Love Games and other horrors of being Vikram Bhatt

Chances of people being keen to watch Love Games (2016), the latest from director Vikram Bhatt, would be as slim as them being able to recall the last few releases of the filmmaker. And, although this is a very personal, and perhaps slightly odious observation on the writer’s behalf, those who might have seen Bhatt’s earlier films before he became some sort of an assembly line for low-grade horror, would understand the reasoning.

Once upon a time following the success of Ghulam, Bhatt was being hailed as a young filmmaker to keep an eye on. The son of cinematographer Pravin Bhatt, Vikram started very young and was barely out of his teens when he began assisting Mukul Anand on Kanoon Kya Karega (1984) and was also the chief assistant director on Agneepath (1991). He later assisted Shekhar Kapur and Mahesh Bhatt, who became a mentor of sorts to him and gave him his independent break with Jaanam (1992).

Being around the likes of Anand, Kapur, and Mahesh Bhatt perhaps left quite an impression on Vikram’s idea of filmmaking that mirrors the style of his gurus. While their doggedness and staging seem to have rubbed off on Vikram, unfortunately, so did their penchant for being inspired by Hollywood.

It’s an almost impossible task for even for those who followed Vikram Bhatt’s filmography to spot a film that wasn’t inspired by a previously made film. Right from the time he started, Bhatt has somewhere been consciously trying to mould himself as the future custodian of the kind of filmmaking that could be identified with an early Mahesh Bhatt or Mukul Anand. After the initial flops when the tide finally began to turn, initially only to a certain degree with Fareb (1996), partly thanks to the chartbuster "Yeh teri aankhen jhuki jhuki" and later with the runaway success of Ghulam, Vikram’s transition as the future Mahesh Bhatt had started to take shape.

Also read: Why horror movies die bloody deaths

One of the reasons for this affinity besides Mahesh being the producer who constantly employed Vikram, of course, was also the manner in which Vikram replaced his mentor as the director of Ghulam.

Initially, Mahesh Bhatt was supposed to direct the film and it featured Aamir Khan along with Pooja Bhatt but Khan wasn’t too happy with daughter Bhatt gaining too much weight and daddy Bhatt directing far too many films at the same time. He gave both an ultimatum to literally and figuratively shape up or ship out and when they walked away he asked Vikram Bhatt to step in. The success of Ghulam catapulted Vikram Bhatt to a different league but it was the surprise success of his next, Raaz (2002) that truly made him an A-Lister.

The success of Raaz not only revived an interest in the horror genre but also made it mainstream chic. But the film’s greatest achievement was that it overcame the trappings of the genre and didn’t rely on classic horror genre elements (read monsters prancing around et al) and moreover the absence of stars only made the success bigger.

The film was plagiarised from What Lies Beneath (2000) and while many set pieces from the film owe their genesis to Robert Zemeckis' original, the film’s music, one of the last big Nadeem-Shravan hits, made the comparisons futile after a point.

Bhatt’s next two releases in the same year Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage (2002) and Awara Paagal Deewana (2002) featured few of the biggest stars of the period and while the former with Hrithik Roshan flopped miserably, the latter was not only one of the biggest hits of the year but also spawned off a sequel.

Largely inspired by There’s Something About Mary (1998), Awara Pagal Deewana (APD) featured Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, and Johnny Lever. In spite of the success of APD, the trajectory of Bhatt’s career changed. Unlike mentor Mahesh Bhatt, Vikram simply couldn’t sustain the pace and while he still attracted stars and made economically viable films, he ceased to be an A-Lister.

Amongst the films that he made post APD barring a handful like Aetbaar (2004) with Amitabh Bachchan or Deewane Hue Pagal (2005), the sequel to APD, most of them featured smaller draws such as Aftab Shivdasani, Zayed Khan, Ashmit Patel and such in Footpath (2003), Ankahee (2006), Jurm (2005), Speed (2007), Fear (2007), Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee (2007), Red: The Dark Side (2007). 

These films were barely noticed then and rarely recalled now.

Although Vikram Bhatt predates a whole lot of post-millennial filmmakers like Rohit Shetty, Farah Khan, Sajid Khan or Nikhil Advani and a few others promoted by Yashraj Films or Ram Gopal Varma - who could be seen as heirs of sort to some filmmakers or a kind of cinema - he hasn’t had the same streak of luck.

Rohit Shetty and Farah Khan might want to make the same kind of films that say a Manmohan Desai or Prakash Mehra or Brij might have been famous for or a Nikhil Advani fancied himself to be the next Karan Johar or even a poor man’s Yash Chopra (considering that Johar as well as Aditya Chopra would like to stake claim to that style) and even when they ran out of steam, they still managed to attract stars and this is something that Vikram Bhatt has failed at.

Barring Bipasha Basu, who owed her first solo hit, Raaz, to Vikram Bhatt none of the stars stuck around for him and this when he was the one who "discovered" Emraan Hashmi (Footpath), tried to give John Abraham his first shot at "acting" (Elaan) and even tried to re-launch Mithun Chakraborty Ver 2.0 as a baddie in (Elaan). The only way Vikram Bhatt now remains in circulation is by unleashing a new horror or adult thriller at regular intervals, but much like the falling quality of production with every new release, Bhatt’s audience also seems to be dwindling. Unlike Raaz, Bhatt's recent horror films – Fear (2007), 1920 (2008), Shaapit: The Cursed (2010), Haunted – 3D (2011), and Mr X (2015) - all look the same from a distance. 

Looking at how things turned out for Bhatt, even though this writer doesn't expect much from a Vikram Bhatt film, it's still a tad too much to endure a better part of Bhatt’s recent filmography. But, much to the chagrin of those who don’t expect anything from Bhatt all isn’t lost. His latest, Love Games, is purportedly inspired by incidents from the filmmaker’s own life and unlike lifting just about anything ranging from On the Waterfront to There’s Something About Mary perhaps distilling his own life into a film script might help Bhatt discover something new.

His mentor, Mahesh, made some of his best films like Arth and Zakham when he based them on his own life experiences and while like in the past where Ankahee was supposedly based on the filmmaker’s stormy relationship with Sushmita Sen, this one is rumored to have been inspired by events that transpired while the filmmaker was seeing someone. Going beyond his proclivity for shock or awe with horror or twisted adult themes where threesomes and swapping are supposed as natural as breathing, Vikram Bhatt might still come up with a film that delivers the faint promise he once displayed.