Bhooty Call: Machchli Jal Ki Rani Hai

 

 (No screenshots this week due to technical difficulties.)

 Machchli Jal Ki Rani Hai (2014) has all the trappings of a traditional Bollywood haunted house movie, but like Bhoothnath, the genre swerves away form horror and in some unexpected directions.  Unlike Bhoothnath, though, I'm not sure that the genre mixing is on purpose.

The movie doesn't open with the haunted house, it opens with Action Exorcist Ugra (Deepraj Rana) attempting to drive a spirit out of the body of a young girl. The attempt involves more wire-fu than you usually see in exorcisms, as well as a chase through the countryside.In the end, though, Ugra fails.  The girl dies,and the ghost retaliates by brutally killing Ugra's entire family. He's promptly arrested, but on the advice of psychiatrist Bhatnagar, he's declared insane and sent to a very nice asylum.

Years later, Bhatnagar needs Ugra's help, so he visits the asylum and Ugra is released into his company.  As they drive away, Bhatnagar fills the audience and the exorcist in on the important backstory with a long flashback.

Bhatnagar's daughter Ayesha (Swara Bhaskar) is married to Uday (Bhanu Uday), and they have a young son named Sunny (Yug Mahnot).  A few months ago Ayesha was driving recklessly and caused an accident which killed a woman. Soon after, Uday was transferred to Jabalpur in order to reopen a factory; Uday is from Jabalpur so he's delighted to be reunited with his old friends, while Ayesha could really use a change. The family move into a company guesthouse,and at first everything is going well.

Sunny quickly makes friends with Guddi (Roshni Walia).  Ayesha meets Guddi's parents; mother Urmi (Reema Debnath) is nice, but father Manohar (Murli Sharma) is surly and angrily insists that his wife and child need to stay in the house and Ayesha needs to stay away.  

And then . . . well, it's a haunted house movie, and they tend to be fairly predictable.  Ayesha starts hearing noises and seeing things around the house, and Uday refuses to believe her, or even really listen, even when people start dying.  There's a fatal accident at Uday's work, then Mangla (Sakha Kalyani) the maid dies in a freak antler accident, followed by the exorcist Mangla brought Ayesha to see.  Sunny is acting strangely. Ayesha is acting really strangely.  Bhatnagar visits and also refuses to listen to Ayesha, telling her it's all in her head even though the beginning of the movie clearly established that he believes in ghosts.

Before long, Sunny is missing and Ayesha is possessed and on a rampage.  At this point Bhatnagar remembers that he believes in ghosts, and also that he knows an Action Exorcist, so the flashback ends and the movie loops back to the beginning. Ugra confronts the possessed Ayesha, leading to the dramatic climax.

This is standard Bollywood haunted house stuff, and works in all of the familiar beats, including the scene when a passerby catches Ayesha eating something weird.  (The family's pet goldfish, just to loop back to the nursery rhyme that gives the movie its title.)  There are two twists, though.

The first twist is minor but clever; ghosts in this movie are more mobile than usual, so Ayesha and Uday's house isn't actually haunted - it's the place next door!  It doesn't have a huge impact on the plot, but it does add an extra sense of danger, with no real safe places.

That sense of danger is immediately undercut by the other twist: this isn't really shot like a horror movie, it's shot like an action movie, with bright lighting and surprisingly kinetic exorcism scenes.  At times it's practically a superhero movie; Ugra refers to his origin story at the beginning of the movie, and he is walking around with Doctor Strange's cape.  (Or its Indian equivalent.)

I'm honestly not sure if they were shooting for action horror or just stumbled into it.  It means the movie is never quite as scary as it wants to be, but the genre mix is at least interesting.

Bhooty Call: Bhoothnath

 Bhoothnath (2008) is a movie of two parts.  The film opens with the classic Bollywood haunted house scenario.  Aditya (Shah Rukh Khan) and Anjali (Juhi Chawla) are an attractive and modern young couple who have just moved in to a house on the outskirts of Goa with their young son Banku (Aman Siddiqui).  It's only when they move in that they realize that the house is supposed to be haunted, though the audience has already glimpsed the ghost driving people away.

As is typical in these films, Aditya has a job that takes him out of town; he's the chief engineer on a cruise ship, and he promptly sails away, leaving Anjali to deal with Banku, an oversized house with a very dangerous staircase, and Anthony (Rajpal Yadav), the alcoholic homeless man who used to squat there. She's already overwhelmed just getting the place cleaned when nobody is willing to work there, and that's before she realizes that Banku has a new invisible friend.

But this isn't a horror movie, it's a children's movie about a boy and his magical friend, so the ghost isn't a threat.  Banku manages to out-prank Bhoothnath, the spirit of Kailash Nath (Amitabh Bachchan) in short order, and after the requisite fall down the stairs the two become fast friends.  Which is good, because someone has to help Anjali with the house, as well as Banku's mean principal (Satish Shah) and classroom frenemy Jojo (Devandra).

