Film

Bulbbul

Name: Bulbbul
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Thriller
Released: 2020
Cast: Triptii Dimri, Avinash Tiwary, Rahul Bose, Parambrata Chatterjee, Paoli Dam

Horror

An Anushka Sharma-produced Bengali Gothic, drenched in blood-red and indigo light, about a child bride who grows into the luminous, unsettling mistress of her household while men in the village start dying strange deaths. Slow-burn folklore doing feminist reckoning — gorgeous production design, a genuinely eerie performance from Triptii Dimri, and a late turn that recasts everything before it. For anyone who wants their revenge story wrapped in fairy tale silk.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to slow-burn gothic horror where the menace comes from folklore and atmosphere, and the weight of an old household, rather than from jump scares.

Skip it if you want brisk scares or a clear mystery to solve, since this moves at a dreamy, deliberate pace and withholds its explanations.

What it asks of you: Ninety-four minutes of hushed, slow pacing and close attention to mood and imagery, with a darkness that lingers more than it shocks.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Tumbbad2018

Indian folk horror at its most painterly — a monstrous ancestral secret, monsoon-soaked visuals, and a father-son dread that curdles across generations. If Bulbbul's mythic gloom and rural period dread hooked you, this is the fuller feast.

But Its horror is slower and more mythological than visceral — patient viewers get rewarded, jump-scare fans get left waiting.

Stree2018

Same folk-legend engine, flipped into horror-comedy: a village terrorised by a ghost who only takes men, gender roles turned delightfully upside down, still sharp about what men actually fear from women.

But The comedy undercuts the dread — if you wanted Bulbbul's hushed menace, this is a much louder, sillier register.

The Witch2016

New England, 1630s, a family disintegrating under religious paranoia while a daughter quietly becomes something else. Same slow dread, same creeping suspicion that the frightening thing might be the woman herself.

But Thick period dialect and glacial pacing test patience; the payoff is more dread than spectacle.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bulbbul

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Onibaba1964

Both are folk horrors built around women who become frightening only because the world around them already was; Onibaba does it in austere monochrome sixty years before Bulbbul's crimson silk.

Two women in war-ravaged medieval Japan survive by murdering soldiers and selling their armour — until a demon mask changes everything. Kaneto Shindo's black-and-white folk horror is as feral and feminist as Bulbbul, decades earlier.

But Stark, slow, and unglamorous where Bulbbul is lush — this is horror stripped to bone and hunger, not atmosphere.

Lady Macbeth2016

A teenage bride trapped in a loveless Victorian marriage discovers exactly how ruthless she can become. No ghosts, but the same cold satisfaction in watching a caged woman seize her own story.

But Brutal and morally uncomfortable by design — nobody here is redeemable, least of all the heroine.

Raw2017

French body horror about a young woman's appetite — literal and otherwise — awakening in ways that horrify everyone around her, including herself. Same fascination with female transformation as threat and liberation.

But Genuinely stomach-turning in places; this is horror with teeth, not atmosphere.

Promising Young Woman2020

Candy-coloured revenge thriller with real fury underneath the gloss — a woman methodically settling scores men assumed were forgotten. Same pleasure in watching quiet women turn out to be anything but harmless.

But Its tonal swerves — comedy, romance, then something much darker — won't land for everyone.

Midsommar2019

Folk horror in blinding daylight instead of shadow, ending with another wronged woman finding a strange, terrible power. Ari Aster's cult-ritual dread rhymes uncannily with Bulbbul's forest spirits.

But Nearly two and a half hours, and the horror here is existential dread more than jump scares.

Darlings2022

Mumbai-set black comedy about a wife plotting against her abusive husband, carrying the same clear-eyed fury about domestic violence Bulbbul has, just traded for pitch-dark laughs instead of the supernatural.

But The comedy sits uneasily against the abuse for some viewers — tonally, it's a high-wire act.

Pari2018

Another Anushka Sharma-produced horror swinging for something stranger than jump scares — supernatural inheritance, a woman who may be more victim than monster, atmosphere prioritised over gore.

But Less polished than Bulbbul and more uneven in pace — a curio rather than a classic.

NH102015

Strip the ghost story out of Bulbbul and you get NH10: same target, same anger, just a highway and a tyre iron instead of a forest and a curse.

A woman's night drive goes wrong and she ends up hunted by a khap panchayat enforcing honour killings — no ghosts, just the same rage at rural patriarchy turned into a lean, brutal thriller.

But All the fury, none of the fairy tale — if Bulbbul's supernatural distance was doing some of the comfort work for you, this offers none of it.

India's Daughter2015

Bulbbul lets a ghost do what the law wouldn't; this documentary shows you the world where nothing supernatural arrives to even the score.

A sober, devastating documentary about the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, and the culture of blame that followed it. It asks, without myth or metaphor, the same question Bulbbul asks with a ghost story.

But There's no catharsis here, no supernatural justice — just grief, outrage, and a system that mostly failed. Genuinely hard viewing.