Bhediya

Bhaskar comes from Delhi and is trying to clear forest in Arunachal Pradesh for a road project. The local people are against it and if the forest goes there will be trouble for the village too. Bhaskar does not care; he will finish the job and take his bonus. One night something bites him in the forest. Then odd things happen: his sense of smell sharpens, his strength grows, and at the full moon he loses himself. Animals are found dead in the forest. Bhaskar starts hunting the animal and works out that what he is hunting is himself. There is also a local legend: a creature that guards the forest. Amar Kaushik directs. Varun Dhawan plays Bhaskar; Kriti Sanon, Abhishek Banerjee and Paalin Kabak are in the cast. The language is Hindi. Its starting point is a legend told in Arunachal Pradesh and part of the shoot was done in the region. The film belongs to a series of horror comedies; it is connected to other films from the same production house and that link is made explicit at the end. The matter it treats is the destruction of forest; the werewolf narrative is tied directly to an environmental question. The narrative gives parts to local actors and does not use the people of the region as background. The transformation scenes are heavy with computer effects and it is a high budget piece for Indian cinema. Humour and horror stand in the same scene and the changes of genre are frequent. Its limit is balance; the comic sections are long, the tension low, and the ending explanatory. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian horror comedy and mixtures of genre. Who it is not for: it is long, it does not frighten, and the ending ties into the next film.