Why Akshay Kumar's horror comedy 'Bhooth Bangla' is seriously unfunny

The biggest sin a filmmaker can commit is to not make audiences care. Not for the characters, not for the events unfolding. Bhooth Bangla, the Priyadarshan-helmed horror comedy, is fully committed to this cause from the get-go. That it distances itself from the audiences with a genre much loved of late makes it all the more unbelievable.

At the core of this misfire is the plotline, which revolves around Vadhasur, a bat-faced monster whose modus operandi is similar to that of Sanjeev Kumar in the cult film Jaani Dushman: abduct and kill new brides in Mangalpur. Vadhasur’s kill count ensures that no wedding takes place there, and the odd one that does goes horribly wrong.

Enter Akshay Kumar’s Arjun, a debt-ridden good-for-nothing fellow, whose sister (Mithila Palkar) has inherited a palace in the area and wants him to spruce it up for her great Indian wedding. Disbelieving at first of the tales around the monster, Arjun has his belief system gradually changed.

More than a scare fest, this one’s an over-the-top offering where characters scream and deride each other in desperate attempts to land a joke. Kumar performs this task with unbridled enthusiasm, and his hit list is long—from the legendary Asrani, seen here in his last role, to Paresh Rawal’s wedding planner and Rajpal Yadav’s electrician.

The humour is a mix of badly executed slapstick comedy (Rawal’s rear is a constant target) and distasteful and dated jokes. Where the comedy bits fail, the haunted house bits are only a tad more engaging because they stick to tried-and-tested tropes of horror—creaking doors, silhouettes in the dark and more.

Priyadarshan and Kumar partnered to deliver the chops in the genre with Bhool Bhulaiyaa, which itself was a remake of a hit Malayalam film. Kumar and Rawal also paired up with Priyadarshan to give the beloved comedy classic Hera Pheri. But the occupants of Bhooth Bangla barely make an impression.

The female parts, in particular, are the weakest. Everyone, from Wamiqa Gabbi to Tabu, are given little to do. If the film draws laughs, it is for unwarranted reasons, such as the sight of Kumar calling Jisshu Sengupta his father and Tabu and Kumar doing a classical duet in an unwatchable number.

Meanwhile, the audiences are trapped in a tired, half-baked tale of jealousy and betrayal, with some strange machine churning out mantras and long sermons on urban legends and back stories. Towards the end, as Kumar’s Arjun tells his sister to dismiss everything that’s transpired in the climatic fight as “one bad dream”, one couldn’t help but feel that it’s an apt descriptor for the two hour-plus film itself. One bad, unending dream.

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