1920: Evil Returns

1920: The Evil Returns is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language supernatural horror film written by Vikram Bhatt and directed by Bhushan Patel. A quasi-sequel to the 2008 film 1920, and the second of the 1920 film series, it stars Aftab Shivdasani, Tia Bajpai, Vidya Malvade and Sharad Kelkar. The film is third in a series of quasi-sequels released under the Bhatt Banner including Raaz – The Mystery Continues, Murder 2, Jism 2, Jannat 2 and Raaz 3D each of which had nothing to do with their respective prequels, but somehow fell in the same genre following a similar story. The trailer was released on 28 September 2012.

The film released on 2 November 2012 to mixed reception and fared better at the opening Box Office weekend (122.7 million Net.) as compared to any other releases that week except Skyfall (270 million Net.). U Dinesh Kumar, Professor at IIM Bangalore and his team worked with Ami Shah of IntelliAssist, the company that carried out the social media marketing for the film, and assessed Internet activities and campaigns with the case study later published by Harvard Business Publishing.

Plot
In 1920, Jaidev Verma is a famous poet who lives as a loner as he is unable to meet the love of his life, Smriti. They got to know each other through an exchange of letters and slowly fall in love. One day, Jaidev receives a letter informing him that Smriti had died by an accident. His sister Karuna is the only support system that keeps him 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 so when an undertaker warns them of an evil spirit inside her.

Jaidev is insistent on keeping her at home since he feels a connection to her. He names her Sangeeta and she experiences frightening phenomena, vomiting iron nails and seeing ghosts in her room. On their way to see a doctor, Sangeeta gets possessed by the ghost. To save her, the only person Jaidev can turn to is the cemetery keeper. Slowly Jaidev gets to know that Sangeeta is actually his lost love Smriti. He goes to Smriti's address to find out the truth about her. He discovers that Karuna had come there earlier, asking about Smriti. Jaidev returns home and finds Karuna's body hanging in the forest with suicide notes around it. From Karuna's letters, he learns that his best friend Amar, who envied Jaidev's success, assaulted Karuna. When Amar discovered that Jaidev loved Smriti, he went to Smriti, posing as Jaidev, and took her to his residence in Shimla to abuse her, but in the process, Amar was killed. It is his spirit that now possesses Smriti.

The cemetery keeper warns Jaidev that the spirit is very vengeful and has to be deceitfully taken to the same place it all happened — Amar's residence in Shimla. Once Smriti touches Amar's corpse, Amar's spirit will have to leave Smriti's body and return to his own body; the corpse can then be set on fire, releasing Amar's spirit from the karmic cycle of life and death. Whilst doing this, Smriti must not know where she is being taken, else the spirit will also know. So Smriti is made unconscious and fully wrapped in a sacred cloth. They reach Amar's house, but the cemetery keeper trips and the sacred cloth moves away from Smriti's face, awakening the spirit. The possessed Smriti kills all but Jaidev.

Jaidev is badly injured in the battle against the spirit. The spirit in Smriti's body burns Amar's corpse, thus forever remaining in her body. Jaidev helplessly pleads with the spirit to kill him, since there is no meaning in letting him live if the spirit will take Smriti from him. Amar's spirit refuses, saying that this is exactly what he wanted: for Jaidev to suffer. Jaidev cuts a rope attached to a loft in ceiling; a corpse falls from there, landing on Smriti, and making contact with her. It is revealed in a flashback that Jaidev and the group had hidden the real corpse of Amar in the ceiling as precaution. The corpse comes alive as Amar is forced to return to his original body. Enraged, Amar's corpse tries to kill Smriti, but Jaidev saves her and sets Amar's corpse on fire, thus freeing Amar's spirit. Jaidev and Smriti get married and the film ends as they 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.

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 inr 115000000 nett. The film had a good first week and collected inr 160000000 nett. It had collected around inr 45000000 nett in its second week taking its total to inr 205000000 nett. It finished at inr 229000000 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.