Click (2010 film)

Click is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language supernatural horror film directed by Sangeeth Sivan, starring Shreyas Talpade, Sadha Sayed, Sneha Ullal, Rehan Khan, and Chunky Pandey. It is based on the 2004 Thai film Shutter by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, and is its third Indian adaptation after Photo (2006) and Sivi (2007). The film follows a photographer and his girlfriend who begin to have paranormal experiences after they accidentally run over a woman.

The film was released on 19 February 2010, receiving praise for the performances and criticism for the length. It ended up as a major box office disappointment, grossing ₹1.6 crore worldwide against a budget of ₹7.5 crore.

Plot
Avinash “Avi” Mehra is an ace photographer who is in a live-in relationship with Sonia, a model. One night while returning from a party, the couple accidentally hit a young girl with their speeding car. As Sonia was driving the car, to avoid further complications, Avi insists on them fleeing from the accident scene. But trouble starts for the couple soon after. While strange white marks begin to appear in Avi's photos, Sonia starts having spooky experiences. Avi also develops a severe neck pain and even though he does not appear to be overweight, a scale reveals that he weighs 120 kilograms (264.6 pounds). Avi, too, starts having experiences similar to Sonia's. The couple is petrified when all of Avi's best friends commit suicide in a similar manner. It then comes to light that the spirit haunting them all has a connection to Avi's college life. Meanwhile, Sonia finds out that Avi was friends with a girl named Aarti Kaushik during his college days. As Avi and Sonia are still being haunted by Aarti they go and visit her, but realize that Aarti is dead, having apparently committed suicide by using a knife. Aarti's mother believes that she is still alive, thinking that she is merely ill and will recover. On the way home Aarti continues to haunt Avi and Sonia, and again during the night at the hotel she also haunts Avi in his sleep, ending up with him being thrown off the fire escape.

Later Avi is in the hospital and Sonia tells him that Aarti will be cremated, and they visit her funeral before returning to their home town. Sonia finds some photos of Aarti, where she is crawling to get something. As she follows the pattern indicated by Aarti, Sonia discovers that Avi's best friends (who later committed suicide) are raping Aarti. When Sonia talks to Avi about this dark secret, he tells her that he only wanted Aarti to understand his feelings, but that when his best friends tried to talk to her, Aarti hurt Avi's friend Tarun, who became angry and with his friends raped her. Avi claims that when he entered the room he was shocked at the scene and tried to help her, but that Tarun then said that Avi had asked them to rape her as a way of avoiding jail, and accused Avi of planning to do this to her and having one of Avi's friends taking the pictures. Avi then tells Sonia that the reason he kept the photos was to remind him that he failed to protect Aarti and say he is the guilty one. But Sonia leaves him and wishes him that Aarti may forgive him. Later on Avi attempts to kill himself in the same way his best friends did, but as a Polaroid camera clicks towards him, he sees Aarti sitting on his shoulders. Avi is suddenly thrown through the window, and ends up in the hospital, where it is revealed that the reason why she was sitting on his shoulders was that Aarti had still loved Avi. As Sonia makes another photograph of Avi, she speaks to Aarti, asserting that one day she will let go as the reflection in the mirror shows Aarti still leaning on Avi's back.

Cast

 * Shreyas Talpade as Avinash "Avi" Mehra
 * Sadha Sayed as Sonia Kaushal
 * Sneha Ullal as Aarti Kaushik
 * Rehan Khan		 as Tarun
 * Chunky Pandey as Manu Sharma
 * Jyoti Dogra
 * Avtar Gill as Ali bhai
 * Riya Sen	 ...	Special Appearance
 * Shishir Sharma as Aarti's father
 * Kavitta Verma

Soundtrack
The music was composed by Shamir Tandon and released by T-Series. All lyrics were penned by Shabbir Ahmed.

Joginder Tuteja from Bollywood Hungama gave the soundtrack 2 stars out 5, singling Rubayee and Yaadein out for praise.

Theatrical
The film was released theatrically on 19 February 2010. A Tamil dubbed version titled Monica House was released in January 2016.

Home media
Moser Baer released the film on DVD and VCD in India. Reviewing the DVD, Joginder Tuteja from Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and praised it, adding that the DVD came in a regular plastic case with no special features and priced at ₹99/- only, it had a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen presentation with English subtitles and audio tracks in Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo.

Critical response
Nithya Ramani of Rediff.com gave the film 3 stars out of 5, lauding the performances, effects, background music and cinematography, while feeling the songs were unnecessary. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama felt the film was heavily inspired by the Thai film Shutter, and awarding the film 2.5 stars out of 5, praised the performances, sound design, background score and the culmination to the story. However, he remained critical of the spirit's makeup and found the songs "strictly okay" but worsened by their non-promotion. Writing for Times of India, Gaurav Malani gave the film 2 stars out of 5, criticising the film for not crediting the Thai original and felt the writing was contrived while the cinematography was "no great shakes" and the editing, lousy. Nonetheless, he also found the culmination "inventive and interestingly handled." Another reviewer from the same website gave the film a 2.5/5 star rating, remarking that the film worked only in fits and starts, and while Talpade did try hard to keep the momentum going, the campy special effects left a lot to be desired. The reviewer, however, recommended the film for the final twist and some goosebumps in the beginning.

Box office
The film grossed inr 13600000.000000002 in India, failing commercially.