Ghost Stories (2020 film)

Ghost Stories
Directed by	Karan Johar Dibakar Banerjee Zoya Akhtar Anurag Kashyap
Written by	Karan Johar Dibakar Banerjee Zoya Akhtar Isha Luthra Avinash Sampath
Produced by	Ronnie Screwvala Ashi Dua Sanaullah
Starring	Sobhita Dhulipala Mrunal Thakur Avinash Tiwary Janhvi Kapoor Surekha Sikri Raghuvir Yadav Gulshan Devaiah Vijay Varma Pavail Gulati
Cinematography	Sylvester Fonseca Tanay Satam Kamaljeet Negi Manu Anand Mitesh Mirchandani Ranjan Palit
Production companies	RSVP Movies Flying Unicorn Entertainment
Distributed by	Netflix
Release date	1 January 2020 (2020-01-01)
Running time	144 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Ghost Stories is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language anthology horror film, consisting of four short film segments directed by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap. It is co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Ashi Dua under their production banner RSVP Movies and Flying Unicorn Entertainment respectively. The film features an ensemble cast including Mrunal Thakur, Avinash Tiwary, Janhvi Kapoor, Raghuvir Yadav, Sobhita Dhulipala, Vijay Varma and Pavail Gulati. It was released on Netflix on January 1, 2020.

Plot

Zoya Akhtar

Sameera (Janhvi Kapoor), a young attractive nurse, arrives to take care of an ailing bed ridden elderly lady (Surekha Sikri) in a near desolate house. The former is needy, clutching at a reluctant lover Guddu (Vijay Varma); the latter, a stunner in her time. The son is supposed to be taking care of old mother for the duration between the change of nurses., but he is not around. The old lady tells Sameera that her son is sleeping in the next room but is not there .Later it is found out that the son had not come to take care of her mother and she had died due to starvation.

Anurag Kashyap

Set in what feels like ‘90s Britain with a heavily desaturated look that borders on monochrome, it centres on a paranoid, pregnant woman (Sobhita Dhulipala) who babysits her late sister's kid Ansh (Zachary Braz). The affection of a kid and the obsession of a childless young woman assumes terrifying proportions.

Dibakar Banerjee

A man (Sukant Goel) arrives in a small town, Bees-ghara to find it empty, except for a boy (Aditya Shetty) and girl (Eva Ameet Pardeshi). He's told that everyone has been eaten up by the girl's father,who is the chairman of beesghara, and the people of beesghara.The man first does not believe them and when he tries to go out, is met with a zombie like women,who attacks him.The boy rescues him,and back in the safe house,he decides to save these children and alert the local authorities.When he gets out and enters a school,he sees the principal unresponsive and behaving strangely.He suddenly sprungs up and runs away,leaving the man puzzled.The kids explain to him that some people,in order to save themselves from getting eaten,started eating others too as they dont eat those who eat others.Just at this moment,the girl's father,who resembles a bear-like creature enters their room menacingly.His vision is not clear,so they do not move but the girl,overcome with her love for her father,goes near him,only to be killed and eaten by him.The rest,too stunned,dont move for a day and upon waking up find that the monster has left.The man has an idea that they take the remainings of the girl's body and cover their faces with it so that they will believe that they too are eaters and let them go.The entire place is under surveillance by the girl's father and upon seeing the pair he checks them personally and grows suspicious of the boy,who in reaction eats some of the flesh of the girl.Then the monster turns to the man,who first holds himself,but soon gets scared and starts running,resulting in him being chased by all the zombies around.On the way,he falls on a big hole which is made so that nobody can escape,and being caught,he is thrown on the girl's hand,so that he can demonstrate that he is one of them.The man refuses to do so,screams as the girl's father prounces on him,only to wake up from what is supposedly a dream.The man is then confuesed as he wakes up from the same hole where he fell,and runs towards beesghara,and seeing the place to be deserted and everything burning,asssumes the worst and cries that he failed is saving the children.At the same time,a car comes near him,which is full of people who resembled to zombies earlier.The man is then taken by them who tell him that they are people of saughara and that nobody leaves here after they burned it down because it was a very inferior place and that the golden age of saughara will come.

