Start the week with a film: ‘Bhooter Bhabishyat’ is the better haunted house comedy

Priyadarshan’s latest haunted house comedy Bhooth Bangla drew inevitable comparisons with the slightly differently spelt Bhoot Bungla (1965), directed by and starring Mehmood and Tanuja. Priyadarshan’s laboured, slapdash effort was also a reminder of another, far superior, movie set in a house occupied by the undead: Anik Dutta’s Bengali-language Bhooter Bhabishyat.

Released in 2012, Bhooter Bhabishyat (The Future of Ghosts) led to a mediocre Hindi remake in 2014, titled Gang of Ghosts. The Hindi version completely missed the rich and innovative satire in Dutta’s script, sticking instead with only the broad theme of spirits banding together to save to their abode.

Bhooter Bhabishyat can be rented from Hoichoi, which is also available as a Prime Video channel. The film is being streamed without subtitles on JioHotstar.

Anik Dutta’s clever script simultaneously sends up and reinvents the haunted house movie. During a film shoot in a rambling mansion, an actress faints after seeing an apparition in the mirror. Months after this incident, advertising filmmaker Ayan (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) turns up there with his crew. An atheist and a rationalist, Ayan scoffs at the suggestion that the house is haunted.

As Ayan sets out to write a script for a planned film titled Badly Bangali, Biplab turns up. Biplab (Sabyasachi Chakrabarty) spins a yarn about another haunted mansion whose occupants include the original...

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