There are a lot of ghosts in Bollywood, so I had some trouble selecting films for my October celebration. (Poor Chamatkar,
bumped at the last minute. Maybe next year.) There was never any
doubt about what the movie for the fourth week would be, though: the
first Bollywood horror film I ever saw, and a film which still manages
to creep me out a year after the first time I saw it. And it’s called Bhoot (2003)! How could I pick anything else?
Vishal and Swati (Ajay Devgan and Urmila Matondkar) are a thoroughly modern young couple looking for a new place to live. When Vishal finds a beautiful (if slightly creepy) and very affordable apartment, the realtor explains the catch: a young woman named Manjeet fell from the balcony to her death. Since Vishal is a modern young man, and not at all superstitious, this doesn’t bother him at all. Since he’s a little insensitive, he also doesn’t think this little fact is worth mentioning to Swati.
Life in the new apartment is slightly . . . off. The maid (Seema Biswas) is oddly childlike and has a habit of chewing her fingernails. Swati finds a creepy doll on the top shelf and promptly adopts it. And the watchman (Sabir Masani) doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of knocking before you enter someone else’s home.
It’s the dead roommate that causes most of the trouble, though. Swati catches a glimpse of a woman staring at her in the mirror, and is naturally freaked out. Vishal, being the model of husbandly concern that he is, laughs it off and spends the next day fining new ways to scare her. But when the landlord (Amar Talwar) mentions Manjeet’s death, Swati can’t stop thinking about it. She begins sleepwalking, and starts having terrifying visions.
Eventually, a gruesome murder is committed in the apartment building, and a sleepwalking Swati strolls in the door just after Vishal finds the body. Police inspector Liyaqat Qureshi (Nana Patekar) arrives to investigate, and an increasingly desperate Vishal has to stall the police while trying to get help for his wife, first from noted psychiatrist Dr. Rajan (Victor Bannerjee), but he seeks out Sarita (the sublime Rekha) when it becomes clear Swati isn’t there any more, only Manjeet . . .
The cinematography in Bhoot follows a very simple rule; any object, no matter how mundane, can be made creepy if you shoot it from a weird angle. It doesn’t really matter what the object is - a chair, a mirror, a doorway, Ajay Devgan - okay, perhaps that last one is a bad example. In any case, the strange angles give the film a profound sense of wrongness. The set design adds to the sense as well. Swati and Vishal both talk about how great the apartment is, but the architecture is more H. P. Lovecraft than I. M. Pei. And the couple have disturbing taste in art as well.
Like a lot of horror films, Bhoot is more effective before the ghost fully manifests. Manjeet is kind of scary, but she’s not as frightening as the thought of slowly losing your self control and eventually yourself. And Urmila’s performance as a woman slowly unraveling is more effective than her performance as a growling vengeful spirit.
I’ll never be able to look at Spider-Man in quite the same way again, though.
Vishal and Swati (Ajay Devgan and Urmila Matondkar) are a thoroughly modern young couple looking for a new place to live. When Vishal finds a beautiful (if slightly creepy) and very affordable apartment, the realtor explains the catch: a young woman named Manjeet fell from the balcony to her death. Since Vishal is a modern young man, and not at all superstitious, this doesn’t bother him at all. Since he’s a little insensitive, he also doesn’t think this little fact is worth mentioning to Swati.
Life in the new apartment is slightly . . . off. The maid (Seema Biswas) is oddly childlike and has a habit of chewing her fingernails. Swati finds a creepy doll on the top shelf and promptly adopts it. And the watchman (Sabir Masani) doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of knocking before you enter someone else’s home.
It’s the dead roommate that causes most of the trouble, though. Swati catches a glimpse of a woman staring at her in the mirror, and is naturally freaked out. Vishal, being the model of husbandly concern that he is, laughs it off and spends the next day fining new ways to scare her. But when the landlord (Amar Talwar) mentions Manjeet’s death, Swati can’t stop thinking about it. She begins sleepwalking, and starts having terrifying visions.
Eventually, a gruesome murder is committed in the apartment building, and a sleepwalking Swati strolls in the door just after Vishal finds the body. Police inspector Liyaqat Qureshi (Nana Patekar) arrives to investigate, and an increasingly desperate Vishal has to stall the police while trying to get help for his wife, first from noted psychiatrist Dr. Rajan (Victor Bannerjee), but he seeks out Sarita (the sublime Rekha) when it becomes clear Swati isn’t there any more, only Manjeet . . .
The cinematography in Bhoot follows a very simple rule; any object, no matter how mundane, can be made creepy if you shoot it from a weird angle. It doesn’t really matter what the object is - a chair, a mirror, a doorway, Ajay Devgan - okay, perhaps that last one is a bad example. In any case, the strange angles give the film a profound sense of wrongness. The set design adds to the sense as well. Swati and Vishal both talk about how great the apartment is, but the architecture is more H. P. Lovecraft than I. M. Pei. And the couple have disturbing taste in art as well.
Like a lot of horror films, Bhoot is more effective before the ghost fully manifests. Manjeet is kind of scary, but she’s not as frightening as the thought of slowly losing your self control and eventually yourself. And Urmila’s performance as a woman slowly unraveling is more effective than her performance as a growling vengeful spirit.
I’ll never be able to look at Spider-Man in quite the same way again, though.
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