Bhoot: Part One - The Haunted Ship

Bhoot: Part One - The Haunted Ship tries to revive a forgotten genre in Bollywood. As horror is my favourite genre, I was intrigued to see how Dharma Productions and Bhanu Pratap Singh would handle something like this. Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't pleasant.

Bhoot: Part One - The Haunted Ship follows Prithvi, a man dealing with loss, who investigates the mysterious Sea Bird ship that arrives on the beach.

What this film does well is create an eerie atmosphere. A lot of the film has a grey/dark colour palette to reinforce the spooky atmosphere. The set design of the ship itself is done really well. The dilapidated state of the ship makes it seem haunted and tension does rise whenever we're inside the ship. Even the sound design is well executed and builds upon the eerie tone.

Whilst the film does look good, there is nothing special about it. Bhanu Pratap Singh decides to use classic horror tropes such as dolls, jumpscares, creaking doors and children. All of these clichés are found within multiple horror movies in the past. It doesn't feel unique in any way. The over-reliance on jumpscares started to get tedious towards the end. The first half did give me a sense of hope as I liked the psychological trauma that Prithvi was going through but the second half tarnished whatever was good about the first half. It seems like Singh didn't know how to end the film so he came up with a really contrived and rushed backstory that was not convincing at all. Not only that but the film also ends with a set up for a sequel. How lovely!

The performances were actually good. Vicky Kaushal really carries this movie with his acting. He's convincing as his character and his way of handling his character's loss is done well. Bhumi Pednekar has a very brief role but does a good job. Ashutosh Rana is good despite his severely underwritten character.

Bhoot: Part One - The Haunted Ship was quite disappointing. The first half had good elements and set up the creepy atmosphere well but the thrown together second half was a huge let down.