Cast: Ajay Devgan, Urmila Mantodkar, Nana Patekar, Seema Biswas, Tanuja, Rekha & Fardeen Khan
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Producer: Ram Gopal Varma

Review

After two unsuccessful attempts, Ramu toys the horror genre again with Bhoot. This time the story is set in an urban background.

A new couple (Ajay Devagan and Urmila Matondkar) moves into an apartment where the previous occupant commits suicide. Urmila starts to experience strange hallucinations after she has moved into the apartment. The watchman of the apartment is murdered shortly after they move into the apartment and all hell breaks loose, the rest of the story is how Ajay Devagan tries to figure out what is happening.

While alternate styles of horror movies is the "mantra" in vogue in the movie circuit around the world, Ramu is still trying the same old clichéd style of horror film making, i.e. frighten the audience by efficient sound design. In Bhoot, the sound was rather loud and rarely eerie. Interestingly, he could sync the audio to the actor's feelings and portrayed them with care. He employs long shots and frog's eye view most of the times. So it appears as if some one is watching the protagonists through a hole, like a voyeur. It's a good style as the ghost really watches them and also it creates a little eerie effect.

In the first half of the film, Ramu tries to generate "fear" and anticipation by repeatedly showing some scenes like elevator going up and down and Ajay going and coming out of the office. The redundancy at times translates to uneasiness. The tension mounts as a factor of time and we reach a peak within an hour. The descent to the climax is not "at par" with the peak we are transferred to.

Some of the scenes were inspired from his previous movie Ratri. Scenes like heroine finding herself alone in theater, beach etc have been picturized in Ratri. Movie is basically Ratri meets The Exorcist. In Ratri ghost was shown in last half an hour of the film and didn't gel well with the audience as they were expecting some probable reasoning for the acts rather than a ghost itself. Deyyam was too fantasy to be credible. So this time the audiences have a tryst with the ghost within the first 15 minutes, which makes the story little credible.

There isn't much humor in the film until Nana Patekar enters, but most of the characters look weird. His casting coup, which includes a multitude, established artists are inserted in a short span of time. Fardeen Khan is unimpressive in his limited time. Urmila gives a commendable performance when she is "possessed", Ajay looks tired. This tired look might have helped in the uneasiness of the film but the character could have had some humorous moments to it.

All in all, it was a very good attempt, different from the "Ramsay" genre, but if Ramu shows no difference in his narration in future horror films, they could be coined "Varma" genre with a negative intention very soon. It's a good film for those who haven't seen Ramu's previous attempts with horror and those who have seen would know what to expect and may get disappointed.