‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3’ Review: Let The Ghosts Be

Director: Anees Bazmee
Writer: Aakash Kaushik
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Vidya Balan, Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Vijay Raaz, Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra, Ashwini Kalsekar, Rajesh Sharma
Language: Hindi

Some movies are so entertaining that they make you miss the good old days. But others are so vapid that they make you miss good days. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is “others”. You see Vidya Balan, and fondly reminisce about Priyadarshan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) and Pritam’s hit soundtrack. You see Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit playing enigmatic women, and think of how well they were cast in Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya (2010) and Dedh Ishqiya (2014). You see a tragic female ghost haunt a mansion and morph into a human social message in a setting full of foolish men, and it’s hard not to respect how fundamentally sound the Stree movies are. You see crows descend from the dark skies for dramatic effect and think of The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening, the Bosnian B-movie starring Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek.

Madhuri Dixit, Vidya Balan and Kartik Aryan in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.

I should stop here but, in good conscience, I cannot. You see two rival sisters, any of whom can be malevolent spirit Manjulika, and you miss Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) and Tabu’s double role. You see the uncultured assault on all things Bengali and miss the lavish assault of Devdas (2002). You see a ghastly twist that bats for inclusivity the way the current Indian Test team bats for draws, and you miss very specific performances like Jitin Gulati’s in Kaala (2023). You see a remixed dance version of a Kashmiri folk song and miss the purity of the same track from The Family Man (2019), or even the refashioned Iranian song in Animal (2023). You see gags like two cows being named Rolls and Royce, and miss the family-friendly inanity of Welcome (2007) and Dhamaal (2007). In other words, you see Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and end up seeing everything but Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.

Anees Bazmee’s latest horror comedy — a spiritual sequel to a spiritual sequel — opens in 1824. The dancing heiress to the throne of Raktaghat is burnt alive by her disapproving father. We don’t see her face, of course, because the vengeful ghost she becomes insists on wearing a mask. Naturally, or supernaturally, her real identity will form the core of a premise whose one-liner is stretched into 150 lines. As per the Bhool Bhulaiyaa template, this masked menace is named Manjulika; she is locked up in a room of the palace, which remains haunted ever since. Cut to 200 years later, and our fraud godman-hero Ruhan “Rooh Baba” Randhawa (Kartik Aaryan) is summoned by the cash-strapped royal family — including a pretty woman named Meera (Triptii Dimri) — to get rid of Manjulika on Durgashtami and destigmatize the place. Their poverty is played up by a toothpaste tube pun that is, ironically, squeezed dry until there’s nothing left.

The catch is that Ruhan is the doppelganger of Devendranath, the long-haired Prince of Rakhtaghat whose half-sister was rumoured to be Manjulika. Apparently, only he can bust the curse. Aaryan earns a Dharma-style meta moment when he begs to be called anything but Shehzada, a nod to the Aaryan-starring flop from last year. Enter Mallika (Balan), a mysterious restoration expert, followed by Mandira (Dixit), a mysterious buyer. Both of them spend the rest of the film acting overly shady and suspicious — or “sus,” as we call it today — almost as if they’re auditioning for the part of Manjulika in a creature feature. It’s clear that perhaps neither of them is the spirit, so the camera then starts looking at Dimri’s character differently. The red herrings of this franchise continue to be spoilers unto themselves. The inhouse comic trio of Chhota Pandit (Rajpal Yadav), Bada Pandit (Sanjay Mishra) and Panditaayan (Ashwini Kalsekar) are given extended roles to offset the inherent gravity of the actresses.

A still from Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.

That’s the problem. One of the issues with Bazmee’s brand of ‘horror comedy’ is that the term is treated too literally. It’s like tasting a dish in which salt and sugar keep getting added in an infinite loop to balance the flavour — only for them to cancel each other out and mutate into a bland dish instead. The two tones exist as mutually exclusive elements; one rarely emerges from the other. For instance, the revelation in the climax is so serious that the writing resorts to desperate measures — instead of, say, trusting the funny characters — to even it out. At one point, a full-throated Jawan spoof hijacks the scene. The intent of these gags, like most others in the film, is to make us laugh at any cost; it is almost never related to the previous or subsequent moment. It’s as if the audience is reduced to buttons that can be pressed. There’s a randomness to the humour and horror that make it seem like they’re competing with each other for reactions. Even the twist in the end looks like it had less to do with commentary and more to do with correcting the discourse around Tabu walking away with all the plaudits in the last film.

I get that Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (or even Bhool Bhulaiyaa 10 in the future) is supposed to have the cultural, social, cinematic and emotional intelligence of a peanut. The lack of pretentiousness is often the point. But it also often feels like such movies resort to the most simplistic form of the horror comedy — a genre that’s having a moment in mainstream Hindi cinema — because they are incapable of committing to both sides. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is not technical and brave enough to be a horror film; it’s not witty and creative enough to be a campy comedy. So it tries to be both and neither at once; the chances of failing are lower. Given that Bazmee is more adept at staging old-school farce, the pensive portions become rhythm breakers that bide time until the next gag. Aaryan’s Rooh Baba continues to be possessed by the spirit of Akshay Kumar. But to his credit, he does swing for the fences in the final act — and misses spectacularly. As a result, the world-building and quirks of the franchise are now repetitive. There’s only so much interest it can generate about the true identity of Manjulika. There are only so many Scooby-Doo-coded situations and dull set pieces one can withstand.

More characters and songs are added not to enhance the film but to offer viewers more time in an air-conditioned cinema hall. Consequently, the chuckles and gasps sound like the ones we emit when we come prepared to enjoy ourselves because we’ve paid a small fortune to watch a film on a long festival weekend. Nothing can thwart the human desire to validate our choices. To be honest, I was frightened in the first half of this film, but that’s only because the multiplex started the show bang on time: no trailers, no disclaimers, no delays. It’s a twist less plausible than Manjulika’s mask. Once the interval ran for 30 minutes, though, my horror melted into relief and amusement. I couldn’t help but smile. All felt well with the world again — humour defusing the tension. If that isn’t a perfectly balanced movie-going experience, what is?