I think that understanding your product and getting it in the hands of the right people is the last hurdle for every film-maker when trying to get their movie out to the public.It’s kind of the deciding factor that will make or break your picture much more than the content within. Think about it: if you market your movie to the wrong people, they’ll skin it alive in reviews and low ratings will make other viewers less likely to spend money on it. That’s the biggest problem with M R Shahjahan’s Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation. They want it to be a horror movie so bad – I mean, look at the poster – but it fails to be one on almost every sense of the genre.
In this day and age, it takes a lot to move and frighten viewers. A film needs more than flashbacks, nightmares, psychic mediums, ghostly apparitions and a previous murder to be scary; especially when there’s a more interesting story that enters the dark drama and romance mystery subgenres. To be honest, Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation belongs on The Lifetime Network more than it does Chiller, SyFy or the deceased giant FearNet. This movie, with its mid-90’s style and loopy soundtrack would fit perfectly on the network for women looking for a decent love story or a romance drama with a little more bite to it. But, horror? Definitely not. Not here.
I hope that the writer, director and producers don’t take this review as disrespect. I found this movie to be endearing in its showcase of a crumbling relationship due to stress and an unsolved murder, but it doesn’t fit into our demographic here at all. That doesn’t mean, however, that it is not produced quite well. It’s got a lot of fantastic acting, beautiful locations, great audio, and everything else was on point that let me know this was a solid, professionally made picture. And it had sex scenes, hurray! My only criticism for Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation from a production stand-point would be the lighting was a little iffy in some scenes.
I could have rated Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation a lot higher if it was actually anywhere close to a horror film. Unfortunately, in terms of scares, they’re 100% non-existent. Final Score: 4 out of 10.
Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation is written by Vivek Singhania and Amit Mehra and directed by M R Shahjahan. It was produced by Singhania, Dhiraj Kotkar and Sanjiv Potnis with director of photography Lucio Cremonese and editor Alexandra Wedenig. Carlucci Weyant, Alma Saraci, Vijayendra S Ghatge, Claudia Ciesla, Shanda Renee, DJ Perry, Smita Hai and Farzil Pardiwala star.
Synopsis: Vik, estranged and separated from his father for the past thirty years, visits him in Ooty with his bride Anna from New York at her insistence. The moment Anna alights from the train that brings them to the small town, she unwittingly becomes the medium of events including visions of a murder that took place in the woods surrounding Vik’s father’s home thirty years ago. With little love by Vik for his father, it is Anna who conspires with her father-in-law to change Vik’s mind about staying longer and taking over his father’s business. The haunting now become more frequent and intense, making Anna sick to the point of her mental state of mind questioned. Even though Anna had never set foot in Ooty, let alone India before, she seems very familiar with the surroundings and even some people. Vik resolves to help Anna and when it is discovered that a murder had indeed taken place thirty years ago, together they try to solve the mystery.
