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.