Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot Review: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot has a genuinely promising premise blending folklore and mystery, but an unfocused screenplay and inconsistent tone keep it from delivering either real scares or consistent laughs.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Genre: Horror Comedy
Episodes: 4
Cast: Asha Negi, Vishal Vashishtha, Joy Sengupta, Abhay Mahajan
What happens when a search for a missing father leads straight into a town haunted by forty restless ghosts? On paper, Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot has all the right ingredients for an entertaining horror comedy, folklore, the supernatural, quirky characters, and an unlikely investigative duo thrown together by circumstance. Unfortunately, the first four episodes suggest a show that is still figuring out exactly what kind of series it wants to be.
Asha Negi plays Alisha Nigam, known as Ali, a science-minded neuropsychologist who returns to the fictional town of Jhulia in search of her missing archaeologist father, Tapish Nigam, played by Ujjwal Chopra. Before vanishing, Tapish sends her a cryptic message that pulls her into a mystery involving an ancient relic tied to a dark occult history.
Along the way, she teams up with Sub Inspector Babarao Upadhyay, known as Baba, played by Vishal Vashishtha, a well-meaning but largely incompetent policeman who has secretly had a crush on Ali since childhood and is far more interested in impressing her than actually solving the case.
The premise, loosely inspired by the familiar Alibaba Aur 40 Chor folklore, genuinely has potential, but the screenplay rarely seems to know how to use it well.
Rather than steadily building the central mystery, a large chunk of the early episodes gets sidetracked by an oddly unrelated investigation involving stolen goats. Even once that plotline eventually connects to the larger supernatural story, it feels more like a standalone comic detour than a natural extension of the main narrative.
That lack of focus reflects the show’s biggest overall problem. Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot clearly wants to be both spooky and silly at the same time, but the two tones rarely work together smoothly.
The horror sequences lean on predictable jump scares and familiar supernatural imagery without ever building real, sustained dread. The comedy fares only slightly better, often feeling pushed rather than emerging naturally from the characters or their situations.
Vishal Vashishtha is easily the show’s strongest asset. As Baba, he brings a genuinely appealing mix of bumbling incompetence and real affection, and his character’s failed attempts at proper policing, secret dream of becoming an actor, and constant willingness to bend the rules for Ali give the show some of its most enjoyable moments. He commits fully to the character’s absurdity without ever letting Baba become a complete cartoon.
Asha Negi is perfectly fine as Ali, though her character remains fairly underwritten across these early episodes. Joy Sengupta brings a welcome layer of intrigue as Talwar, Tapish’s colleague with clearly sinister intentions, while Mridul Das, introduced late as a local ghostbuster figure, has not yet had much chance to make an impression.
Visually, the show is serviceable at best. The production design and CGI never quite manage to build a fully convincing supernatural world, and the ghosts themselves often come across as functional plot devices rather than genuinely threatening presences.
There is some charm in how willingly the cast leans into the show’s eccentric premise, and its refusal to take itself too seriously does keep it from becoming outright tedious. But charm alone is not enough. By the end of the fourth episode, Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot has neither delivered enough genuine scares nor enough consistent laughs to fully justify its horror comedy ambitions.
If you’re in the mood for something lighter this week, our review of Prince of Mollywood covers a JioHotstar family comedy that might be more up your alley, and for those curious about the money behind this supernatural venture, we’ve also broken down the Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot cast fees and series budget.