Shaitaan is a moderately tense one-time watch, being perhaps one of Bollywood’s first whole-hearted attempts within the home-invasion horror/thriller genre, and as a sort of an earnest entry effort in the cult Funny Games space. R. Madhavan lets it rip as the terrifyingly relentless black-magic tantrik Vanraj while the rest of the cast puts in decently watchable acts, and the film (backed by a few gripping twists and high moments) somewhat manages to drive home the truth of the evergreen elderly advice from our childhood — ‘do not accept food from any stranger’. (I liked/didn’t like Shaitaan because... March 9.)

Anamitra Bhaduri

The R. Madhavan-Ajay Devgn starrer Shaitaan created high hopes and curiosity among the audience with an interesting, intense teaser. The first half of this Vikas Bahl movie also builds up some thrills, a prelude and an obvious question. The question is why? Why did Vanraj Kashyap (R. Madhavan) actually act like a devil? What is the back story of his beastly behaviour with a young girl from an extremely happy family.

I was not satisfied with the explanation we got in the second half of the movie. The scenes are too lengthy, the acting is flat and the script is lopsided in this half. The director used the complex subject of hypnosis as the central point but in a very childish way. With too many loopholes, the subject line became disappointing. We expect much better and well-researched movies on black magic from contemporary Bollywood.

Sarbani Banerjee

I liked Shaitaan because it is a fantastic supernatural thriller. Its captivating, intriguing and suspenseful story and the film’s principal cast Ajay Devgn, R. Madhavan and Jyothika’s outstanding performances mainly made watching that Vikas Bahl-directed movie an edge-of-the-seat experience for me. The narrative maintained a good pace throughout the film which surely also made the movie a gripping one. The elements which are a must in a good supernatural thriller, like suspense, horror, mystery, were all present in the right proportions. The cinematography and background score of the film were praiseworthy as well. Overall, I hugely enjoyed the film and will watch it again.

Sourish Misra