We have a new midweek release and here I am with my review. Horror is a difficult genre to crack and you know the movie that you are watching is an ambitious one when it introduces a new genre, “Fantasy Horror”, mixed with a folklore. Bulbbul that releases midweek on Netflix does promise this, does it live upto the expectations, stay tuned to find out.

Bulbbul is the story of a man that returns to his village only to find a few men being killed off in a peculiar manner. And therein lies its mystery(or does it?). The story has an interesting premise but what it eventually cooks up is a bit of a undercooked squib though very artsy and lovely to look at. The screenplay is a slow burn so much so that it unfolds at a snail’s pace(no this isn’t the problem here). Yet, it does create an atmosphere of mystery to the story almost adding a touch of flavour to the surroundings. Also, amalgamating mythology in the narrative was definitely a plus(along with a relevant message at the end). But the issue lies with the writing that just doesn’t delve deep enough. So what you get is drama just about on the surface, which had the potential to really go deep and build on it from there. The second issue lies with its element of mystery. It is as predictable as one can get. The “Big” reveal at the end is not really a thing here. The last thing that bothered me was the underwhelming climax. But still the drama does provide you some eye catching visuals(with a beautiful red velvet shade to depict destruction) and a production design that would make Sanjay Leela Bhansali very proud. The BGM is quite good. The dialogues are decent. Director Anvita Dutt has done a good job yet I wish she could have dived deeper into the subject.

Parambrata Chattopadhyay as Dr. Sudip does leave a mark. Rahul Bose is such an underrated actor and here he really is wonderfully restrained and eccentric in an extremely layered character(s). Paoli Dam is again an actress that does very little work in Hindi and I would like to see more of her in such roles. Here, she is outstanding as Binodhini. Avinash Tiwary(as Satya) has a lovely baritone and some good screen presence and he puts that to good effect here. His Laila Majnu co-star, Tripti Dimri (as Bulbbul) is the pick of the actors for me. She is just so pretty to look at and she really breathes some serious life in her role. So the performances save the day to an extent.

Bulbbul is not a horror film and if you don’t go in with that expectation then you might end up liking it. It is overall a decent watch and deserves some applause for genuinely trying something different. Available on Netflix!