Review: A Bollywood supernatural thriller sounds interesting doesn’t it? In fact, Bhoot is not a conventional Indian movie. First, the length of the movie is only 2 hours. Yes only, as the average Bollywood movie usually lasts 3 Hours. And second, there’s not even one single dance number in the whole movie. Right from these two points, you know that director Verma is trying to break new ground with his unconventional movie. Lucky for him, the movie was very well received in his home country and he left his mark on the Indian box office in 2002.

The movie is quite a surprise when you understand where it’s coming from. Horror movies have never been in big demand in India, except for during the 70’s and 90’s, when the Ramsay brothers made countless low budget blood and guts movies. Indians always feel awkward towards the genre. Since then, nothing really worthy had hit the market, until Bhoot had finally been released. The director was even very confident in his project, as you can tell by the warning he personally displays before the starting credits. He’s convinced that he will scare you to death. Bhoot is a good thriller movie with a lot of positive elements, but unfortunately there a few bad points that are hard to forgive and really affect the general quality of the movie.

One element that Bhoot should have re-worked is the cliché premise, the haunted apartment. It is unfortunately a bit un-original and the influence of such films as The Exorcist and countless Japanese ghost movies is strongly apparent. The pace of the movie is a problem too, as not everyone will be comfortable with the rather slow development. It really takes a long time before something exciting happens. The time when Swati is struggling to understand what is happening to her should have been shortened to help the pace of the movie. Besides that problem, the story is decent and keeps you on the edge until you finally understand why all this is happening. The end is great too, not extra-ordinary but not something that can be easily anticipated either.

The story also takes a good amount of time to make us understand and care for the characters. The acting is just perfect too; they really found the right actor for each role. The best performance is given by Urmila Matondkar in her role of Swati. Between the normal wife and the crazy possessed women, her performance was just perfect. It’s probably hard to try to look possessed without looking stupid and Urmila did a great job on her mixed role. Ajay Devgan is another memorable actor in his role of the husband. We feel pity for him when he stands in front of his possessed wife, completely helpless.

Except for the annoying policeman, most of the supporting cast performed very well also. Victor Banerjee, the psychiatrist with personal problem, Rekha the nice looking clairvoyant, Seema Biswas the strange housemaid and Nana Patekar the “I think I’m the best cop in town” character. Director Verma should be grateful to have these actors for his film as they really helped the movie be taken as a serious ghost story.

Of course Verma’s great cinematic vision is another factor in why the movie works so well. Right at the beginning, with the beautifully shot credit intro, you will be hooked on Mr. Verma’s style. He’s not reinventing anything of course, but his great camera angles, gray atmosphere and his mix of the images, music and sound all fit the tone of the movie perfectly.

Being a scary movie, you are expecting to be frightened. Well, unfortunately it doesn’t work as well as it could have. I’m not sure if it is a cultural element or just me not being very scared of ghost stories. You can easily compare the scare factor to the HK/Thailand movie The Eye, very atmospheric and a bit graphic with ghost apparitions here and there. The movie is not really gory either, except for one key murder scene, which is very well done. However, the director’s intention is clearly not to impress you with blood and guts but make you feel panicked.