Anyway, Arjun travels to Mangalpur to his recently inherited haveli to make arrangements for his sister’s wedding. Except, of course, it’s haunted. Of course, something’s not right in the local village. A strange bat-like demon called Vadhusur has been abducting women for years. A literal… Batman (please send help).
A Google search tells me the budget of Bhooth Bangla is Rs 120 crore. You can see almost none of that on screen. Priyadarshan’s defeatingly dated film looks, sounds, and feels like it belongs to a decade ago, if not more. It’s shoddily shot, the dubbing is on its own trip, and the editing ensures that scenes don’t end as much as they whimper away, and fizzle out.
The score is intermittent and seems to forget it exists. We get odd, long stretches of silence, which feel strange for a film with such an animated tonality.
Or Paresh Rawal (he plays the wedding planner, not that it matters) getting his ass set on fire multiple times. Or Rajpal Yadav (he plays an electrician, not that it matters), being made to look like he’s slapping a woman’s backside with a chappal, or staring down her low-cut blouse. Or hammers falling on people’s heads. Or Akshay Kumar getting his foot stuck in a bucket.
