Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 Review | The Trauma of Watching Manichitrathazhu Devolve Into a Blend of Welcome and Aranmanai

As a Malayali whose childhood memories are closely connected to Manichitrathazhu, the atrocious horror comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, a sequel to Manichitrathazhu’s Hindi remake Bhool Bhulaiyaa, released in 2022, was a very traumatic experience. So, having to sit through another version of it in 2024 as Bollywood murders a fantastic original thought into something that looks like Aranmanai 59 was just a mind-numbing experience. It’s like T Series decided to green-lit the worst possible reimagination of Manjulika-Nagavalli, in the original.

So the story this time is entirely different, except for Rooh Baba and the comedian trio. Rooh Baba, as we all know, is this fake exorcist. At one point, a girl named Meera and her uncle find out about his fraud and threatens to expose him. To escape from that, he was asked to come to Meera’s ancestral palace, which was haunted by the ghost of Manjulika. The family wanted Rooh Baba to make people believe that he had ended the curse of Manjulika and the palace was perfect so that they could sell it for a whopping amount. The events that unfold during that is what we see in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.

If they had made it as a stand-alone film that has no connections with the franchise, it would have at least felt like a cheap replica of Stree that just wants to cash in on the trend. As far as I can remember, the 2007 Priyadarshan movie was a fairly good remake that stayed true to the original material. And it was a psychological drama and not a horror comedy. T-Series stabbed that film and its original from the back the moment they announced a sequel to it as a horror comedy. Coming to this third part, the writing is so sloppy that I thought Anees Bazmee should have titled it Welcome to the Mahal. The humor is not flowing organically and it is like watching those skits where the story has no charm, but you can giggle at the one-liner jokes.

Kartik Aaryan as Rooh Baba is in his typical monologue zone. While the performance does satisfy the meter of the humor Mr. Bazmee wants to have for the movie, there is no grace to the portrayal. The final act performance of the actor somewhere reminded me of Telugu actor Balakrishna, and when you watch the movie, you will know why. Tripti Dimri is mostly there to be an eye candy heroine. Vidya Balan returns to the franchise as an entirely different Manjulika. Actually, she was the only subtle performer whom I believe was secretly showing her loyalty to the original through her less gimmicky performance. It might surprise you, but Madhuri Dixit’s version of Manjulika was a bit too loud and caricaturish. You just won’t feel that sense of intimidation when she transforms into Manjulika. Seasoned actors like Vijay Raaz, Sanjay Mishra, Rajpal Yadav, etc., have given their best to pull off the slapstick humor. In those rare moments when I forgot the title of this film, I did laugh at some of the gags.

Anees Bazmee is actually trying to make his version of Stree through Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3. As I said, Bollywood has this reputation of creating replicas of what is working at the box office until the audience gets bored of it, and this film is in that lineup. If Dinesh Vijan decides to put an end to the Stree universe, that will most probably be the only way mainstream Hindi cinema would think about creating something new. Coming to Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, the writing by Aakash Kaushik has picked some key moments from the original, and he is trying to fit it into a sloppy horror comedy template. The twist in the tale at the end felt like a lame attempt to claim certain progressiveness after the series of body-shaming jokes in the earlier portions. The visual effects are somewhat good, while the choreography of these horror set pieces looked tacky on screen.

If you are a cinephile who admired the first part and the source material, watching this movie will be a traumatic experience. A segment of the audience with whom I watched the movie was laughing out loud at all the one-liners and frankly I envied their ability to forget the original and forgive the makers. It will be interesting to see how the people of Bengal react to the mockery of the Bengali accent in this film.