Bhoot

<p>The story is about Vishal Bhatia ( ), an investment advisor who is married to Swati Bhatia ( ). The couple rents a high-rise apartment at a ridiculously low price. The broker of the apartment introduces Vishal to the owner of the apartment, Mr. Thakkar ( ) and explains to Vishal that a widow named Manjeet Khosla ( ), the previous resident, committed suicide after killing her own son. Vishal hides this fact from Swati, as she will object to renting such a residence. But the owner accidentally slips in the secret. Swati is extremely annoyed with Vishal for hiding the fact of the previous tenants, although he does not believe the notions of ghosts and bad luck. Swati soon starts seeing things and behaving very strangely. Vishal consults Dr. Rajan ( ). By this time it is understood that Swati is possessed, although Vishal thinks she’s sleepwalking. One night Vishal notices that Swati is missing from the apartment. He goes out to search for her only to find her coming out of the elevator. Vishal feels something is wrong and goes to the ground floor, and sees the murdered watchman whose neck had been snapped backwards. This indicates possessed Swati murdered him. Vishal’s whole scepticism is gone. Inspector Liyaqat Qureshi ( ), who arrives at the apartment to investigate the death, becomes suspicious of the duo and their strange behavior. He follows Vishal and Dr. Rajan. Vishal’s maid witnesses Swati shouting and hurling Vishal. She helps him restrain her and tells him that Swati was shouting just like Manjeet. She also tells him that an exorcist can help her instead of doctors. Finally, Vishal consults an exorcist named Sarita ( ). Sarita sees the ghosts of Manjeet and her son. She advises Vishal to meet Manjeet’s mother ( ), since she can placate her daughter’s spirit. Vishal complies and meets Manjeet’s mother. He learns from Manjeet’s mother that Manjeet was not the type of woman who would commit suicide or murder her own son. He explains Swati’s situation to her and asks for her help. She comes with him and placates Manjeet’s spirit. They come to know that Mr. Thakkar’s son, Sanjay Thakkar ( ), tried to molest Manjeet and she resisted, but accidentally fell off the balcony and died. Hence, Sarita advises Vishal to call him. Vishal makes an unknown call to Sanjay and tells him that his father is ill. When Sanjay arrives, Vishal cleverly tells Mr. Thakkar and Sanjay to help him take Swati to the hospital. It is then revealed that many years ago, Sanjay came to visit his father and started lusting after Manjeet when he saw her in the apartment. He broke into her house, and attempted to profess his attraction. When she rejected him, he pushed her and she accidentally fell off the balcony and died. Manjeet’s young son witnessed the murder, and Sanjay hires the watchman to kill the boy. Manjeet, who has still possessed Swati’s body, sees Sanjay and chases him. Qureshi tries to stop her, having no idea of the real story. Swati tries to kill Sanjay by strangulating him. But, Sarita asks Manjeet to leave him as Swati would be blamed later on. Sanjay escapes, only to find himself surrounded by Vishal, Sarita, Manjeet and Qureshi who now know the truth. A terrified Sanjay confesses to the crimes, upon which Manjeet’s mother urges her to stop. Sanjay is arrested by Inspector Qureshi, and thrown into jail. Manjeet leaves Swati’s body, and Vishal and Swati live a good life in the apartment. Meanwhile, in the lockup, Qureshi tells Sanjay that death sentences are light penalties for a criminal like him. He wishes that Sanjay gets a harsher punishment. After Qureshi leaves the darkened cell, Sanjay finds himself face to face with Manjeet. He starts begging for mercy, but his voice soon fades as Manjeet draws closer; it is implied that she kills Sanjay. The soundtrack is under the label . The music of the film was composed by . It consists of 7 songs, 1 remix and an instrumental. The whole soundtrack is not used in the movie, except the song “Ghor Andhere” for the ending credits. The song “Bhoot Hoon Main” was recreated in film , which will be showing is Director Ram Gopal Varma’s second horror film after (1992), starring . He said about the film, “Though technically it is a horror film, we don’t see a murder or any overt horror.” Further calling it a “hold-on-to-your-seats horror film”, he said he wanted to break the stereotypes of a typical Indian horror of “a woman in a white sari, mists and screeching.” He expressed his intentions of bringing horror “to [audiences] homes in the middle of Mumbai.” He believed that since horror films were expected to happen mostly in a graveyard or a haunted house on a hill station, their happening in a place where no one really expected a ghost would be scary. Terming the film a remake of in some sense, and citing as a huge influence on , Varma also included a message at the beginning of the film where he cautioned pregnant women and people with weak hearts to view it at their own risk. The film creates terror through sound and everyday objects. wrote about Matondkar’s performance, Narendra Kusnur of was similarly positive of Matondkar, writing that her “transformation from a simple woman to a possessed spirit is smooth, and she emotes fear very naturally,” and concluded: Deepa Gumaste of mentioned that Bhoot gave her the same experience of terror as in (1991) and said: Anita Gates of noted, “…at some point the overdone scary music becomes part of the fun.” In 2012, producer Jitendra Jain, of Alumbra Entertainment, purchased the rights from Nitin Manmohan and produced , which was also directed by Ram Gopal Varma. However, unlike , it received mixed-to-negative reviews, and was a box-office disaster. ‘s acquired the of the film series from to make their own franchise, the first part of a planned trilogy starring , , and , directed by Bhanu Pratap Singh was released in 2020.</p>