FILM REVIEW | BOLLYWOOD | HORROR COMEDY
Bhooth Bangla Review (2026):
Released: April 17, 2026 | Director: Priyadarshan | Runtime: 164 minutes | Genre: Horror Comedy
Let me be honest with you upfront: I went into Bhooth Bangla with a mix of genuine excitement and quiet skepticism. Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan reuniting after fourteen long years — that alone sounds like the setup of a good time. Add Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Tabu, and a haunted haveli in a cursed North Indian town, and on paper, this should have been the definitive Bollywood horror comedy of the decade. So does it deliver? The answer, like the film itself, is complicated.
Bhooth Bangla released theatrically on April 17, 2026, carrying with it the enormous weight of nostalgia, audience expectations, and the legacy of Priyadarshan’s own Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) — arguably the gold standard of Indian horror comedies. That is a very heavy burden for any film. And unfortunately, Bhooth Bangla stumbles under it — but not entirely, and not without some genuinely fun moments along the way.
The Story: A Cursed Haveli, Missing Brides, and a Lot of Chaos
The film is set in Mangalpur, a fictional small town in North India where, according to local legend, brides vanish on their wedding night — claimed by a demon and a nymph. Into this cursed setting arrives Arjun Acharya (Akshay Kumar), a London-based man who discovers he has inherited a crumbling haveli and billions in assets from his recently deceased grandfather. His sister Meera (Mithila Palkar) is about to get married, and due to astrological timing, the wedding must happen at a specific post-sunset muhurat — inside the very mansion that locals refuse to enter after dark.
It is a solid premise, rooted in folklore and Indian mythology, drawing inspiration from ancient texts including the Vedas and the Mahabharata. The story, written by Aakash Kaushik — who also wrote Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and 3 — is genuinely layered when you step back and look at the full picture. The problem is not the idea. The problem is the execution: 164 minutes (originally 174, with some voluntary cuts made before release) of a film that frequently forgets what it is trying to be.
Akshay Kumar: The Film’s Biggest Asset and Its Biggest Crutch
Here is my honest take on Akshay Kumar in Bhooth Bangla: he is easily the most watchable thing on screen, and he knows it. His Arjun is loud, reactive, wisecracking, and genuinely funny in his irascible way. The bits where he mispronounces names and stumbles through supernatural situations produce some real laughs. This is Kumar at his most goofy — the version of him that his fans genuinely love — and when the film leans into that energy, it works.
But — and this is a significant but — the film relies on him so heavily that every other character feels like a prop. Paresh Rawal’s Jagdish, a flustered wedding planner from Karol Bagh, gets most of his laughs from having his posterior set on fire in increasingly creative ways. Rajpal Yadav’s Balli spends much of his screen time getting slapped and humiliated. These are talented performers being asked to absorb slapstick punishment rather than build genuine comedy. It is a bit sad to watch, if I am being frank.
Tabu, Wamiqa Gabbi, and the Women Who Deserved More
Tabu appears in a flashback, and as always, she commands the screen with a quiet authority that the rest of the film cannot quite match. Her presence is one of the film’s stronger cards, and you find yourself wishing she had more to do. Wamiqa Gabbi plays Priya, Arjun’s love interest, and acquits herself well in a role that the script treats as secondary. Mithila Palkar as Meera is warm and committed — Kalyani Priyadarshan reportedly recommended her for the role, and she fits naturally into the film’s world.
The age gap between Akshay Kumar and several cast members — including Jisshu Sengupta, who plays his adoptive father despite appearing noticeably younger — is the kind of casting quirk that Bollywood has long gotten away with. It does pull you out of the story briefly, though the film moves fast enough in its first half that you largely forgive it.
Where the Film Breaks Down: The Second Half Problem
Here is where I need to get real with you, because this is a serious issue with Bhooth Bangla: the second half is a completely different film. The breezy, slapstick energy of the opening hour gives way to a dense supernatural mythology involving demons, cursed lineages, bat blood rituals, zombie flashbacks, and ancient revenge arcs that feel like they belong in a completely different production. The tonal whiplash is severe.
