Aatma has a story flimsier than Bipasha Basu’s negligees in the film. And no, there isn’t even enough skin show in this Suparn Verma film to compensate for the lack of genuine chills and thrills.

What you see in the 95 minutes of this film is everything that the promos of Aatma have been showing us over the last two months. Give or take a few unintentionally hilarious moments.

Yes, Aatma has a father returning from the dead to reclaim his six-year-old snatched away from him by a court order after a messy divorce and a mother’s effort to hold on to her at any cost.

Verma sets his horror fest in a swanky apartment in Mumbai where the inmates don’t forget to light candles in every corner, even when there are bodies piling up every minute. Here Nia (Doyel Dhawan), a precocious six-year-old lives with mom Maya (Bipasha Basu). Nia keeps posing uncomfortable questions about her dad Abhay’s (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) absence but Maya desists from telling her that Abhay died in a freak car accident, even as she herself is tormented by past images of her husband physically abusing her.

But when Nia starts talking to an imaginary entity that she claims to be Abhay and everyone who torments her — from the class bully to the strict teacher — is killed brutally and mysteriously, it becomes clear that there is a sinister presence at work.

Verma — a self-confessed fan of horror master Stephen King — does manage to build an ominous atmosphere (cinematographer Sophie Winqvist’s use of mood-lighting is a genuine #win) where the feeling of dread and discomfort looms large.

However, for a film with claims to steer clear of stereotypes, Aatma employs all the tropes typical of the genre — banging doors, curtains billowing in the wind, flickering lights, unexplained mirror reflections, tennis balls that bounce on their own, a chair that rocks at will, phones that ring of their own accord and bouts of rain and thunder.

For a film that is just about an hour-and-a-half long, Aatma’s first half plods along, forcing you to check your watch every few minutes. It is only post-interval that the drama picks up somewhat with the parents pulling out all the stops to hold on to their daughter.

To its credit, Aatma does have a few spine-chilling moments — the dead kid showing up in the school corridor and Maya’s nightmare where she sees her dead husband’s name flashing on her cell phone and then him sleeping next to her — made us shift uncomfortably in our plex seats. But sadly, those are negated by some unintentionally comic sequences — the college crowd at the first day, second show at Fame (South City) broke into peals of laughter when the pandit’s (played by Darshan Jariwala) face distorted enough to make him look like Friday the 13th’s Jason’s long-lost twin.

One also wishes that Verma had explored Aatma beyond just the horror. He scratches the surface of an abusive marriage, but doesn’t dig deeper to offer a reason for Abhay’s unreasonable behaviour. The emotional attachment between the father and daughter could also have been fleshed out more.

Bipasha brings her experience in the genre — Raaz to Raaz 3 — to good use. The shower scene where she breaks down is a standout, as are the penultimate moments where Maya takes on Abhay. Little Doyel Dhawan does well in a challenging role and reminds one of Anjali from Mani Ratnam’s poignant film. Shernaz Patel as Maya’s mother, Tillotama Shome as Nia’s teacher and Gangs of Wasseypur man Jaideep Ahlawat as a cop are reduced to sketchy side players.

It’s difficult to fathom why Nawazuddin Siddiqui chose Aatma out of the 125 offers he was apparently flooded with after Kahaani. The man who has wowed us in film after film is a barely-there presence (pun unintended!) in Aatma, with hardly any screen time to his name. Saddled with a role that does him no justice, the little big man of serious cinema, hardly manages to make an impact. Which is a pity because we do get to see the Nawaz we know in that one scene where he loses his cool in the judge’s chamber when faced with the prospect of losing his daughter.

If you have 95 minutes to spare this weekend and need a place to beat the heat, Aatma may not be a bad option. Better still, why not catch up once more with Aatma Ram of Bhooter Bhobishyot in a DVD rerun? A wiser choice, trust us.

Aatma (a)
Director: Suparn Verma
Cast: Bipasha Basu, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Darshan Jariwala, Shernaz Patel, Doyel Dhawan
Running time: 95 minutes