Bhoot aaya.... Review on Bhoot

The film centers on the story of a young couple. Vishal (Ajay Devgan) and Swati (Urmila Matondkar) are new residents in a high-rise located in the heart of Mumbai. The prior resident of the couple’s apartment had committed suicide by leaping from the balcony of their suite. Swati learns about this incident shortly after moving in and becomes oddly fixated with the story. Then, a series of inexplicable experiences drive Swati to near madness.

Vishal becomes helpless and convinced his wife has developed some sort of psychological disorder. He consults a psychiatrist, Dr. Rajan (Victor Banerjee). The couple’s maid (Seema Biswas) believes Swati to be possessed, and calls in an exorcist (Rekha).

Meanwhile, other seemingly unrelated events take place around the building. The watchman (Sabeer Masani) is being terrorized, one of the residents (Fardeen Khan) is behaving erratically, and a murder occurs. Inspector Liaqat Quereshi (Nana Patekar) is sent to investigate the murder at the building. All the while, neither the psychiatrist nor the exorcist makes much progress with Swati.

The greatest detractor in this enterprise is the screenplay. The script begins on a fairly conventional and clichéd note as far as horror films are concerned, but manages to incorporate some novel twists and genuinely frightening sequences leading up to Swati’s becoming possessed.

Once Urmila’s character takes the plunge into madness, however, the script takes a dive as well. More and more of the duration time passes away and very few truly notable developments transpire. The writers seemed to have intentionally kept the first half slow in an attempt to build tension and atmosphere, but the repeated exposition quickly grows tiresome and the entire film begins to sink to rambling depths.

The second half avoids the inconsequential nature of the first, but leaves a lot to be desired nonetheless. Post-interval, the script goes into overdrive and new characters and storylines shoot forward every moment. Unfortunately, the new characters and plots lack development. As the film races towards its conclusion, there is too much going on screen, too fast, and much of the dramatic and frightening impact of the film is lost as a result.