‘Bhoot Aaya’ – Nothing remarkable!

Despite the usual ghosts in the stories trying to scare you and with scientific reasoning in place the show has nothing new to offer!

Bhoot Aaya

Sunday at 11 pm on Sony TV

Producer – Akashdeep Sabir, Sheeba Akashdeep

Director – Ayush Raina

Story so far –

The show Bhoot Aaya is an episodic and till now two episodes have been telecast. In the first episode the story was of a young boy from Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh who gets possessed by the ghost of a woman staying next door who everyone is scared of since they think she used to practice witch craft when she was alive. The boy is finally released from her clutches in the nick of time by the family’s guruji.

In the second episode we see a story of a Muslim family from a place near Indore. They buy a grand house on the outskirts of the city only to find that the house is fully haunted by ghosts. The entire family keeps on seeing ghosts who come in black garb and black masks with blood red eyes and tongue making noises and creating nuisance scaring them all. The family’s son too is trapped by the ghosts and they are told by their Imam (religious advisor) that they have lost him to the ghosts but later he makes a miraculaous escape and is found by the family. However, the Imam advises them to vacate the house and go and stay somewhere else.

What works –

The show says that it is a fictionalized version based on real life incidents which are simple not complex. The actors are not so known and most of the times they seem to resemble the real life people who have experienced the story first hand. The real life people who come ahead and share the story have a genuine quality around them.

What doesn’t work –

Both the stories followed the same pattern with a victim being targeted and then a religious person comes chanting mantras and rescues the family from the ghost. This made the story look repetitive.

The show format is very, very similar to Fear Files which has been around for a long time now. Secondly, the 30 minute time slot is too less to present a story, get the real victims on camera to share their experience and then also get the Indian Paranormal Society to talk about it. If it had a little longer time it might have helped to build the story, make an impact and at the same time explain the scientific reasons in depth behind such unusual incidents.

The show does not look scary enough and despite the backing of reality the masks, blood, flying objects, everything looks unreal. In the first story we see that despite the guruji telling the boy’s (who is a victim) mother to keep an eye on him through the night if he has to survive we see that the mother is happily sleeping despite the creepy incidents happening all around in the house.

Our take –

It is noteworthy that to endorse the stories the makers have taken the help of the Indian Paranormal Society which approves the stories. To endorse the facts and give a brief scientific validity to the story they even have representatives of the Society come on camera and talk about it but then due to lack of time the explanations are very brief and short and leave you confused. However this concept is being seen in the ongoing series Fear Files and it leaves you wondering as to why have the makers repeated the same concept and not tried to make something new and unusual.

Instead of getting the real victims to come in the studio to talk in front of the camera if they would have gone to the place where the real incident had happened to capture the surroundings a bit it would have had another impact altogether.

If you are a fan of horror shows this is just yet another show to watch however, there is nothing scary or remarkable about it.