Priyadarshan's Bhooth Bangla suffers from a hangover of Priyadarshan's Bhool Bhulaiyaa. The titular mansion here is reminiscent of Siddharth's haveli there. If there was a Manjulika-Vibhuti-Shashidhar love triangle in a flashback there, then there is a Madhav-Yashoda-Vasudev love triangle in a flashback here. If Rasika Joshi's Janki (wrongly) saw Akshay Kumar's Aditya as a horny, lustful man there, then Kumar's Arjun Acharya (wrongly) sees Sunder (Rajpal Yadav) as a horny, lustful man here. If everyone warned Siddharth against staying in the haveli there, then everyone warns Arjun not to stay in the mansion here (both Siddharth and Arjun quickly dismiss tales of the supernatural as nonsense). Of course, there's also the fact that some actors from Bhool Bhulaiyaa—Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Yadav, Asrani, and Manoj Joshi—are also present in Bhooth Bangla, both of which are directed by the same filmmaker.
The conclusion that you shouldn't draw from these parallels is that Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Bhooth Bangla are, quality-wise, the same. The former, a cult classic, nicely balances comedy and horror, and I prefer Priyadarshan's remake slightly more than the Malayalam original. Bhooth Bangla, though, is so bad at horror that its lowbrow comedy turns out to be its best asset. The director, along with his co-writers Rohan Shankar and Abilash Nair, leans on old routines, like the scene where Arjun and Shantaram (Asrani) confuse each other while talking about a man in a painting. And when Arjun sees Sunder from his window at a certain angle, he thinks the latter is engaged in a sexual activity with a woman (Bhavna Pani). It's not much, and it's disappointing that many mainstream filmmakers still have such a stale sense of humor, but Kumar and the rest of the cast are good and committed. They are attuned to the film's tone, and their comic efforts do elicit a few chuckles.
But when Bhooth Bangla shifts into horror mode, it becomes a dreary experience. The cheap jokes fare better than the cheap horror because the ghostly routines—a figure in the dark appearing and disappearing when the lights are turned off and on, a hand pulling the legs of sleepy victims—are just too familiar. A far more interesting exercise would be to consider Bhooth Bangla and Bhool Bhulaiyaa through a broader lens, comparing the India of the late 2000s to the India of today. Sure, that 2007 horror-comedy had its share of tantra-mantra mumbo jumbo, but the key to its horror lay in a psychological dimension. The "exorcism" in Bhool Bhulaiyaa was achieved by placing scientific logic at the center. I am not saying that superstitions didn't exist back then; I am saying that even a superficial Bollywood vehicle made space for science within its fiction. Unfortunately, the pull of myths and superstitions seems to have intensified over the past decade. Forget Bhooth Bangla; even the Bhool Bhulaiyaa sequels have aligned themselves with black-magic gobbledygook. Science no longer finds space in the realm of horror—perhaps because filmmakers assume that audiences prefer otherwise. No wonder Bhooth Bangla, too, recycles the usual ghost-movie hokum: a curse, a prophecy, and creepy shadows here and there.
The main problem with these cliches is that they are used only to jolt the audience. They are jump-scare dispensing tools that prevent the evolution of the genre. Horror can be a very effective medium for underlining real-world issues (case in point: Khauf), but as long as filmmakers remain afraid of the audience, as long as they hide their incompetence behind "this is what people want" statements, a film like Bhooth Bangla is what we will keep getting in theaters. Even if one were to judge this film on its own terms, how can one ignore certain dumb choices? For instance, there's a machine in a prayer room containing a recording of sacred chants which, when turned on, keeps the monster Vadhusur under control. How do you switch it on? Just turn the lever toward the label "Forward." Yes, this also implies that there is a "Backward" setting—and yes, it's dangerous. Here's a simple question: why even have a "Backward" feature? Then again, should one even bother with logic in a film that spends its runtime insisting that light is the enemy of the ghost haunting the mansion, only to have Arjun engage in a climactic fight with this ghost in a sufficiently lit, closed environment?
There's something ironic about Bhooth Bangla. It spends most of its time discussing and displaying supernatural spectacles and then—wait for it—labels astrology as claptrap. This is like saying, "I believe that black cats bring bad luck," and then laughing at your friend for believing that you shouldn't cut your hair on a Tuesday. What's with this selective validation of superstitions? Directors often tell audiences to leave their brains at home before going to the theater. In this case, it seems as if the filmmakers themselves took that advice before making this project. But there is something genuinely scary in this film—something that makes you shiver. I am talking about Meera (Mithila Palkar) and Rahul's (Perin Malde) marriage. When his parents threaten to break the relationship because the family priest (Joshi) feels offended by a change in the wedding timing, Rahul doesn't speak up for his wife, doesn't take a stand for his marriage. What a wuss. Meera should have broken up with him then and there. The real horror, after all, is marrying a man who is incapable of taking the right stance. Rahul and his family are the real evil spirits in this tale.
Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times