Naina (DVD)

This Bollywood remake of The Pang Brothers' ghostly fright flick The Eye (which in turn borrowed some concepts from Poe, Body Parts, The Hand, Ringu, Honogurai mizu no soko kara, and The Sixth Sense) doesn't credit its source material, but that's what it is. (Lest you should think that only Tinsel Town revels in remakes…)

On the fateful day of a solar eclipse, five-year-old Naina (Urmila Matondkar, as an adult) loses her eyesight in a terrible car wreck in London and is simultaneously orphaned and blinded. At that same moment, a baby is being born in a faraway Indian village called Gujarat. The infant is stillborn… or so it seems. The girl somehow starts breathing after being placed in a makeshift morgue, and the miracle child is named Khemi (Shweta Konnur, as an adult).

The two never meet but 20 years later, after Naina receives a corneal transplant, her dead donor starts a horrifying dialogue. Is Khemi the donor? If she is indeed no longer living, why and what happened?

At first, Naina thinks it's simply taking time to adjust to her newly-restored eyesight. The strange visions she sees must just be mind tricks. Her Grandma (Kamini Khanna) and Aunt Parvati (Sulabha Arya) try to be understanding, but eventually they decide that the deeply spooked Naina should see a psychiatrist. Needless to say, Dr. Samir Patel (Anuj Sawhney) is young, good-looking, and available — he and Naina hook up to solve the supernatural mystery, and their journey eventually takes them to Gujarat.

Some horror fans might take exception to how closely this truly unnecessary remake follows the plot of The Eye. In spite of some sub-par CGI and without the flair of the Pangs' clever use of shadow and color, Naina is really not a bad horror movie. Admittedly it brings nothing new to the area, but I like the premise already and I was pleasantly surprised by the acting (from the leads; some of the supporting cast overacts) and production value (sets, locations, costumes).

The story is creepy — "I see dead people!" — and the makeup, ghosts, and corpses are well-done. The movie does start to drag towards the end, but all in all Naina is a solid rental.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson