After bringing to limelight unfulfilled desires of spirits in films like “Raaz” and “1920″, director Vikram Bhatt is back with his third horror outing “Shaapit”. Releasing Friday, it explores how a curse works through generations.
Co-produced by Bhatt and Manmohan Singh, “Shaapit” is singer Udit Narayan’s son Aditya Narayan’s debut film. It also stars newcomer Shweta Agarwal and model-turned-actor Rahul Dev.
“The curse played a pivotal role in Indian stories and mythologies, but I don’t think there is any film made on the subject. So I thought that it would be an interesting thing to make a film on a curse and how it works in one’s life,” Bhatt said.
“I did some research and a very important fact emerged. It was how a curse actually functions. The person who has cursed and the person who has been cursed may no longer be there but the curse remains on their family for generations,” he said.
The story of “Shaapit” revolves around Aman who proposes to Kaaya but neither of them know that there is a curse that plagues Kaaya’s family.
As soon as Kaaya wears the engagement ring and the couple drives off together, their car takes a spin and bounces off the road, almost killing both of them.
When her parents hear about their daughter’s accident, they rush to the hospital to find an engagement ring on their daughter’s finger. Distraught, the father explains to the young couple that 300 years back their family had incurred the curse of an angry Brahmin that did not allow the daughters of their family to be married.
The couple finds it hard to believe but are left with little choice as their lives are constantly in danger.
Aman then meets Pashupathi, a master of the ways of the spiritual world. He tells Aman that in some cultures, there was a belief that a generational curse works generation after generation much after the person who had uttered the curse was dead.
Aman asks Pashupathi if there was a way to destroy the spirit and get rid of the curse. Pashupathi tells him that there is a way but it was filled with peril. If he sets about to hunt and destroy a spirit, then the spirit would also know it is being hunted. It would then become a war between man and the devil.
Aman says he would fight for his love and begins the journey to declare war.
“Before starting this film, I did a course of psychic meditation. By psychic meditation we can speak to spirits. With constant meditation you can avoid that too. I have seen spirits. If we believe that there is a spirit in everybody, then we have to believe that after we die the spirit remains. It’s all about belief,” Bhatt said.
Aditya, who is also a singer, has crooned four songs in “Shaapit”.