I had high expectation from the movie- Bhoot- The haunted Ship!
Maybe it was because we were getting a movie in this genre after a gap. Perhaps it was about Vicky Kaushal presence.
To be fair to Vicky Kaushal, he delivers. The few likeable parts in the movie are the frames where he is present and is grappling with his problem. Once, he gets the purpose, all is lost. He unsuccessfully tries to carry the weak script but them the movie is the sum of all its parts. In Bhoot, they don’t seem to hold together.
Bhoot is based on the incident of an unmanned ship stranded at the Juhu beach in Mumbai many years back. Thankfully, it does not qualify to be inspired by real events.
Vicky Kaushal ( Prithvi) is a shipping officer who suffers from memories of an incident in his life, where he lost his daughter and wife. He blames himself for the accident and keeps hallucinating. The tension and tussle between guilty and purpose in Vicky’s like is the only saving grace of the movie.
The ship hides history and a Bhoot seeking revenge. It is for Prithvi and his die-hard friend to solve the mystery.
The movie with poorly animated scenes and unnaturally tacky makeup tries every trick in the book that the audience has seen before. Yet, it fails to scare the audience other than one-two times in the whole run.
In fact, there is nothing new in the movie other than a love story that has gone wrong and a ship, ‘Sea Bird’ getting stranded at Juhu beach. Which was a novelty when it happened.
The film is short yet seems long, and that says so much for a movie in this genre. Everyone in the audience knows well in advance how the movie is going to end, and the fun is lost.
Debutant writer-director Bhanu Pratap Singh as a writer may think that he had a masterstroke from tweaking a real-life incident into a film like Bhoot. Unfortunately, many stories running parallel are too much for him to tackle.
Bhumi Pednekar has a short appearance, and she does deliver on what is expected of her. Ashutosh Rana comes in as the exorcist, and he is completely wasted in the movie.
In Bhoot, another failure is its music, which is the strongest element of any horror movie. Though the fingers snapping, a lullaby and the doll starts with a promise, they fail to create a scare.
Hopefully, Dharma Production will not see Bhoot as a franchise. Let that rest with Ram Gopal Verma, who was far better at his worst than the Bhoot by Dharma Production. Oh, by the way, Dharma production title reel specially created for this genre was far better than the film.
You can only blame yourself if you go to watch Bhoot. If you like this genre, please keep your thirst for it alive and wait for the right movie. It is the toughest genre, but then it does not mean we as the audience should be punished with a film like Bhoot.
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