Bhoot Gets The Boot!

Are horror films threatened  in India? Going by  the fate  of  the recent horror films  such as  Vikram Bhatt’s Hacked  last month and  Bhoot this week  the normal  horror tropes and standard scares have had their  (Fri)day.

Bhoot  a prestigious  Karan Johar  production registered a  paltry Rs  2  crores  nationwide on Monday.

No  wonder  Ram Gopal Varma  the master of  celluloid spooks,  has  decided  to stay away from the horror genre.

“Isn’t there enough  horror  all around us  in every sphere  of life?I think the way that a horror film will work in contemporary times  is if it is set  in  normal  identifiable  comfortable setting,.” reasons Ramu whose Bhoot  in 2003  set a new benchmark  in filmy frights  by  taking the horror genre to  a classy level that it  never  attained before , or after. Varma’s Bhoot starred Rekha,Victor Bannerjee, Tanuja Ajay Devgan,Urmila Matondkar …Never again did  the horror genre in Bollywood acquire the same classy upmarket aura as Varma’s Bhoot.

In fact Varma  hoped  Karan Johar’s Bhoot would encore the feat  of  the original and had  gladly  given over the title Bhoot to  Johar.Now the intended franchise lies exposed  as  a fraudulent if not farcical  fling with  generating  fear out of flimsy plot devices.