It's all very by the numbers, though during the school sports day Bhoothnath refuses to use his ghostly powers to help Banku beat Jojo, instead encouraging the boy to work harder for what he wants.  Bhoothnath is full of good advice, actually, much of it revolving around forgiveness.  He helps the boy make peace with Jojo, then reconcile with Anjali after the mother and son have a nasty argument.

And that's when Vijay Nath (Priyanshu Chatterjee) returns to Goa.  Vijay is Kailash's son, and he's here to sell the family home; he's not a monster, and is quite happy to find Aditya and Anjali another place to live, but Banku doesn't want to go, and Bhoothnath absolutely refuses to lose his new family.

Normally this kind of problem is resolved through magical pranks, but the movie has already gone to great lengths to set up the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Aditya returns, because it's time for the movie to enter its second part, as the senior actors all earn their keep with an emotional story about death and moving on.  The second part is pretty solid; it's a very filmi and melodramatic story, and well within the respective skill sets of Bachchan, Chawla and Khan, but it's a heck of a tonal shift, and Banku and the more comic actors like Satish Shah and Rajpal Yadav either fade into the background or vanish entirely.

Whether the movie is a children's fantasy or an emotional melodrama, though, one thing remains consistent: it is not scary at any point.  Some of the trappings of horror appear, but it's a story about family dynamics in a large but surprisingly cozy house.  They really need to do something about those stairs, though.

Bhooty Call: Stree 2

 Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank (2024) is a direct sequel to 2018's Stree, and it starts with one of the better recaps of the previous movie I've seen.  The town of Chanderi is celebrating an annual religious festival, and Rudra (Pankaj Tripathi) sings a song about Stree (Flora Saini in the last film, this time played by Bhoomi Rajgor), a terrifying ghost that once haunted the streets of Chanderi, abducting men and leaving behind nothing but a pile of clothes, until the town's champion Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) manages to cut off Stree's braid and then . . . treats her with love and respect, which is what she wanted all along.  It's a fun number, and a band of kids act out the events as Rudra describes them, but it does leave out some key details.

Vicky hasn't forgotten anything, though.  He's gone back to work as a ladies tailor, but he's still pining for the beautiful, mysterious, and so far nameless woman (Shraddha Kapoor) who helped him every step of the way, even though his family and friends keep telling him that she is never, ever coming back after she took Stree's severed braid and vanished.  Sidekick Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) has definitely moved on, and is now sort of dating the hip and modern Chitti (Anya Singh).

Rudra receives a mysterious letter which contains extra pages of the Chanderi Puran, a mysterious history of Chanderi which proved useful in the last movie.  The pages provide more detail about Stree's death, and include a warning that "He is coming back."  Who is coming back?  They find out when a terrifying headless ghost kidnaps Chitti.  It turns out that the young women of the town haven't been going off to the big city after all, they've been spirited away by the new ghost.  And the Chanderi Puran holds the answer - the ghost is the spirit of Chandrabhan (no actor listed because he's a great big CGI thing that shouts and screams rather than speaking.)  Chandrabhan was once the village headman in Chanderi, and was an abusive and womanizing drunk who brutally murdered Stree and her love as their young daughter watched; after rising from the dead Stree returned the favor by decapitating her tormentor.

Chandrabhan is specifically targeting "modern" women, and he has a very broad definition of modern; having a job or a Facebook account is enough to be added to his collection.  The women in town do their best to avoid notice, but a group of them approach Vicky and tell him to do something about the situation; he is the town's destined protector, and Chandrabhan only returned because Vicky convinced Stree to move on, so it's his fault.

(As a sidenote, the women in Chandrabhan's collection have their heads shaved, are dressed in modest saris, and are essentially placed in supernatural cold storage.  Chandrabhan draws a lot of inspiration from the monsters found in old Ramsay Brothers horror films, and particularly the headless demon sorcerer from Purana Mandir, but the movie completely avoids the exploitative tendencies of that era of Bollywood horror.)

There's some good news: Vicky keeps seeing the Woman, and the others eventually see her too.  The group decides that they need to bring back Stree to deal with the new ghost, and to find Stree they need Jana (Abhishek Banerjee), who was possessed by Stree in the last movie.  Jana is currently living happily in Delhi with his cousin Bhaskar (Varun Dhawan), who is a werewolf from a different movie.  They bring Jana back and set him loose in the ruins outside of town, which proves to be an utter disaster.

The Woman has another plan - she gives Vicky a magic dagger and tells him to look Chandrabhan in the eyes and stab him in the heart.  To lure him out they turn to Shama (Tamannah Bhatia), a famous dancer and Rudra's old friend, to perform a spectacular dance number in the heart of the town.  And it's also an utter disaster, ending with Shama kidnapped and most of the men in town possessed by Chandrabhan's rigid rules about gender roles.  Vicky's only real superpower is listening to women, which doesn't seem like it will be that helpful.

