155. Bhoot Part One - The Haunted Ship; movie review

BHOOT PART ONE - THE HAUNTED SHIP
Cert 15
114 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong horror, violence

Indian audiences love a ghost story, don't they?
Maybe that's because more people have spiritual beliefs on the sub-continent than in the secularised West.
Whatever the reason, at least one movie is released every month with the intent of scaring the bejesus out of its audience.
Bhoot Part One - The Haunted Ship made me jump three times and I wasn't even watching it on a big screen nor do I believe in the supernatural.
Therefore, I would say that it was more engaging than many horrors which fail to shock at all.
However, it still suffers from the inclusion of many of the cliches which dog other movies of the genre.
Bhanu Pratap Singh's movie stars Vicky Kaushal as Prithvi, a shipping officer who is asked to handle the case of a giant vessel which has become stranded on a busy beach.
Mysteriously, it appears to have not a single person on board....
Except for a ghost or ghosts and a ragdoll which seems to be omnipresent.
Prithvi becomes obsessed with the ship and its past and the parallels which are drawn to his own tragic family life.
Akash Dhar plays his colleague and friend who struggles to believe in the tales Prithvi tells of the supernatural while Meher Vij portrays a woman who has a past with the ship.
But this is Kaushal's movie - he is in almost every scene - either wrestling with his life before the ship appeared or with what happened to it and its crew.
Do audiences for this type of movie really care about the narrative? I suspect they are more engaged by the special effects which see angry spirits literally fly.
Bhoot Part One is said to be based on a true story of a ship which ran aground for several days on the Mumbai coast.
Well, it is true that a ship did run aground, there is nothing to suggest spooky activity on board.
In other words - this is a made-up story which seems to be developing into a franchise.
With such ambition, I would have expected a bit more from Singh's picture. Instead, I found a passable horror but one which lent too heavily on familiar horror genre tunes.

Reasons to watch: A few jumps
Reasons to avoid: Preposterous story

Laughs: None
Jumps: Three
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? Vicky Kaushal fractured his cheekbone while shooting for an action sequence in Gujarat as a door fell on him which resulted in him getting 13 stitches.

The final word. Vicky Kaushal: “I was never a ‘horror-film friendly’ actor before doing ‘Bhoot Part One: The Haunted Ship‘. I was someone who would step out of the room if a horror movie was on. However, with this film, I was able to overcome my fear.” Koimoi.com

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