Aditya Sarpotdar’s Munjya draws from the Konkani folklore of a mischievous child demon but ends up being a mishmash of horror and comedy, unlike films like Kantara and Tumbadd which also used folklore but to great effect.
In the Marathi tradition, ‘munjya’ refers to a boy who dies within 10 days of his mundan ritual. It is believed that they become ghosts and remain tied to a tree. Sarpotdar’s film, written by Niren Bhatt from a story by Yogesh Chandekar, is about the ghost of a prepubescent boy obsessed with marriage who enlists the help of humans to fulfil his desire.
The plot follows Bittu (Abhay Verma), a socially awkward young man in his 20s who works at his mother’s beauty salon and dreams of doing a course on cosmetology abroad. Bittu’s overprotective mother, Pammi (Mona Singh), resists the idea of him leaving home for a life of his own. However, she isn’t Bittu’s only concern; the child-demon Munjya, more mischievous than malevolent, haunts him relentlessly.
It turns out that this munjya is actually an ancestor of Bittu who had died shortly after falling for an older girl, transforming into a lovelorn spirit seeking human sacrifice to fulfil his unfulfilled desire of getting married.
The ghost follows Bittu from his ancestral village to Pune in search of Munni, the girl he once loved. Bittu’s childhood friend, Bela (Sharvari Wagh), inadvertently becomes the object of munjya’s desire. Together with his friend Diljit (Taran Singh), Bittu hatches a plot to save Bela from munjya. They are joined by a fraud ‘baba’, Elvis Karim Prabhakar (Sathyaraj), who claims he can exorcise ghosts using his ‘hand of God’.
Munjya the film marks the fourth instalment in the horror comedy series by Maddock Films, after Stree (2018), Roohi (2021) and Bhediya (2022). While Stree and Bhediya used the genre to deliver social messages — the former using the supernatural to comment on female empowerment, and the latter addressing environmental conservation through the metaphor of a prowling beast — Munjya does little more than combine occasional humour with the usual scares associated with the genre.
If you are expecting a lot of jumpscares and thrills, that’s not happening either as the humour often dilutes the fear factor during the 123-minute runtime. The film is most engaging where the ghost becomes overly mischievous, causing mishaps around Bittu in order to force the latter to search for Munni. Besides, the characters are not fleshed out well, and the CGI veers towards the cartoonish (munjya’s look might remind you of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings movies).
What works for the film are the performances. Abhay Verma, who shot to fame as Salman in the first season of The Family Man, does a remarkable job as Bittu, striking a fine balance between fear and anxiety. Mona Singh as Bittu’s mother shines in the comedy scenes, thanks to her excellent timing. Suhas Joshi, in particular, stands out as Bittu’s grandmother who motivates him to overcome his fears and deal with the demon.
