You know a horror film is a horrific misfire when it resorts to every trick in the book to scare the living daylights out of you but fails to well and truly pin you down. There is no want of trying in Bhoot: Part One – The Haunted Ship, written and directed by Bhanu Pratap Singh. The film abounds in tame and cliched genre tics that eventually amount to little. Forget sending chills down the spine, it barely elicits gasps of shock. If you do scream, it is more in disgust and bafflement than in fear.
The haunted ship in Bhoot: Part One, stuck in sandy sludge off Juhu beach, is hounded by monotony. The film’s male protagonist, Prithvi (Vicky Kaushal), a shipping officer grieving over the death of his wife and daughter in a recent rafting accident, is assigned to probe what is on board the mystery vessel. Like a man possessed, he is drawn to the beached ship despite the dangers that lurk on its decrepit deck.
