The immovable tropes of the horror genre in Bollywood, move! Well, somewhat. For a very long time I watched Amavas with growing apprehension that it won’t move beyond the known terror tactics. You know, the creaky doors, clanging bells, corpses banging from down under, women in negligible negligees running for their lives.

The camera swerves around him in smartly framed mid-shots, but Joshi keeps a straight face. Nargis, understandably out of touch with her Hindi, chews up her lines with an unplaceable accent. Ali Asgar keeps things jolly as the monkey capped caretaker with Wi-Fi dots on his head, and Mona Singh, playing a therapist, tries hard not to laugh at the goingons. Patel’s film makes for an agonizing watch, worsened by its two-hour-plus runtime. The acting is gorier than the plot, and the writing paler than the faces.

As far as the horror is concerned, there is nothing to worry about because the ghost is extremely predictable even when it tries to surprise you. While the effects are slick and the ghosts match up to international standards, they cannot save this film from turning into a painful two-hour-long watch.