Vikram Bhatt next: scariest film

Is what Vikram Bhatt wants to make his next, Shaapith

Is what Vikram Bhatt wants to make his next, Shaapith

I'm In It: Shweta Agarwal

Vikram Bhatt rolls his next horror film Shaapith (The Curse) on February 15. After Raaz and 1920, Vikram now wants to make the scariest film ever with special effects.

Not gory

Busy with the pre-production, the filmmaker says, "Shaapith will make 1920 look like a children's film. My new project is an adventure-laden horror film. There's a search for something. It's not gory, just plain scary."

Like Hollywood horror flicks Poltergeist, Evil Dead and The Exorcist, the filmmaker does not want to take recourse to the usual trappings to depict horror. "All the scary things unfold as part of the adventure."

He adds, "There have been films like The Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing The Stone, The Lord of the Rings the elements are all weaved as part of the plot."

He is aware that horror often spells comedy in B-Town. "But luckily, not for me. This time, I want to really scare."

Few details

Though Vikram does not want to spell too many details at this stage, it is learnt that Shaapith is set in contemporary times and then goes 300 years back. Apart from Mumbai, the film will be shot in Scotland and Rajasthan.

As reported ('Bhatt knows best'; HiTLIST, January 30) Shaapith features Sa Re Ga Ma Pa anchor Aditya Narayan (son of singer Udit Narayan), Shweta Agarwal (who featured in the Star soap Dekho Magar Pyar Se) and Shubh Joshi (a reality show winner).

He prefers taking fresh faces for his projects. "For Shaapith, I needed a young cast," he adds.

'I'm in no hurry to see Raaz The Mystery Continues'

Though Vikram Bhatt is best known as the Raaz director, he has not yet seen Mohit Suri's version of Raaz The Mystery Continues. Vikram directed the Bipasha Basu-Dino Morea starrer in 2002.

"Anyway it is not a sequel but a new story with a different set of characters. My interest to see the film would be purely academic like my desire to see any other movie that gets released every week. I will wait for the DVD to arrive. I am in no tearing hurry to see it," says Vikram.

The filmmaker was not invited to any of the Raaz The Mystery Continues screenings. "But then I did not extend an invitation to anyone from their side for 1920, so why would I expect anyone to invite me? It's okay.

We still share a cordial relationship," he maintains about his fall-out with producers Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt.