A HILARIOUS HAUNTING

If you have a dark past in Romania, what’s the one place on earth you avoid going back to? Romania, right? Yet our brooding, intrepidhero,thegenericallynamed Mr Rehaan Kapoor (Gaurav Arora), takes a job in Romania. And signs on for five years.

If you’ve already started with the slow claps, wait. There’s so much more. Raaz, director Vikram Bhatt’s genre-bending series — masquerading as horror, but providing laughs since 2002 — does not disappoint in its so-called Reboot.

Turns out Kapoor’s wife, Shaina, also has a bit of a Romanian past: a vaguely explained chapter with an exlover, Aditya (Bhatt boy Emraan Hashmi, hamming away to hell; no apparent relation to Aditya from Raaz 3). Shaina (Kriti Kharbanda) was a model. Aditya was a fashion photographer. (Let it go; you don’t dwell on clichés in a Bhatt film).

But her days of wild romance and racy photoshoots over, Shaina’s settled down with the love of her life (Career? Who needs that?). The trouble starts even before they’ve begun unpacking. She wants a child. He does not. Sensitive Mr Kapoor is so harrowed (by the fight that ensues, but more by the Romanian “raaz”), he sleeps in a different bedroom.

Mrs Kapoor sobs silently, alone in a cavernous room, in full evening dress and complete make-up. And as she cries, like a good wife, she starts unpacking. And discovers a blood-stained laptop. What would you do? Confront your husband? Take it to the cops? Well, they never discuss it. Why is it even there, packed neatly in a carton, presumably shipped from India? Who knows... Soon enough, though, all hell breaks loose. Blood rains from the laptop, CGI eyes stare out of bathroom sinks.