1920: Evil Returns

Plot

In 1920, Jaidev Verma is a famous poet who lives as a loner as Jaidev is unable to meet the love of his life, Smriti. Jaidev and Smriti got to know each other through an exchange of letters and slowly fell in love. While travelling at night, Smriti is attacked by a Possessed Badrinath, Smriti's driver. One of Smriti's employee visits and informs Jaidev that Smriti had died in an accident. Jaidev's sister, Karuna keeps Jaidev motivated. Jaidev finds an unconscious girl near a lake and brings her home. After gaining consciousness, she is unable to remember anything from her life except Jaidev's poems. Karuna becomes skeptical of her presence in the house and gets even more skeptical when an undertaker warns Jaidev and Karuna of an evil spirit inside the girl.

Jaidev is insistent on keeping the girl at home since Jaidev feels a connection with the girl. Jaidev names the girl as Sangeeta. Sangeeta experiences frightening phenomena, vomiting iron nails and seeing ghosts in her room. Jaidev takes Sangeeta to a hospital but the haunting continues. As the doctor is unable to treat Sangeeta, he suggests visiting another advanced hospital in Shimla. Jaidev and Sangeeta stay in a hotel on their way to Shimla. Outside the hotel, Sangeeta gets attacked by Possessed Badrinath, regains her memory and understands that she is Smriti. Sangeeta is possessed by the ghost and Jaidev brings Sangeeta to his house. Jaidev turns to the cemetery keeper, who warned about the possession earlier, for help. With the cemetery keeper's help Jaidev understands that Sangeeta is actually Smriti. Jaidev visits Smriti's address to find out the truth and discovers that Karuna had come to Smriti's house earlier, asking about Smriti. Jaidev returns home and finds Karuna's body hanging in the forest with suicide notes around.

From Karuna's suicide notes, Jaidev learns that his best friend, Amar, who envied Jaidev's success, had a sexual relationship with Karuna. When Amar discovered that Jaidev loved Smriti, Amar steals one of the love letters to find Smriti's address. Karuna confronts Amar about the letter. Amar blackmails Karuna and Karuna hides everything from Jaidev. Amar went to meet Smriti, posing as Jaidev, and took Smriti to Amar's new residence which is under construction in Shimla. Eventually Smriti understands Amar's deceit and confronts Amar. Amar confess his plan to Smriti while assaulting her. Smriti pushes Amar away and Amar falls to his death. Smriti and one of the employees hides Amar's corpse inside Amar's residence. Amar's spirit is now possessing Smriti. Jaidev burns karuna's corpse.

The cemetery keeper warns Jaidev that the spirit is very vengeful and has to be deceitfully taken to the place where Amar died. The cemetery keeper explains that once Smriti touches Amar's corpse, Amar's spirit will have to leave Smriti's body and return to Amar's corpse and the corpse can then be set on fire, destroying Amar's spirit. While doing this, Smriti must not know where Smriti is being taken; else the spirit will also know. Smriti is fully wrapped in a sacred cloth and taken to Amar's partly constructed house by Jaidev, the cemetery keeper and two of Jaidev's employees. The floor cracks and one of Jaidev's employees trips and the sacred cloth moves away from Smriti, awakening the spirit. The possessed Smriti kills all except Jaidev.

Jaidev is badly injured in the battle against the spirit. The spirit in Smriti's body eats the remains of the cemetery keeper's body and seemingly burns Amar's corpse, thus forever remaining in Smriti's body. Jaidev helplessly pleads with the spirit to kill him, since there is no meaning in letting Jaidev live if the spirit will take Smriti from him forever. Amar's spirit refuses, saying that this is exactly what Amar wanted: for Jaidev to suffer. Jaidev cuts a rope attached to a loft in the ceiling; a corpse falls on Smriti. It is revealed that Jaidev and the group had hidden the real corpse of Amar in the ceiling as a precaution. Amar's spirit leaves Smriti's body and enters the corpse. Enraged, Amar's corpse tries to kill Smriti, but Jaidev saves Smriti and sets Amar's corpse on fire, thus destroying Amar's spirit. Jaidev and Smriti consummate their union.

Cast

• Aftab Shivdasani as Jaidev Verma
• Tia Bajpai as Smriti/Sangeeta
• Vidya Malvade as Karuna Verma
• Sharad Kelkar as Amar (evil Spirit)
• Vicky Ahuja as Bankimlal
• Sanjay Sharma as Bhola
• Tarakesh Chauhan as the doctor in the town hospital
• Naresh Sharma as the driver of a horse carriage
• Yogesh Tripathi as Chand
• Falguni Rajani as Smriti's landlord

Soundtrack

The music for the film was composed by Chirantan Bhatt and the lyrics written by Shakeel Azmi, Junaid Wasi & Manoj Yadav. The music got positive reviews from critics.

Hindi

Tamil

Critical reception

Renuka Vyavahare of Times of India gave it 3 stars. "1920 gives you the creeps...watch it." said ToI. Rediff Movies said "1920 Evil Returns is yet another needless horror film. It's cold and bland." and gave it 1 star. Roshni Devi of Koimoi gave it 2 stars. "Watch it only if you're desperate for some uninspiring horror. Give it a rest otherwise." wrote Roshni Devi. Social Movie Rating site MOZVO gave it a rating of 2.3 putting it in 'Below Average' category. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it 2.5 stars.

Box office

1920 – Evil Returns had a decent opening weekend where it collected around nett. The film had a good first week and collected nett. It had collected around nett in its second week taking its total to nett. It finished at in the domestic market.

Sequel

The reasonable success of 1920 – Evil Returns prompted producer Vikram Bhatt to plan another sequel. "I will be making another sequel to 1920. We are working on the script right now. It is too early to talk about it as we are developing the concept for it", Vikram said in an interview. It was also revealed that the film would not be in 3D. The sequel to the movie was later named as 1920 London, and released on 6 May 2016.

References

References

1. "» 1920 Evil Returns reviews Read reviews by rajeev masand, Taran adarsh bollywood hungama, anupam chopra hindustan times boxoffice collection".
2. "1920 - Evil Returns - Movie - Box Office India".
3. (23 April 2012). "'1920-Evil Returns' will be different from the rest: Aftab". [[Indian Express]].
4. (22 August 2011). "Aftab Shivdasani signs his first horror movie". [[MiD DAY]].
5. (6 November 2012). "1920 Evil Returns is a surprise hit at the box office".
6. (1 September 2013). "1920 Evil Returns – Bollywood and Social Media Marketing". [[Harvard Business Publishing]].
7. (28 January 2014). "IIM-B scripts case on digital promos of Bollywood film". [[The Hindu Business Line]].
8. "IIMB case study on the film". [[IIM Bangalore]].
9. "hauhted Cast & Crew".
10. "1920 Evil Returns – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack". Jio Saavn.
11. "1920: The Evil Returns". [[Times of India]].
12. "Review: 1920: Evil Returns is not scary at all". [[Rediff]].
13. (2 November 2012). "1920 – Evil Returns Review". koimoi.com.
14. "1920 – Evil Returns Review". MOZVO.
15. "1920 – Evil Returns".
16. "1920 – Evil Returns Has Solid Weekend". boxofficeindia.
17. "1920 – Evil Returns Week One Territorial Breakdown". boxofficeindia.
18. "Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Son of Sardaar Score at the Box Office". boxofficeindia.