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Star cast: Manisha Koirala, J. D. Chakravarthy, Madhu Shalini and Alayana Sharma.
What’s Good: The part where the policeman interrogates the family.
What’s Bad: The repeated formula; the screeching music; the shoddy editing.
Loo Break: Anytime.
Watch or Not? Only if you want to watch a terrible rehash of a dozen done-to-death Bollywood horror movies.
User Rating :
Ghosts can do horrible, terrible things to spook a family. Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot Returns gives this family the jitters by – hold your breath – pulling off the covers, playing on a swing and (gasp!) rearranging their furniture.
Tarun (J. D. Chakravarthy) moves in to a new house with his wife (Manisha Koirala), daughter (Alayana Sharma) and son. Soon, Tarun’s sister (Madhu Shalini) also joins them. Tarun’s wife is suspicious of getting the house at such a throwaway rate, but Tarun is too busy to notice. Within no time, the omens start appearing.
First Tarun’s daughter starts referring to an imaginary friend. Though they dismiss it as the child’s imagination, it begins to turn scary when their daughter threatens to harm people. When they start hearing strange sounds at night, Tarun accuses the servant of mischief. The servant suspects supernatural powers at play and begs them to conduct “pooja hawan” to get rid of the evil spirits.
One day, the servant disappears without a trace.
The next day, so does their daughter.
And there’s a creepy little doll that their daughter found when she move in.
Bhoot Returns Review: Script Analysis
The only way Ravi Shankar’s script and screenplay would sound interesting to you is if you’ve been living under a rock for a decade. The movie is a blatant mix and rip-off of a dozen other ghost films namely Paranormal Activity and Ramu’s own Vaastu Shastra. You would have thought that Bollywood had gotten rid of the fetish for creepy dolls, but the time hasn’t come yet.
And the tricks of the ghost trying to scare the family are so stale that you end up laughing at this old-fashioned poltergeist. Pulling the sheets off sleeping people, the ancient swing moving by itself etc. are just too boring to scare or interest any one. The only interesting part is when the police officers come to investigate the missing people, which has some funny dialogues.
Bhoot Returns Review: Star Performances
Manisha Koirala does well as the scared wife but she turns on the terrified-hyper act a bit too early. J. D. Chakravarthi tries his best as Tarun. Alayana Sharma is alright as Tarun’s daughter. Madhu Shalini performs ably.
While the cast may have done the best they could, the punctured script and bad direction takes everyone down.
Bhoot Returns Review: Direction, Music & Technical Aspects
There’s no place/spot/angle that Ram Gopal Varma hasn’t shot through. The ceiling fan, the wall hanging, the wash basin: nobody is spared and everything becomes your POV, and that’s not always a good thing. Ramu may have delivered some path breaking films, but Bhoot Returns will only serve as another ornament in his currently expanding Hall Of Shame. Sandeep Chowta’s background sound is grating and makes you cringe more than any of the attempts at horror on screen. Sunil Wadhwani’s editing is shoddy. Harshraj Shroff and M. Ravichandran Thevar’s cinematography is far from path breaking.
Bhoot Returns Review: The Last Word
This Bhoot had no business returning. RGV could have at least saved the original Bhoot from being ruined by trying to make a sequel out of it.
Bhoot Returns Trailer
Bhoot Returns released on 5th October, 2012.
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