Stree 2 isn't just a sequel to the original, it's a part of the Maddock Supernatural Universe, which also includes werewolf movie Bhediya and Munjya, which features a different sort of ghost.  This is not a cinematic universe that requires a lot of homework, though.  It;s an effective monster mash in its own right, like House of Frankenstein but focused on archetypes form Indian horror cinema, with the Ramsay-like Chandrabhan matched against the more modern J-horror inspired Stree, and there's enough context provided to explain the Wolfman who shows up at the end to help.

And it's also an effective monster mash with something to say, since the real villain here is a narrow and oppressive view of society that winds up hurting everyone, including the men it's supposed to be empowering.

Or possibly the real villain is Dracula, since Bhaskar drops some pretty broad hints at the end.

Bhooty Call: Papi Gudia

 Papi Gudia (1996) opens with a near riot at the police station; Mumbai has been hit by a wave of child kidnappings, and the people want answers now.  Inspector Yadav (Tinnu Anand) has just been assigned to the case, but he already has a plan.  And that plan is apparently to wait for a lucky break; a fearless beggar woman (the IMDB doesn't list the actress, which is a shame since she is the film's true hero) happens to interrupt the kidnapper, and gives chase.  She's on foot and he's in a car, so she doesn't catch him, but she is able to provide a decent description to the police.

The kidnapper is Charan Raj (Shakti Kapoor), also known as Channi.  Channi is a skilled necromancer, and he just has to sacrifice one more child in order to gain ultimate power and rule the world.  he kidnaps another child, and Yadav has another incredibly lucky break - they literally bump into each other on the street.  Yadav recognizes the man form the police sketch, and they have a long chase/gunfight which ends in a toy store, when a seriously wounded Channi uses a long ritual to transfer his soul into a nearby doll, just before the store blows up.

The kidnapped child is Raju (Master Amar.)  He;s fine, but the police have some trouble contacting his family.  His only relative is his sister Karishma (Karisma Kapoor), and she's a popular singer, currently blowing most of the film' special effects budget in a big dance number.  They finally manage to contact her, she picks her brother up, and the police go on their way after urging Karishma to hire a babysitter next time, for heaven's sake.

Karishma has a show the very next night, and her friend Mona (Shraddha Verma) agrees to watch Raju.  Raju doesn't want to stay with Mona, so Karishma takes him out for a fun afternoon to cheer him up after the whole "attempted kidnapping by an evil necromancer" thing.  She buys him a talking doll called Channi, and Raju immediately becomes very attached, but the good news is he's now fine with Mona watching him for the night, so Karishma goes off to her next show.

And then the murders begin.

Mona first; she annoyed Raju by turning off the TV when Channi wanted to watch the news.  When Karishma returns, the house is full of policemen, led by Inspector Vijay Saxena (Avinash Wadhavan), the handsome rich kid who broke her heart years ago.  Vijay explains the situation: Mona fell, or was thrown, out the window after being hit in the head with a very small hammer.  Vijay suspects foul play, and all signs point to Raju, but Karishma flatly refuses to let the police interview him.

Inspector Yadav dies next, then the heroic but unnamed beggar woman.  Every time Raju is seen in the area, doll in tow.  The audience has seen the murders happen.  We know that Channi is the killer, but Vijay is convinced that Raju is involved, while Karishma is convinced that Vijay is pursuing some sort of vendetta against her.

But the thing is, Vijay is right.  Raju is absolutely involved.  When Karishma asks him about Mona, he explains that she had to die because Channi didn't like her and she wouldn't let him watch the news.  Raju skips school to take Channi to Yadav's house.  Raju steals Karishma's car while she's onstage so that Channi can use it to run over the old woman.  At best Raju is an accessory to multiple murders.  he certainly needs psychological help, and he never gets it; nobody even tries to take away the doll that he's clearly obsessed with.

The special effects are an obvious issue here; the movie doesn't use computer graphics or stop motion to bring Channi to life, they just manipulate the doll for the camera, using lighting and camera angles to make him look sinister.  This can be very effective in theory, but here it's not.  It's also not very practical during any sort of fight scene, so they turn down the lights and put a small actor (possibly a child) in a costume, before giving up entirely and turning Channi back into Shakti Kapoor.  The effects are silly, but that's fine; audiences will happily suspend their disbelief for the right story.

The problem is, it's not the right story.  The writing is a mess.  Everything runs on coincidence, things happen just because it's time for a new plot point, and the heroes and villains are both wildly incompetent.  Before the climax Vijay visits Channi's magical mentor (Mohan Joshi) and learns his secret weakness, which he does not use. Instead, the ending relies on coincidence (again) and blatantly rips off some of the lesser Hammer Dracula's.

 It's not all bad news.  The music is generally good or at least catchy, and nobody sells a dance number like Karisma Kapoor.  But this is a very silly movie.

Bhooty Call 2024

 It's that time again.  The nights are getting longer, the air is getting colder, and shadows start to gather in the corners of the room.  It's the spooky season.  Time for a bhooty call.