HOARY HORROR

My sister went rushing Saturday evening to see Bhool Bhullaiyyaa 2 (The Labyrinth). I laughed to myself thinking ” There goes she …to the PVR…paying handsomely to get scared“. Yes, that was it as the movie was supposed to be a horror comedy. The next morning I laughed a little more when I saw the same movie premiering on Netflix and I saw it in the afternoon without paying a dime and without getting terrified too as it was boringly predictable, and like all repeats, hugely short of the charisma of the original – Bhool Bhullaiyyaa 1 which got released in 2007 and made history!!! Of course, at that point of time no one knew there would be a Part 2 after fifteen long years. Interestingly, the Part 2 has been made with a budget of Rs. 65 Crore – Rs. 80 Crore and till date earned Rs. 259.06 Crore (and still going strong) whereas the Part 1 was made with a budge of Rs. 25.00 Crore – Rs. 32.00 Crore and earned Rs. 202.80 Crore at the box office (Source – Wikipedia).

There are many reasons why Part 2 failed to hit the mark for me in comparison with Part 1.

Director of Part 1 was Priyadarshan, the ace filmmaker, that too of the comedy genre. Director of Part 2 is Anees Bazmee, who is also well known in his craft, but somehow could not match Priyadarshan’s skill of making people laugh and at the same time get stricken with fear.

Part 1, under the veneer of horror comedy, underscored that even the most hair raising, incredible and extra-ordinary experience could have a hard core scientific explanation. Part 2 heavily relied on mindless spooks and slapstick nonsensical comedy. The only relief was the ace duo Rajpal Yadav and Sanjay Mishra who could make me laugh without efforting to do so.

Part 1 had mind blowing performances by Vidya Balan (Avni/Manjulika) and Akshay Kumar (Dr. Aditya Shrivastav). I was equally impressed by Vineeth (aka Shashidhar) though. He danced with such grace and masculinity!!! Part 2 mis-utilized Tabu in double role. Rather I wonder why she agreed to do this film! Kartik Aryan (as Ruhaan), (though the social networking sites and reviewers are going gaga over him), could not come up even an inch close to the eccentric and idiosyncratic Akshay Kumar!

Part 1 had ground breaking music, especially, the soul stirring signature song, “aami je tomaar…….shudhu je tomaar” (I am yours…only yours) by one and only Shreya Ghoshal and N.G Sreekumar and the groovy title song by Neeraj Shreedhar. Music Director was our own Pritamda!! Both the songs have been re-utilized in Part 2, however, while the raga of the former has been changed and sung by Arijit Singh ( I like the classical version sung by him more which has not been filmed but available on You Tube) the latter has been re-mixed. Needless to say, the changed versions fail to create the aura which the originals still hold.

Last but not the least, who could forget the penultimate scenes of Part 1 – the raving mad Manjulika dancing to her heart’s glory with her imaginary partner Shashidhar while Vikram Gokhale, the master ghostbuster, incanting mantras while performing the spirit-enticing yagnya before the holy fire!! Kartik Aryan, may be good in hip hopping, but when it comes to enacting the taandav in classical style, fail miserably to re-create the goose bump inducing Manjulika effect!!! Not to mention the sudden switchover to heavily accented Bangla which, sorry to say, crossed all limits of credulity … was in fact to the point of being laughable.

Having said all that, I think it would be unjust not to give a comparative glimpse of the narrative of both Part 1 and Part 2.

Both have the same premise – a large extended royal family leaves their palatial ancestral property to stay away because of the hauntings of a destructive spirit named Manjulika. Before leaving, the family, with the help of the family priest, manages to imprison the spirit in one of the rooms locking the door with mantra injected special bars so that she remains captured inside. The instruction to all and sundry being not to open the door at any cost if life needs be saved. But with the turn of events, the door gets unlocked and Manjulika sashays out to wreak havoc!!

Part 1 – The educated and enlightened next gen refuses to believe in witches and hauntings and coaxes the family to return to their ancestral home which holds nostalgic reminiscences of childhood days. But events take horrific turn when once again the family starts experiencing weird phenomena which prove to be completely unintelligible by all means to common human comprehension. In comes the learned but cranky Psychiatrist to help his friend, the scion of the family, solve the mystery.

Part 2 – Girl (Kiara Advani as Reet) meets boy in a bus en-route home. The boy influences the girl to detract from her homeward journey and come with him to attend a music festival. On their return, they learn that the bus they took earlier has met with an accident and all the passengers have died. Girl’s family is heartbroken to hear this news because they think the girl is dead. The girl continues to pretend to be dead because she learns by chance that the boy she was to marry is in love with her cousin. Girl compels the boy to help her hide in their deserted spooky mansion until her cousin is safely married to her erstwhile fiancé. In the course of event, the family comes back to stay in the mansion not knowing that the room where the spirit was kept imprisoned has re-opened and she is now literally free-spirited to cause unprecedented damage to the family.

In the entire narrative of Part 2, the boy’s antecedents are not made known to the viewer. There is only a casual mention of his obituary in the papers! That’s all. But he is also the heir to a business empire. So convenient!! The girl, who is supposed to be an MBBS student, does not have any other plan in life but to marry off her cousin to a man she does not love (good riddance!!). Also, which sensible girl on earth goes off romping with a total stranger who appears to know every detail about her and her whereabouts?

Cut two – The boy [is as comfy in the spooked village (Bhawanigarh in Rajasthan which automatically reminds of the infamous Bhangarh also in Rajasthan) as if it were his home town] goes around playing a bag full of tricks on all the villagers, (as though they have deposited their brains in bank lockers), and nobody suspects him except the village priests duo whose income is cut short as the boy has now graduated into some kind of a God man who can directly communicate with dead people. The royalty, to whom the girl belongs, appears equally brainless gullible and gulp down his theories hook, line and sinker.

Perhaps being Part 2, it has not one, but two ill meaning twin spirits, Manjulika and Anjulika and in the long run both get entwined in an evil fight inside the room where the former was locked indicating there will be a Part 3 in near future with not two but three witchy twitchy ghost-esses to keep up the pride and parampara of franchises in films.

For Part 1, I can only say, it was a classic, in every sense of the term, which reinforced the sanctity of scientific temper conjugated with the ancient wisdom of alternate therapies in so far as combating the satanic forces, if they do exist in this world, in the form of dark spirits, is concerned. I do not doubt they don’t but at the same time I would like to keep an open approach with a questioning mind – do they?

Jai ho!!