Bhooth Bangla

मंगल पुर रेलवे स्टेशन पर ट्रेन के इंतज़ार में बैठे चार युवकों को एक बाबा कहानी सुना रहा है कि कुछ साल पहले यहां शादियां नहीं हुआ करती थीं क्योंकि वधूसुर नामक राक्षस वधुओं को उठा लेता था। फ्लैश बैक में कहानी दिखने लगती है जिसमें लंदन में रहने वाला (अक्षय कुमार) अपने दादा की वसीयत से मिले महल में मंगलपुर आया है ताकि अपनी बहन की शादी यहां कर सके। इसके लिए वेडिंग प्लानर (परेश रावल), उसके सहयोगी, महल का मैनेजर (असरानी), नौकर-चाकर भी यहां हैं। एक राक्षस भी है, उससे भिड़ने के लिए गुरु जी और उनका चेला है। हीरो की बहन आती है, उसके ससुराल वाले, ज्योतिषी, और भी कई सारे लोग। एक हीरोइन भी बीच-बीच में आती-जाती रहती है। ज़ाहिर है कि इस भीड़भाड़ में कॉमेडी, डर, रोमांच, रोमांस जैसे रस निकलते-बहते रहते हैं।

Two decades ago, Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar — Paresh Rawal and Asrani from their winning Hera Pheri team thrown into the mix — meshed horror with comedy to deliver Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a film that brought together folklore and urban legend, superstition and psychology, to make for an engaging watch. Monjulika became a part of modern Bollywood lore, and the film’s nostalgic hook was enough to spur two more films, but without Akshay or Priyadarshan involved. So when the news arrived that the hit combo was set to return with a film together after 15 years, and that too a horror comedy, expectations naturally soared. But we are living in a time where the genre has taken a leap with the Stree films, powered as they are with social commentary and the overturning of many a formula. Bhooth Bangla — misplaced comedy in the first half, inadequate horror in the second, mangled mess as a whole — is definitely not the film we were hoping for when we walked in.

Built between fear and farce, Bhooth Bangla seeks to rekindle the magic that Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar created in Bhool Bhulaiyaa before Anees Bazmee and Kartik Aaryan took the franchise forward with two spiritual successors. As the OGs of situational comedy lay claim to humor in the haunted mansion, we discover that originality has long been lost in its cobwebs. The result is a forced trip down nostalgia lane, packaged as a summer holiday entertainer, where a few wisecracks, a couple of jump scares manage to seep through the ceiling, but even they feel like leaks from outdated plumbing after a point.

There is something called expiry date and Priyadarshan’s latest film is a fine example of it. With three co-writers on board – Aakash Kaushik, Abhilash Nair, Rohan Shankar – director Priyadarshan attempts to retrieve ownership of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise. But to float a film which has a similar sounding title and to pack it with the same elements of a deserted haveli, a locked room with a horrifying secret plus a closely resembling cast that includes Tabu and Rajpal Yadav, is not sufficient to re-create the engaging comedy-horror of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa series. There are two areas where Priyadarshan’s work does not take off the way it was expected to.

At first glance, Priyadarshan’s Bhooth Bangla seems cursed to be more of the same as yet another templated haunted-haveli horror-comedy. Perhaps there is hope, you tell yourself. Perhaps Priyadarshan reuniting with Akshay Kumar after over a decade could mean something. Perhaps this could be the sequel to Bhool Bhulaiya they never got to make, considering Anees Bazmee and Kartik Aaryan took over the franchise in 2022. But, alas, what we get is a nothingburger of the highest order: a horror-comedy that doesn’t land as horror, comedy, or even as a vaguely passable time at the movies.

Given that the first Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) directed by Priyadarshan set the template for the modern horror-comedy, it’s unfortunate that Bhooth Bangla feels like a brain-melting horror comedy going through an existential crisis and an identity crisis at once. It’s 174 minutes long, shares several cast members with the 2007 hit, contains multiple personalities and moods and tones and genres, and features flashbacks and folklore so needlessly dense that the final hour feels like a zero-calorie mocktail of Mandala Murders, Indiana Jones and one of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa sequels. I usually worry about reviews being too long because I have so much to say, but this is a rare instance where I’m worried about getting past a paragraph. I might already be done.