Date:11/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/11/stories/2008091150820200.htm

New Delhi

Story of love and horror from 1920

Madhur Tankha

NEW DELHI: For his upcoming period horror film, Bollywood director Vikram Bhatt has roped in debutantes Rajneesh Duggal, a known model, and Adah Sharma in the main lead.

Set in 1920, the film traces the love story of an Indian boy and an Anglo-Indian girl. The film, ‘1920’, also stars Raj Zutshi, Vipin Sharma, Anjori Alagh and Vallab Vyas.

An architect, Arjun (Rajneesh), manages to win an assignment that involves the breaking down of an ancient but beautiful castle-like house at a hill station and constructing a hotel in its place. Isolated in the wilderness, the house has a secret. It is waiting for a curse to come true.

For years, anyone who bought the house and tried to pull it down had died under strange circumstances. It seems the house has a will and a life of its own.

Arjun and his wife Lisa (Adah Sharma) move into the house. Strange and inexplicable events start taking place. The curse says they will not survive. They will have to depend on the love and faith if they are to come out of the precarious situation alive.

Vikram says: “The script is more powerful than ‘Raaz’. A great love story of sacrifice, of God, of strife and of course devil, the film has turned out to be everything I had hoped for. I saw in my mind a horse-drawn carriage through the mist and a castle. That is all that I had when I started thinking about ‘1920’. It was an instinct that when the period setting will blend with supernatural it will produce something unseen.”

Speaking about his role, Rajneesh says he was offered many movies earlier but all of them were the chocolate hero types. “I wasn’t interested in any of that. I was looking forward to a good script and competent director. ‘1920’ is a combination of both of these aspects and I’m glad that I got this platform to prove myself.”

Admitting that he has been actively modelling and doing commercial ads, Rajneesh says the silver screen is different from print and TV commercials.

“I am excited and nervous at the same time because walking on the ramp and playing a lead in a movie are two different things. Even in a TV commercial or in a music video, one does not get much scope to perform, so this is a new experience and a refreshing career choice for me.”