Ragini MMS 2 Review

Ragini MMS 2 Review: Bhushan Patel’s is neither sexy nor scary nor silly fun – it’s just shitty. Baby Doll Sunny can fake an orgasm, but she can’t act to save her skin.

Rating: *

Director: Bhushan Patel

Cast: Sunny Leone, Saahil Prem, Parvin Dabas, Sandhya Mridhul, Divya Dutta, Karan Mehra, Soniya Mehra, Anita Hassanandani

Checklist: Is Sunny Leone’s act salacious enough to make you salivate? Will Ragini MMS 2 scare your good night’s sleep away? And do the campy thrills end up in an enjoyable film?

The answer is a big NO (alright, a small ‘no’ in case 1) on all three counts. The bottom-line is that Bhushan Patel’s sophomoric venture into horror, his first being ‘1920: Evil Returns’, is neither sexy nor scary nor silly fun – it’s just shitty.

The film opens by teasing us with an unsettling opening shot of an unusually desolate mental asylum. This is a typical horror movie set-up in which every single staff member seems to serve a sole inmate; you wonder how they get their funding with such dismal occupancy. Anyway, the inmate here is Ragini (Kainaz Motivala), our MMS-girl-gone-nuts-after-BF’s-scandalous-death-by-spirit (chudail, to be specific), and she curls herself in one corner with a visibly spooked expression and chants something indecipherable day and night.

A tortured soul she is, and so are we on exiting the film’s screening. But never mind, let’s switch to Sunny. The ex-adult entertainer scores it big when her job involves faking

an orgasm; we are to overlook that she completely forgets that two creepy fingers had peeped out of her mouth right in the previous scene.

It’s this awkward freewheeling shift in tone and genre, from jump-scare horror (ala The Conjuring) to ‘horrorex’ (a terminology coined by the filmmakers, referring to films blending elements of both horror and sex – Ramsay Brothers style, albeit with sophisticated production values) to campy-horror (Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead style) to comedy-horror (Scary Movie 2 way) to lowbrow comedy (Grand Masti-type) to romance to serious horror (in the manner of Ek Thi Daayan), that pours ice-cold water over any build-up the film could’ve achieved in its steamy or scary moments.

It’s possible each actor was briefed of a different Ragini MMS 2, so we have actors like Sandhya Mridhul and Karan Mehta playing their parts like a parody, Divya Dutta and Saahil Prem taking their portions very, very seriously, Parvin Dabbas acting like he’s in some sleazy horror-comedy, while Sunny doing a bit of everything. Imagine tasting a chicken curry that in addition to its usual ingredients includes methi, sugar, oats, fresh fruits, cod-liver oil and peppermint tablets; do the standout ingredients improve or ruin the final taste? All those saying aye for ‘improve’ will love the unwholesome assortment offered by Ragini MMS 2. And those choosing the latter can grasp just how messy this movie turns out. But let us continue with Sunny for the moment.

She aces her orgasms and lets her 34DD breasts do or rather lead to much of the talking, with audience comments like “Wow!” , “Those must weigh 50 kilos!”, “Run, breasts, run!” echoing in the theatre hall. Her character ‘Sunny’ was tailor-made for her. That means she plays a chick longing to shed her ultra-sexy image by appearing in ‘serious’ roles. For this, she visits Ragini as part of ‘research’ and gets a rude shock, with the partly possessed mental patient attempting to kill her until guards observing through CCTV cameras come to her rescue. By the way, which institution permits strangers to visit dangerous inmates unaccompanied? But let’s forget that for now and talk about Sunny’s woes.

Firstly, her upcoming film’s director Rocks (Dabas) is an ungentlemanly sleazebag with intentions of cashing in on Ragini’s tragedy to make a soft-core. His cast and crew includes a has-been TV star (Karan Mehra), a despo-Delhi-ki-wannabe actress (Mridhul), two nondescript actors (Soniya Mehra and another-whose’s-name-is-not-on-Wikipedia-and-probably-not-worth-a-mention), and an art-director (Anita Hassanandani – one of producer Ekta’s former ‘bahus’ from her serials) who uhmm… oh no, there’s nothing distinctive about her except her red streaks of hair. Nobody understands poor poor Sunny except morose moody scriptwriter Satya (Prem), a failed novelist tricked into thinking there was actual content (other than flesh) in the film. To introduce horror, the film packs them off to the same haunted house used by Ragini’s late boyfriend in the prequel to film an MMS only this time to shoot a film on the events. The chudail then finds the perfect spot for mayhem.

I guess you must’ve figured out who’s lucky enough to survive and who dies an unpleasant death. The actors playing broad caricatures (Dabas, Mehta, Mridhul, Soniya and Anita) are borderline irritating. They play fake people only so don’t hate to see them get bumped off, but we’re too aware that they’re faking it, so the scenes are hammier and humorless. Brenda from the Scary movie series got to play a ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-stereotypical-black-woman’-kinda character, but her antics are laugh-out-loud funny because she’s convincing as a stereotype. None of the actors in Ragini MMS 2 seem comfortable playing fake, especially Mridhul, a competent actress terribly miscast. Neither does it help that the film’s completely devoid of thrills.

Divya Dutta, a ‘special’ psychiatrist investigating Ragini’s case, reminds of the ghost-hunters from The Conjuring. If the film was about her investigation, it may’ve resulted in a far better film, more like a psychological horror. But alas, the film’s about Sunny. Baby doll can fake an orgasm, allow her breasts to command the screen and look comfortable naked – but she can’t act to save her skin.

ourvadodara.in Rating Guide:

* = Avoid!!

** = Rent It / TV Premiere

*** = Book The Cheapest Seats

**** = Book The Best Seats

***** = Book The Best Seats + Buy The DVD!