageant. Later, perhaps feeling a little less murderous, he revises the threat to merely disfiguring her beautiful face with a fresh vial of acid.

Undeterred by these developments, Simrin presses ahead and proceeds to romp to victory, reducing her rival to the depths of despair. The defeated contestant attempts suicide but is rescued in the nick of time by her increasingly unhinged brother, who thereafter swears to “fix things” so that she never loses another beauty contest again.

Thus the entire plot of the film is built around a vicious rivalry in the local beauty-pageant circuit, which, it must be said, is a rather novel premise for a Bollywood horror film.

The deranged brother eventually attempts to carry out his revenge but finds the tables turned on him when Simrin and her friend cut him to ribbons and leave him for dead in a pool of blood. Their boyfriends arrive to find the girls in a state of panic and, in true I Know What You Did Last Summer fashion, the quartet decides to dispose of the body and carry on as though nothing has happened.

From here the film takes a distinctly Diabolique-inspired turn. The corpse is tied up and deposited at the bottom of a filthy, disused swimming pool. Of course, everyone watching knows full well that it is only a matter of time before the body disappears and starts showing up at highly inconvenient moments.

Sure enough, the humiliated beauty queen’s brother rises from the depths to terrorise the four teenagers, armed with a nasty rake-like weapon apparently acquired from the bottom of the pool.

Poor old Prem Chopra is hacked to pieces in a shopping mall as the killer embarks upon his campaign of vengeance, not only for his ugly sister’s humiliation but also for the inconvenience of having been murdered.

The audience is left scratching its collective head wondering who exactly this mysterious figure is and how he has managed to recover so rapidly after being sliced up and left for dead only days earlier.

The film proceeds from one highly improbable situation to the next until finally the big revelation arrives.

Unfortunately, it is wholly unsatisfying.

The audience is apparently expected to reel backwards in shock as the identity of the killer is revealed, but the twist is so ludicrously far-fetched and contrived that it provokes little beyond mild disbelief.

The film is a “time-pass” effort at best and displays little of the atmosphere, style and production values generally associated with a Ramsay production, which of course this film isn’t.

Nevertheless, despite plot holes the size of Texas and a complete disregard for logic, Dhund remains mildly entertaining and reasonably slickly produced. Unfortunately there simply isn’t enough horror to satisfy genre fans and the deranged killer brother of the aspiring beauty queen is nowhere near sinister or threatening enough to frighten anybody.

To be fair, his hairstyle is fairly scary.

Otherwise he merely resembles Shahrukh Khan’s less attractive brother and overacts just as enthusiastically.

The lead foursome are suitably dim, as horror-movie fodder generally tends to be, and the bombshell beauty queen introduced here is certainly attractive enough, though she has an awfully long way to go before she can begin dreaming of becoming the next Aishwarya Rai.

It is also nice to see veterans Prem Chopra and Tom Alter still going strong.

Dhund – The Fog is not all bad. It is mildly entertaining from time to time, but the storyline is so hopelessly silly and contrived that it never really succeeds either as a horror film or as a nail-biting thriller.

Then again, after enduring the likes of Khooni Dracula, Maut and Bhayanak Panjaa recently, this comes across as a polished, sophisticated thriller with a touch of class.

Excuse me while I fall off my chair laughing yet again.