Karan Johar

Ira (Mrunal Thakur) agrees to have an ‘arranged marriage’ with handsome, wealthy Dhruv (Avinash Tiwary) who lives in a house his granny built. On the first night after her wedding, she sees her husband talking to a Granny who isn't there. Each night after that, Granny comes to bid Good night to Dhruv, who seems to be the only one who can see her. In spite of being an adult, he enjoys playing Peek-a-Boo with his dead Granny. Ira questions the maid Shanthi, and learns that Dhruv was playing Peek-a-Boo with his Granny and accidentally pushed her down the stairs. Granny was severely incapacitated and in terrible pain. Despite this, she would make it a point to visit Dhruv each wish him Good night. The conversation ends before Ira can learn the circumstances of Granny's passing. One night Ira gets tired of Dhruv's attachment to his dead grandmother and storms into Granny's room, still preserved as a shrine to Granny, and screams at Granny to leave them alone. The next day at breakfast, Shanthi helps Ira stir her oatmeal. Midway through breakfast, Ira starts having severe stomach cramps and is helped to her bed by Shanthi. As Ira lies writhing in pain, Shanthi completes their earlier conversation, telling Ira that Granny begged Shanthi to put an end to her pain. Being the obedient maid she is, she mixed castor seeds into Granny's breakfast thereby poisoning her to death. The viewer is led to understand that Shanthi did the same for Ira. Ira wakes up into a brightly lit room. Granny is hovering over her. Confused Ira asks Granny how it is that she can now see her. Granny lets her know that this is because Ira is now in Granny's world, implying that Ira is dead. Ira then turns her head to see other human forms while Granny tells her that those are the others that did not believe in Granny's presence.

Cast

Zoya Akhtar's segment

• Janhvi Kapoor as Sameera
• Surekha Sikri as Mrs. Malik
• Vijay Varma as Guddu

Anurag Kashyap's segment

• Sobhita Dhulipala as Neha
• Sagar Arya as Neha's husband
• Zachary Braz as Ansh
• Pavail Gulati as Ansh's father

Dibakar Banerjee's segment

• Sukant Goel as Visitor
• Aditya Shetty as Little Boy
• Eva Ameet Pardeshi as Little Girl
• Gulshan Devaiah as girl's Daddy

Karan Johar's segment

• Mrunal Thakur as Ira
• Avinash Tiwary as Dhruv
• Jyoti Subhash as Dhruv's Granny
• Kitu Gidwani as Dhruv's Mother
• Sumit Tandon as Dhruv's Father
• Namrata Chopra as Ira's Mother
• Kusha Kapila as Misha
• Shataf Figar as Ira's Father
• Heeba N Shah as Shanti

Production

In April 2019, it was announced that Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, and Karan Johar will be reuniting again after Lust Stories for a horror film for Netflix. In August, Akhtar began shooting for her segment with Vijay Varma and Janhvi Kapoor. In September, Kashyap began filming for his segment with Sobhita Dhulipala and Pavail Gulati. Mrunal Thakur and Avinash Tiwary have been cast for Johar's segment. Karan Johar found his story through a talent agency and started shooting for his segment of the anthology on 1 October 2019 in Goa.

Reception

Saibal Chatterjee from NDTV rated the movie 2.5 stars (out of 5) with review "Let alone genuine jump scares, the film does not even eke out moments that could be deemed spine-chilling".

Swetha Ramakrishnan rated the movie 3 stars (out of 5) on Firstpost "Dibakar Banerjee's political short film elevates an otherwise bland anthology that just isn't scary".

External links

• Ghost Stories at IMDb