White sari clad women roaming about deserted mansions holding an ominous candle, humming a haunting tune. 

 

Creepy ghouls attacking an unsuspecting party of people stuck in the middle of nowhere.

 

Spirits taking possession of a living body and wreaking havoc with their furious behaviour.

 

Clearly, it's no task to outline the horror archetype in Bollywood. While filmmakers in Hollywood, South Korea and Japan have explored its potential to scare beyond belief, Hindi films are still stuck in the 'jaadu tona' and 'tabeez' rut.     

 

Between yielding 'too few' and 'too grotesque', only a handful of filmmakers have succeeded in updating the formula. And the latest to disappoint is director Vikram Bhatt with the recently released Horror Story, which miserably fails to match the scares of 1920 and Raaz. 

 

On that dreadful note, here's a look at 10 of Bollywood's Worst Horror films. 

 

Ram Gopal Varma's Raat is one of the better horrors of Bollywood.

 

Though Phoonk is nowhere close, its intriguing premise and some moments of ingenuity led to its box office success.

 

The sequel, however, is simply an obnoxious exercise in camera angles and sound effects to build up a ghost that cannot be overcome.

 

Despite its directed by Hollywood's Jennifer Lynch credit, Mallika Sherawat's ticket to Hollywood is more comic than creepy. 

 

No amount of MK's skimpy clothing and snake skin prosthetics can elevate its archaic plot and dreary acting. 

 

In Guddu Dhanoa's remake of The Entity, Tabu's talents are wasted to play a woman who is raped by a spirit. 

 

The revolting plot and Dhanoa's tacky treatment ensure no one takes this monstrosity seriously.

 

After the compelling multi-starrer about a young woman possessed by a vengeful spirit in her own apartment, Ram Gopal Varma delivers a lazy sequel that rips off Paranormal Activity and combines it with same old ploy of spooked kid in a hostile bungalow interacting with the only child in the family. 

 

Too bad nothing scares, nobody cares.

 

Ravi Shankar Sharma's shameless copy of The Others is devoid of enigma or edge. 

 

What it does promise is stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Dimple Kapadia looking completely clueless in this joke of a horror movie.

 

Now a pregnant woman is possessed by her evil twin sister's spirit in this highly bizarre horror flick starring Bobby Deol and Mugdha Godse, which scrapes off bits and portions from the likes of The Ring, The Grudge and Mirrors to serve its purpose.

 

Only Help, with its predictable tricks and lousy performances, is neither frightening nor fun.

 

The Salman Khan led (and scripted) reincarnation drama features a romantic track gone awry between his ghostly girlfriend of the past threading his present with no-holds barred terror.

 

Amrita Singh plays the face of nasty obsession with such over-the-top relish in this laughable mishmash of horror, rebirth and romance, it's torture at its cruelest.  

The Ramsay brothers -- Shyam and Tulsi -- have achieved cult status for their typical brand of campy horror with films like Purana Mandir and Veerana.

 

But by the time they came out with Bandh Darwaza, their target audience got bored of the overdone tradition of gore, sleaze and cheap draculas. 

What's a horror film's greatest crime? To do the work of comedy.

 

And Shiney Ahuja-Sayali Bhagat starrer Ghost about a morbid presence covered in cockroaches with a fondness for pulling its victim's heart out is stuff sidesplitting sights are made of.

Another one that looks at Hollywood for inspiration.

 

Paapi Gudia is basically a badly done Child's Play starring Karisma Kapoor in one of the most embarrassing films of her career.

 

Everything about the film -- from its tacky production values to a roadside doll trying to pull off the cursed doll Chuckie, Paapi Gudia is pure hogwash from start to finish.