Being Film #19 for Hooptober 2024
It’s always interesting to see another culture’s take on some tried and true storytelling. The haunted house (or apartment in this case) riff has been going on almost as long as film itself, and seeing the variations play out in Japan (The Grudge) and Indonesia (Satan’s Slaves 2) have yielded some terrific results for the genre. Bhoot comes out of India, and while it might play a little more safely with the formula than the previously mentioned films, a terrific lead performance and a couple of fantastic sequences help elevate this ghost (the literal translation of “bhoot”) story above its humble direction and somewhat rote script.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…young, modern couple goes looking for an apartment, and OF COURSE the one they like is haunted. As Vishal works and refuses to believe in the supernatural, his lovely wife Swati has a very different experience owing to the story of a young mad woman who threw herself off the balcony of the apartment after supposedly killing her young son. Weird visions, possession, murder, and a buried truth will come to light…WITH TERROR!
Writer/director Ram Gopal Varma wanted to shift away from the more traditional Indian ghost stories and build something that was frightening but much more grounded in reality. So much so that most of the songs – a tradition in Indian films – were removed (one remains for the end credits). But that doesn’t stop Bhoot from still suffering from some of the issues I have with Indian cinema, particularly from the early 2000s. At almost two hours the film relies on too many repeated sequences with no payoff, too many scenes of people going over the same thing. And while I hate having to impart my modern sensibilities into a film over 20 years old, it still makes me wince when Vishal tries to comfort his obviously hysterical wife by calmly saying” Honey, just be okay, please?” and “Stop thinking about that woman. for me, please?”
Thankfully it helps that Urmila Matondkar is fantastic as Swati, the young wife experiencing more than just stress and a case of sleepwalking. Whether it’s the terror of seeing Manjeet, the ghost of the woman haunting her for…reasons or the out right moments of possession Matondkar embodies it all with a real grasp of the reality of the situation. As she becomes more and more distraught and exhausted her face conveys the sheer amount of terror that’s become a part of her life, and you feel for her every moment she’s on screen.
Varma knows that, and he executes a few bravura sequences that leverages Matondkar to brilliant effect, particularly one dream sequence in a movie theater (watching Sam Raimi’s Spider-man of all things), but on the whole much is left offscreen – there’s barely any violence depicted, and zero gore or blood despite the murder of two people who had to do with the deaths that kicked off the haunting. The editing is also very rough, and not the kind of editing to remove certain sequences due to content. It feels more like a rushed attempt at being edgy, and it fails every time for being so noticeable. The score also feels like making Bhoot a melodrama, lessening the effects Varma does manage to stir up.
In the end, Bhoot is a little too mired in its story to warrant a good review, but there are things there to appreciate if you want to take the time. Mainly Urmila Matondkar.
Cinema Dual 
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