There's so much of a hung-over flavour in Vaastu Shastra that it feels as though one's watching a cocktail of Bhoot and Sixth Sense. Instead of apartment 1201 of Bhoot you drive into Shanti Kutir, a sprawling bungalow off Pune. Unfair that Ram Gopal Verma and his acolytes should be turning such beautiful houses into uninhabitable properties by making them so heavily spooked. After a dead Manjeet in Bhoot, you encounter several similar ashen-faced spirits in Vaastu. In fact, it's virtually a community of souls here that refuse to rest in peace.
Like the kid in Sixth Sense, the onus of seeing dead people lies on a terribly sweet and innocent child (Channa). Incidentally, Channa has a working, doctor mother (a very competent Sen who wears nice ethnic kurtas and very little makeup) and homebound writer-father (Chekravarty returns). This new gender equation is perhaps the only fresh angle to the film. Otherwise, the plot's almost non-existent. All that happens by way of action is that the ghosts who were very friendly with the child initially turn menacing by the minute.
Many viewers do giggle with fear but the dread stems not so much from the story as the cinematic tricks. Narang plays with his viewers' expectations, manipulates their collective psyche with some fine stabs of the unexpected. Like the coinciding of the dream and the reality in the scene where Sushmita's sister (Peeya) encounters ghosts on her way to the house in the night. Narang tries out the Verma-brand of imaginative shot-taking, the scenes unfold slowly and deliberately, there is minimal use of dialogue and long tracks of silence that regularly get broken by sudden, unsettling, and at most times totally unnecessary sound effects. But these unsettling elements and stylistic flourishes are themselves becoming a new formula and can't hide the fact that the film is after all just another Ramsay tale of spirits seeking retribution. The real terror then is the maid who ill-treats the child and the most terrifying scene is the one where she almost shoves the kid in front of a speeding truck. Finally, a request to all future horror filmmakers: go easy on sound, in fact try out a silent horror film for a change.
Indian Top 5
1. Vaastu Shastra
2. Dhoom
3. Kis Kis Ki Kismat
4. Balle Balle Amritsar to LA
5. Tauba Tauba
US Top 5
1. The Grudge
2. Shark Tale
3. Shall We Dance
4. Friday Night Lights
5. Team America: World Police
Courtesy: Film Information
