Just like Ramsays in the 80's and early 90's were the pioneers in the horror genre, similarly Vikram Bhatt is creating his niche in this genre, well now with technology like VFX and 3D Format.
But after watching "Creature" I felt that Vikram Bhatt has not really grown after his major hit in this genre "Raaz" in 2001. The tag line of the movie says "Fear has a New Face", well unfortunately Vikram offers nothing new to accentuate the fear other than the VFX created monster.
"Creature" tells the story of Ahana (Bipasha Basu) who purchases a property in a hill station Glendale in Himachal and starts a Boutique hotel. Things go awfully awry when her guests start getting attacked by a monster or Bhramha Rakshash. How the damsel in distress fights against the monster forms the crux of the story.
Story by Vikram Bhatt himself and screenplay by him and Sukhmani Sadana has nothing new. It is clichéd and the first half takes enough time to build up, with sub plots of Ahana's father and his suicide and the not so happening love story of Ahana and Kunal (Imran Abbas) which basically wastes a lot of screen time in songs and the mythological twist of Bhramha Rakshah almost kills the movie and what we get is a half baked VFX driven bland script. Some sequences in the movie instead of making your jump from the seat, makes you laugh. Overall the writing has immense flaws and too dated.
The dialogues by Girish Dhamija is so outdated that you feel you are watching a movie from the 90's, some dialogues are unintentionally funny like when the Kunal tells Ahana referring to bank officials as vultures, Ahana replies she is not dead yet.
The narration by Vikram Bhatt is sluggish and looks dated and in many sequences you are reminded of "Raaz", Vikram Bhatt's blockbuster of 2001 which was 13 years back. I think Vikram needs to re-invent his style.
Performances by the cast also do not help. Bipasha Basu who plays Ahana has a perpetual frown on her face throughout the movie and looks confused. Bipasha repeats her "Raaz" act again but she forgot that "Raaz" was 13 years back and times have changed, overall she gives a below average performance. Debutant Pakistani actor Imran Abbas as Kunal is least impressive and has only one expression for all the scenes whether it was Romantic, Sad or Fearful. Mukul Dev as Professor Sadana sleep walks through his portrayal, cannot blame him as the character was written half baked. Rests of the cast are equally unimpressive.
Music by Mithoon has no soul and the choreography by Raju Khan is extremely mediocre. It is only the VFX generated monster which looks like a amalgamation of Hollywood creatures from Aliens, Predator and Jurrassic Park, is impressive.
"Creature" could have been India's answer to "Predator", but alas the outcome is too bland and mediocre, even the 3D format could not salvage a weak script and sluggish narration.
