There is a particular kind of silence that settles over three friends when a joke goes one step too far. Dev Bodhare’s new short film, Afreet - A Never Ending Night, opens in that uneasy quiet and rarely lets the audience breathe easy afterward. Released on October 14, this twenty-three-minute supernatural horror-comedy is the director’s own descent into the space where a casual evening curdles into something ancient and uninvited.
The premise is deceptively simple, the sort of setup that has fueled campfire stories for generations. Three friends gather for what should have been an ordinary evening. A challenge is issued - seemingly harmless, the kind of dare that feels thrilling in the moment and foolish in hindsight. But what answers the call is far older and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined. As strange events begin to blur the line between reality and the unknown, the trio finds themselves trapped in a night where every choice carries a consequence.
Bodhare, who also stars as Ali Afzar, anchors the film alongside Dhaval Joshi as Salman Sheikh and Palguna Dharani as Abhishek Chatterjee. The three share the kind of easy chemistry that makes their eventual unraveling all the more unsettling. Rajeev Singh rounds out the cast as the titular Afreet, a presence that looms over the proceedings without ever needing to announce itself too loudly.
The film arrives with a TMDb rating currently sitting at 0/10 - a figure that reflects the scant number of votes cast since its release rather than any critical consensus. As a short film, it occupies a curious space in the Bollywood landscape: long enough to build genuine dread, short enough to leave the audience wanting more. Twenty-three minutes is a tight window for horror, and Bodhare appears to understand that restraint is its own kind of scare tactic.
What makes Afreet noteworthy is its tonal ambition. The film is officially classified as both horror and comedy, a combination that is notoriously difficult to pull off without one genre cannibalizing the other. The premise - friends, a dare, a supernatural force - leans on the familiar rhythms of horror-comedy, but the description suggests a gradual shift into something darker. The line between reality and the unknown is a well-worn horror trope, yet the film’s focus on friendship as the emotional core gives it a more intimate texture than the average supernatural thriller.
The title itself, A Never Ending Night, hints at the film’s central conceit: the terror is not just in what happens, but in the duration of it. A night that refuses to end, choices that compound, consequences that cannot be outrun. It is a premise built for claustrophobia, and the short runtime suggests a story told with precision rather than padding.
Director Dev Bodhare is a relatively fresh voice in the Hindi film space, and Afreet serves as both a calling card and a statement of intent. Casting himself in a leading role alongside a small ensemble indicates a hands-on, personal approach to filmmaking - the kind of project that lives or dies on the filmmaker’s conviction. The supporting cast, including Joshi, Dharani, and Singh, appears to have been assembled with an eye toward authenticity rather than star power.
The film’s exploration of curiosity as a gateway to danger is a classic horror engine, but the emphasis on friendship adds a layer of emotional stakes. Horror works best when the audience cares about who is being threatened, and the film’s synopsis makes clear that the bond between the three friends is as central to the story as the Afreet itself. The hidden forces that emerge when curiosity goes too far are not just supernatural - they are the consequences of choices made in the heat of a moment, the kind of choices that friends make together and then must live with.
For audiences who appreciate horror that doesn’t rely on jump scares alone, Afreet - A Never Ending Night seems positioned as a mood piece: a slow-burn descent into the unknown, wrapped in the familiar comfort of friendship and then slowly peeled away. It is a film about what happens when the ordinary evening becomes the last ordinary thing you will ever experience.
With its release on October 14 and its brief, unsettling runtime, Afreet is a curious entry in the Bollywood horror canon - a short film with a long shadow. Whether it finds its audience remains to be seen, but for those willing to sit through a night that refuses to end, the film offers a reminder that some challenges are not meant to be accepted.