The screenplay, co-written by Priyadarshan, Rohan Shankar, and Abhilash Nair, packs in lore so dense and relentless that by the final hour, many audience members will simply have given up trying to track the internal logic of the curse. The twists are mostly predictable for anyone familiar with the genre. The climax, rather than landing with impact, feels stretched and overlong — a problem that the CBFC’s cuts only partially addressed.
The entire film, we eventually learn, is a story being narrated by an old mystic to four boys at a train station. It is a framing device that should add whimsy but instead feels disconnected from everything inside it. The editing — and this is a genuine structural flaw — does not help stitch these wildly different moods into a coherent whole.
Music, Visuals, and the Nostalgia Question
The soundtrack, composed by Pritam with lyrics by Kumaar, is pleasant but not memorable. ‘Tu Hi Disda’ featuring Arijit Singh — who reportedly reached out to the makers himself, feeling a personal connection to the composition — is the emotional highlight of the album. The film’s background score at points borrows energy from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, which is a strange choice given the film’s central fixation on bats as a supernatural motif. It works, sort of, but it also underlines how tonally unsettled the film is.
Visually, the haveli is atmospheric enough, and the night-time sequences have a genuine eeriness to them. Priyadarshan can still craft a spooky environment — he proved that conclusively in 2007, and those instincts have not disappeared. But the camera work is occasionally puzzling, with some angles that feel accidental rather than intentional, undermining the atmosphere the production design is trying to create.
The Nostalgia Trap — And Who This Film Is Actually For
Let us talk about what Bhooth Bangla is really selling: nostalgia. This is a film designed for audiences who loved Bhool Bhulaiyaa in 2007, who remember the Priyadarshan-Akshay-Paresh-Rajpal formula with genuine fondness, and who want to spend a Friday night at the cinema with something familiar and fun. For that audience — and it is a large, loyal audience — this film largely delivers on its emotional promise.
Gen Z viewers coming in without that nostalgic attachment may find the pacing slow, the humor dated, and the horror elements too generic to be genuinely scary. The film sits awkwardly between being a pure comedy and a proper horror film, which means it fully satisfies neither crowd. That is a significant commercial risk in 2026, when the horror-comedy genre has evolved considerably with franchises like Dhurandhar raising audience expectations.
But here is an honest counterpoint: there is something genuinely warm about seeing these people on screen together. The chemistry between Kumar and Rawal is effortless in the way that only comes from decades of professional familiarity. And at its best — in the first forty minutes or so — Bhooth Bangla really does recapture something of that old magic.
Final Verdict: Fun in Parts, Exhausting in Others
Bhooth Bangla is not a bad film. It is a flawed one — a film that needed a tighter edit, a braver choice about what it wanted to be, and perhaps a scriptwriting session that stopped before the lore became impenetrable. It is a film that works best in short stretches and loses you in long ones.
My recommendation: if you are an Akshay Kumar loyalist, a Priyadarshan fan, or someone who still gets a little warm remembering Bhool Bhulaiyaa, go watch it in cinemas with a full house. The collective experience of a large audience laughing together at Paresh Rawal’s misfortunes is worth something that no streaming algorithm can replicate. You will have fun, even if you also check your watch more than once.
If you are going in expecting a sharply crafted horror comedy that builds genuine dread alongside genuine laughs — the kind of film Bhool Bhulaiyaa was — you will likely leave disappointed. Bhooth Bangla is nostalgia cinema: it smells like something you loved, even when the taste is not quite the same.
Rating: 3 / 5 | Worth Watching: For fans of the original formula | Streaming: TBA
Bhooth Bangla is now playing in theatres nationwide. It features Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Tabu, Rajpal Yadav, Jisshu Sengupta, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Mithila Palkar. Directed by Priyadarshan, produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under Balaji Motion Pictures.
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