Say Boo!:
Sanjay Dutt is co-producer of The Bhootnii, and stars in it too. The actor in him must have had the unfulfilled wish to play a ghostbuster, otherwise there was no reason for this film to exist.
Written and directed by Sidhaant Sachdev, the film is set in St Vincent’s College of Art and Culture (seriously?), which allows the bizarre custom of worshipping a tree on the campus, called the Virgin Tree, on St Valentine’s Day. And nobody but a vigilant student notices that on the Holika Dahan a few days later, a student dies by suicide. There are rumours that the college is haunted, but it seems to be more of a college legend, as students continue to tie ribbons to the branches, leave photos of the one they love, or notes with their romantic wishes under the tree.
The prologue with a voiceover about sachchi mohabbat, and a blaze of fires around the tree in the past foreshadow the events that take place in the present, not that what unfolds makes much sense. Anyway, the titular bhootnii (Mouni Roy) has to make an appearance, and she does, when a drunk Shantanu (Sunny Singh), jilted by his girlfriend, howls about true love below the tree, and somehow summons the lovelorn spirit.
Shantanu has two desperate types as his roommates and best buddies – Sahil (Nick) and Nasir (Aasif Khan)—whose primary purpose in the film is to crack silly jokes, and give exaggerated responses to the goings-on, because Shantanu is mostly catatonic. There is also the friendzoned girl, Ananya (Palak Tiwari), whom he confides in, as she, for some reason, keeps planting the same flowers in a pot.
When students demand action into the suicides, the college summon Krishna Tripathi aka Baba (Sanjay Dutt), an expert in the paranormal, who fights and gets rid of spirits, using a carved sword or ancient gun. Baba decides that there is definitely a spirit haunting the college, and places weird gadgets around to figure out what she is up to.
The bhootnii is initially quite harmless—her make-up is more scary than her demeanour—calls herself Mohabbat, and professes to love Shantanu, who runs screaming when she tells him she is a ghost, and unleashes the evil in her. Which means her eyes flash green, her skin looks scaly, she can fly around, make others levitate and also shape shift when she wants to– old TV serial level of special effects.
Meanwhile the other students and staff appear and vanish at the director’s whim, Baba comes and goes as he pleases, and Mohabbat also obligingly takes a break for a few hours a day, so that Shantanu is free to clear the air with Ananya, who secretly loves him.
There is eventually a backstory for Mohabbat, the why and how of her behaviour, but the film is just never thrilling, frightening or funny enough to pass itself off as a horror comedy. The imdb synopsis of The Bhootnii is actually quite interesting, and if Sachdev had followed his own story idea, the film could have been salvaged. Horror movies demand suspension of disbelief, but a good director can make audiences believe in the outlandish mumbo-jumbo and also make them jump out their skins with spooky scenes.
Mouni Roy has played Naagin on a TV series before, so manages the limited expressions, layers of gunk and plenty of wire work required for the part. Even if he had a hand in its making, the film is really beneath Sanjay Dutt stardom.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.in)
