Aatma: The Ghost – Mondo Macabro (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: India, 2006
Director: Deepak Ramsay
Writer: M. Salim
Cast: Kapil Jhaveri, Shabana Raza, Ranjha Vikram Singh, Amriena, Mukesh Tiwari, Sadashiv Amrapurkar  

Release Date: May 12th, 2026
Approximate Running Time: 112 Minutes 11 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Stereo Hindi
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: $29.99

"Dr. Aman Mehra leads an enviable life. A successful and much-admired physician, he is married to the beautiful Nehra and lives with her in a splendid villa in the best part of town. Then, one night, just as they are celebrating their first wedding anniversary, the doctor and his wife are disturbed by a late-night caller. Answering the door, Dr. Aman is confronted by a very serious and rather scary-looking man who tells the doctor that he will perform a postmortem the next day on a man called Avinash and that he must write a truthful report about the cause of death. If not, the stranger warns Aman, terrible things will happen.

The next day the doctor is shocked to discover that the man on whom he is to perform the postmortem is the man who came to see him at 1 AM that morning. Four hours after his body was brought into the hospital.

From that point on, Aman’s charmed life turns into a nightmare as events crash around him. He finds himself threatened by gangsters who want him to falsify the post mortem report and he then discovers that the dead man, Avinash, was an expert practitioner of the black arts. Eventually Aman’s wife becomes possessed by the dead man’s avenging spirit. There is only one course of action left to him—an exorcism to free his wife from her spiritual bondage and then to tell the truth about the body in the morgue.

But will Aman have the courage to take on the forces of darkness? And will his family ever be free from the evil that has taken over their lives?" - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 4.5/5

Here’s the information provided about the transfer, "Brand new 4K transfer from the film negative, digitally restored."

Aatma comes on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 35.3 GB

Feature: 31.1 GB

The source looks excellent; the flesh tones are healthy, the colors are well-saturated, the image clarity and black levels are strong, and there are no compression issues.

Audio: 4.5/5

This release comes with one audio option, a DTS-HD stereo mix in Hindi with removable English subtitles. This audio track sounds excellent; the dialog comes through clearly, and everything sounds balanced and robust when it should.

Extras:

Extras for this release include an introduction by Tim Paxton (6 minutes 38 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), a theatrical trailer (2 minutes 9 seconds, DTS-HD stereo with English text, no subtitles).

Summary:

A murdered man’s vengeful spirit visits the doctor who performed his autopsy and his wife. In order for this spirit to be at peace, he needs those responsible for this death brought to justice.

Directed by Deepak Ramsay, the son of Tulsi Ramsay, he takes all of the elements that were synonymous with his father's and uncle's horror films and gives them a modern makeover. Notably, when it comes to onscreen carnage, there is an ample amount.

Aatma is a mix of these genres: horror, comedy, romance, and police procedural. Horror moments rooted in the supernatural are where Aatma excels the most. That said, Aatma will give those familiar with Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay horror films a feeling of déjà vu.

Though Aatma is a film with the right intentions, it is an homage to 1980s Bollywood horror cinema. Its execution is not without its shortcomings. It is a film that is overly dramatic, and though it has a few good jump scares, it lacks the atmosphere that is synonymous with Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay’s horror films. A few areas where things come up short are dated CGI and musical numbers that disrupt the narrative. Also, dated CGI and musical numbers that disrupt the narrative are a few areas where things come up short. In the case of the latter, it is not as effective in integrating musical numbers into the narrative as the films of Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay were. Ultimately, Aatma fails to capture the magic that made Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay films so much fun to watch.

Mondo Macabro gives Aatma a first-rate release that comes with a solid audio/video presentation and an informative extra. Recommended.

Written by Michael Den Boer