1920: The Evil Returns

Plot

In 1920, Jaidev Verma (Aftab Shivdasani) is a famous poet who lives the life of a loner as he is unable to meet the love of his life, Smruti (Tia Bajpai). 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 Smruti had an accident and died. Now his sister Karuna (Vidya Malvade) is his only support system that keeps him motivated. One day Jaidev finds an unconscious girl near a lake and brings her home. After gaining consciousness, she is unable to remember anything from her past life except Jaidev's poems. Karuna becomes skeptical of her presence in the house and gets even more so when the keeper of the cemetery warns them of an evil spirit inside of her who is in love with her.

Jaidev is insistent on keeping her at home since he feels a connection with her. He even names her Sangeeta. Strange & spooky things start happening with Sangeeta like vomiting iron nails and seeing ghosts in her room. On their way to see a doctor, Sangeeta gets completely 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 Smruti. He goes to Smruti's old address to find the truth. He discovers that Karuna had come there before, asking about Smruti. Jaidev returns home and finds Karuna's body hanging in the forest with suicide notes around it. From Karuna's letters, he comes to know that his best friend Amar (Sharad Kelkar), who was always jealous of Jaidev's success, exploited Karuna to get his revenge. When Amar discovered that Jaidev loved Smruti, he went to Smruti, posing as Jaidev, and took her to his residence in Shimla to exploit her, but in the process, Amar dies. It is his spirit possessing Smruti.

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 Smruti touches Amar's corpse, Amar's spirit will have to leave Smruti's body and return to his own body; the corpse can be set on fire then, releasing Amar's spirit from the karmic cycle of life and death. Whilst doing this, Smruti must not know where she is being taken, else the spirit will also know, so Smruti is made unconscious and completely enveloped in a sacred cloth. They reach the designated place, but the cemetery keeper trips and the sacred cloth moves away from Smruti's face, awakening the spirit. The possessed Smruti unleashes mayhem on all four persons, and in a matter of time, everyone except Jaidev is brutally killed by her.

Jaidev is badly injured in battle of evil versus just, and the spirit in Smruti burns the corpse of Amar, 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 Smruti 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 Smruti, and making contact with her touch. 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 Smruti but Jaidev saves her and sets Amar's corpse on fire thus releasing Amar's spirit from the karmic cycle of life and death.Jaidev marries Smruti and they live happily with each other in the end.]]

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is composed by Chirantan Bhatt and got positive reviews from critics.

Critical reception

The movie received average to negative reviews. 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 ₹115.0 million (US$1.8 million) nett. The film had a good first week and collected ₹160 million (US$2.5 million) nett. It had collected around ₹45.0 million (US$700,000) nett in its second week taking its total to ₹205.0 million (US$3.2 million) nett and is declared a Semi Hit. It finished at ₹228.6 million (US$3.6 million) domestically and was elevated to hit status.

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 May 6, 2016.