END OF INTERMISSION

While Naina is riding the train, talking to the psychiatrist on her cell phone, a revelation occurs, forcing her to suddenly question not only God, but herself. It seems she is not the victim. She is not even herself. Someone else, the person whose corneas she now possesses, is the real victim.

The story now shifts, and Naina drags the reluctant shrink boyfriend with her to a place she has seen in a vision. Naina is now a woman with a mission. She stops being the victim, and now becomes the hero, which, in Bollywood cinema is usually left to the boys. This sudden shift in the story woke up Zombos and myself. It was daring, plausible, and suspenseful.

The film at this point becomes more than a one-note horror story, which is so often the case with American efforts. Naina overcomes her fear. She demands to know what happened to the eye donor, and in another, more traditional, twist to the story, which introduces the religious and philosophical reasons for why the dead people are appearing to her, she is provided with a definite plan of action. She must save the spirit of the eye donor who is suffering an endless cycle of pain and limbo.

And the story is not over yet! It seems that death will not be stopped, and the creepy black figures collect in the thousands (at least that's what the subtitles say) for the — say it with me — climactic ending.

Elements of Naina are similar to Premonition and Sixth Sense, true, but the mixing of J-Horror and Bollywood sensibilities provides a story that is part-horror, part-mystery and wholly worth a view by the Americanized horror-head looking for something out of the ordinary.