Phone Bhoot
U/A: Horror, comedy
Dir: Gurmmeet Singh
Cast: Katrina Kaif, Ishaan Khatter, Siddhant Chaturvedi
Rating:3/5

As I was guzzling down my second cup of coffee wondering, what is the point of this film, someone next to me couldn’t stop laughing as they watched Katrina Kaif re-enact her romance with a mango from her popular Slice ad. The laughter around me got louder, and I decided to give in to the whole experience and have a good time, without looking for logic. Much to my surprise, the film got better thereafter. Phone Bhoot is a long reel of spot-the-pop-culture-reference trying to be a coherent movie. The Hindi film buff in me was thrilled at some of them. I almost hooted when Raka (Dheeraj Kumar) from Ramsay Brothers’ Purana Mandir (1984) appeared to make a longish cameo.

Creator-director Gurmmeet Singh returns after the overwhelming success of the Mirzapur series to tell the tale of two aspiring ghostbusters. Looks like Singh needed a break from the world of gore and grime. Apologies for trying to pin the insanity of this film on Singh’s post-Mirzapur trauma, but nothing else explains it, really.