We all crave arousal of any sort. While some emotions are easily appreciated, some, like fear are less easily accepted. But there is a difference between fear from danger and fear of the unknown. Horror movies try to create this arousal of fear with an elementary excitement. With the setting of a ship and the rumours around a haunted history, the recently released ‘Bhoot’ starring National Award winner Vicky Kaushal promised an on-screen play that could pump the adrenaline. But the props and the patterns, the chants and the characters fail to break through the carapace of overdone and overseen typical horror movies.
Sight and sound are very important aspects of a horror movie but can be managed by functions outside core film making. A good director will know that the script offers stimulus to the brain that triggers the emotions leading to the arousal of a sense of fear, which is the theme of a movie of this kind.
Produced under the Dharma production banner, Bhoot is a horror thriller movie that revolves around the protagonist, Vicky Kaushal, who is struggling to deal with the loss of his wife and daughter for which he holds himself responsible. The problems pave a way for him to find a life objective to save any child in danger even at the risk of his own life.
Written by the director himself, the movie is like a series of stitched scenes rather than a drama based on a structured script. Like many directors, Bhanu also makes the mistake of riding high on a successful actor like Vicky and undermining the focus on the other characters in the movie.
A good director must have the ability not to make an outdated cast look like a cost control measure by breaking the monotony of the old actors. Dialogues must be delivered and emotions must be expressed but actors like Asutosh Rana, in their unbridled frenzy cross the thin margin between acting and overacting and end up doing the opposite.
With the recent success of a few movies and the interest shown by big production houses like Dharma, there is little doubt about the opportunity and market size of this genre. The biggest challenge is to extract emotions that the audience is not used to in its usual life.
