The Bhootnii Movie Review: Hey Bhagwaan!! 🫡🫡

Look, there are some films that you can tell won’t do well even before their release, yet the filmmakers still come to the theatre and try their luck. The film ‘The Bhootni’ was originally supposed to release on 18th April 2025, but got delayed a bit. The film team explained that they wanted to put more effort into the VFX, and the hard work is quite visible. By the way, Sanjay Dutt is also in this film, who has a considerable fan base, more active in real life than on social media. But everyone knows the real reason behind selling ‘Bhootni’ is the face of Mouni Roy, who has faced a lot of injustice in the film industry.

She did a great job in ‘Brahmastra’, bringing life to the powerful negative villain role, but somehow her role was kept quite short. If they had cut some of the thousand scenes where Shiva is shown and instead given more screen time to Mouni Roy, there would have been at least ten times difference in the film’s quality, no doubt. Anyway, never mind. Now the entire film is made for her, and to refresh memories of her famous ‘Naagin’ days, the story revolves again around ghosts and spirits. Perhaps very few people know this, so for a bit of general knowledge, I want to share this: the scary tree mentioned in the film actually exists in real life. If you search ‘Hindu College’ on Google, you will find a very interesting story. You won’t believe how this can be true.

To put it briefly, for at least 50 years, since 1970, there has been a magical tree at Delhi University’s college, which people worship on only one day that is every Valentine’s Day, 14th February, when the college students gather to ask the tree for a lover. It is said that the tree never disappoints anyone, and on the next Valentine’s, the single boy or girl returns with their new partner to thank the tree. This fun story was taken and transformed into a film, but to make the romance more entertaining, horror and ghost elements were added. The story is about love. The heroine's name is Mohabbat, meaning ‘love’. The Bhootni is trapped somewhere between life and death on this tree. You know about love triangles- when three people fall in love with each other. But what if in this triangle, there are two humans and one ghost? Now if a ghost comes, the kids will get scared, and if they get scared, how will they study?

If they don’t study, how will the college run? So, to save the college and drive away the ghost, Baba gives his blessings. In Hollywood movies you see ghost hunters who trap spirits in glass bottles, or wake spirits with just a drop of water. The Indian version is Baba. The twist in the story is that Baba believes there are two types of spirits. Now, it must be found whether the spirit in the college is good or bad. And the one who is chased by this spirit — whom it has started to love a little, will have to find this out. This is a hated love story, and it happens by the spirit’s own will. Someone’s sacrifice is inevitable. Honestly, if you ask me how this film is, the answer is exactly what you think. The film is not good, there is nothing great about it, and it’s not worth watching even on OTT. But the way some people have attacked it, and since they cannot criticise other films, they are taking out all their frustration on this one, that too unfairly.

Because this film is not good, but it’s not as bad as it’s being made out to be. It’s a time-pass cinema where you won’t find good acting or logic, and it’s not even horror like ‘Stree’. But if three or four friends watch it together, you will definitely laugh, that much is certain. Vidya Balan had said that entertainment is there in this film. Believe it or not, this film is so bad that you start enjoying its badness. The only condition is you should not use your brain while watching, because there is no suspense or anything like that in the story. However, there are some unusual dialogues in the film which might seem funny, depending on what kind of humour you like. None of the actors’ performances is good. You must have heard of a one-man show before, but here it’s a one-woman show.

The film is about Mouni Roy, and she carries it from start to finish. The film deserves one star out of five. Half star for some funny lines, and half for telling a unique story about a tree which surprises everyone. Negatives include: not making good cinema despite having such good actors; making a horror comedy just for money without effort in today’s era; wasting a good subject, when you read the real story on Google, you will understand what could have been made; and the VFX of the film looks very strange.