Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 Review - Passable Horror-Comedy!

Ashwin Ram

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is a spiritual successor to the horror comedy franchise by retaining a few characters from the second part. Starring Karthik Aryan, Tripti Dimri, Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles.

Premise:

Kartik Aryan who is faking as a priest who can communicate with spirits gets hired to work in a Bhoot bungalow to wipe the ghost so that the owners can sell off the place. The happenings inside the palace forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The story is its biggest advantage, the 200 years old flashback deals with an important topic that is still relevant. Conveying the message and strongly registering what happened back then was a mistake is an appreciable decision. The twisted narration helps, the constantly evolving plot-points hold the interest. The horror scenes barely click, the treatment is so usual and has no special elements like the recent example ‘Stree 2’ to instantly impress. Despite a thoughtful backstory, the drama it creates has no effect in the present timeline as the reveal takes place only in the climax. The timing comedies work well with some enjoyable situational ideas. The other genre it tries is slapstick, which is a mixed bag, some bring in cheers among the crowd and there are a handful of them that fall flat. The small moments in the screenplay to make it a commercial package could have been fluently placed, the unexciting love track and random song placements that follow are major roadblocks to the flow. Also, there are some long-drawn-out scenes that land in the mega serial zone.

Performances:

Kartik Aryan glitters bright, he is jovial as ‘Rooh Baba’, in addition to that he utilizes the existing scope to his favor in the flashback and delivers a brave performance. Tripti Dimri is mostly used as a glam queen who appears without much purpose for the songs and filler love scenes. Good show by Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit, initially it felt their roles were predictable, but the interesting twists in the progression eventually proved their worth. The exaggerations in the performances of the supporting artists are crowd pleasing, funny when the situation falls in place and irritates when it is done for no reason. However the ‘Jawan’ moment at the end was a blast.

Technicalities:

Decent songs, the two reprise tracks are better than the original stuff. The usage of the trademark ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ theme at right places of the background score keeps the momentum on. Visual quality is fine, except for the weird camera angles at times. Lazy editing as there are many sequences that demand fine tuning in the flick, with crisper runtime, it would have been a much better package.

Bottomline

The horror scenes are disappointing due to the lack of scary moments. Despite the flaws, it is quite a convincing outing with some funny comical stretches and a really good story that is narrated neatly.

Rating - 2.5/ 5