Darna Zaroori Hai interweaves six stories into one film. Five children get lost in the middle of a forest until they find a haunted house. Inside, there is an old woman who agrees to tell them six scary stories, and they will all compete on who is able to sit through all six stories without getting scared.^[4][5]

Additional Story – Uncredited

Written and directed by Sajid Khan (director)

The first story is about a young film-buff named Satish (Manoj Pahwa), living with his mother. Satish has a habit of watching a Bollywood movie in theaters every Friday, on the last show of the day. He decides to watch the film Darna Mana Hai. His mother warns him not to take the graveyard shortcut because it's Friday the 13th, a new moon night, and witches might appear. He insults his mother, and takes the shortcut. He safely arrives at the cinema, buys his regular snacks, gets some change back, watches the movie and returns home. On his return, he once again uses the graveyard shortcut. Walking through the graveyard, he hears clinking footsteps and begins to run. He sees a witch and falls to the ground in terror. His fear leads to his death. It turns out the footsteps were actually the coins jingling in his pocket as he walked and the witch he saw was actually a poster for a movie, Darna Zaroori Hai.

Official Stories

Story 1 – Imaginary Ghost

Directed by Ram Gopal Varma

Five children arrive at a haunted house. The resident of the house, an old woman, decides to tell them six scary stories. The children decide to have a competition to see who gets scared first. The first story is about a professor, Sunil Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan), who is giving tuition to one of his Biotechnology student Altaaf (Riteish Deshmukh) at home. Every minute, the professor points out something (or someone) in his house. Once in the kitchen, once in the dining room and once on the sofa. The annoyed student decides to leave when the professor warns him not to leave the house, or the ghost will go after him as well. Curious, the student asks the professor about the ghost and the professor tells him that the ghost is an exact lookalike of himself, except he has a hollow face with a hat. The frightened student tries to run but the professor takes him in front of the mirror and points at his reflection. The professor's reflection in the mirror looks exactly like the ghost he talked about. After the story, one child, Nisha, goes down to the bathroom, only to come back as a ghost without revealing her real identity. Nisha sits down with the rest of the kids with a bowed head.

Story 2 – Spirits Do Come

Written and directed by Prawaal Raman

The second story is about a photographer, Kunal (Arjun Rampal), who confronts a strange house when his car breaks down. There, Varsha (Bipasha Basu) invites him in and claims she has been lonely for the past few years since her husband Rahul died. He tries to make a phone call but is confronted by Rahul. He gets scared and says that Varsha opened the door, but gets astonished on listening that Varsha is the one who had died 2 years ago, and not Rahul (Makrand Deshpande). They then confess to a scared Kunal that they were playing a prank on him. The two explain to Kunal that Rahul has been trying to call spirits and bring them down to earth. When Kunal interrupts by saying he's in hurry, Rahul plays as if he is calling a spirit of a mechanic. After a few moments, the three hear a door knock, and Rahul goes outside to check and then he screams for Varsha and while Kunal decides to stay inside the house. When she comes out, there lies Kunal dead in the driver seat of his broken-down car. The scream was from Rahul, who was horrified at seeing Kunal's dead body. The door was knocked by a trespasser and he asks them to inform the police. Just then, Kunal walks out and declares in a chilly voice that spirits do come, whenever you call them. But sometimes sending them back becomes very difficult and he laughs in a chilly voice. After this story, another child, Rohan, goes to the bathroom but he too returns as a ghost.

Story 3 – Accidents are Never Predicted

Directed by Vivek Shah

The third story revolves around a couple, Vishwas (Sunil Shetty), and his wife (Sonali Kulkarni) who both live with their son, Chintu. One fine day, the three are visited by an insurance agent Prabhakar Pandit (Rajpal Yadav) who keeps warning them about the risk of life and that accidents are never predicted. They kick him out of the house and their doorbell suddenly rings. They open the door only to find that there is no one there. They go back into the house but the bell rings yet again. It is the agent again, who claims it is raining outside and he has left his umbrella inside. He takes out many things such as a knife, rope and gun, which all represent different ways to die in life. Vishwas gets tired of him and asks him to leave. The agent then takes out the gun and threatens Vishwas and his family. Vishwas gets into a struggle with the agent which results in the agent being accidentally shot. Before he dies, as if confirming his statement, he says, "See sir, accidents are never predicted!" After the story, another child, Aditi, leaves the room to get water and comes back with same fate as the two previous ones.

Story 4 – Ghostly Audition

Directed by Jiji Philip

A film director, Karan Chopra (Anil Kapoor), decides to make a horror film. On the way to the sets, he gives a lift to a fine young woman, Riya (Mallika Sherawat), who pretends to be a ghost. Karan thinks she is just playing a prank and Riya later also claims that she was just joking. When stormy weather hits, Karan takes Riya to his mansion. The electricity and lights go out and Riya's face starts to gore with blood. Karan still thinks she's playing a prank, but when her voice turns ghostly, he falls to the floor and dies in shock. Riya takes off her mask, which was stained with fake blood, and a microphone that changed her voice to make it sound ghostly. It is revealed that she really was only playing a joke on him. She says that she was trying to audition for his new horror film, but it's too late now anyway since Karan has already died on his own bedroom floor. After this story, another child leaves the room to get water and also becomes a ghost.

Story 5 – A Bride's Revenge

Directed by J.D. Chakravarthy

The fifth story centres on Ajay (Randeep Hooda), a young man driving on the road. He finds a young woman standing on the highway. When he approaches her, he becomes frozen after seeing her face. Shortly after, he wakes up in a jail accused of murdering a man. A police officer, (Zakir Hussain), brings the mother of the murdered victim to the police station for justice. But the mother is shocked to find that Ajay is possessed by the spirit of a woman, who turns out to be her daughter-in-law, Sandhya. It's revealed that the mother-in-law, her husband, and son had burned the newly-wedded bride to death and her spirit has come back for revenge. Sandhya's spirit reveals that it possessed Ajay and killed the son. The spirit enters the police officer's body and shoots her mother-in-law. When the spirit leaves the officer's body, he realises what has happened and secretly buries the body. Ajay is released and is driving back to the city when he sees Sandhya's spirit in the backseat. She says that her father-in-law is away in the city on a business trip and she must complete her revenge. She assures him that she will not harm him—all he has to do is drop her off there. This last part was severely criticized by the Indian public as spirits, ghosts and spectres are believed to be able to freely transport themselves without the means that are used by humans.

Story 6 – The Ending

After all of the stories are over, one boy, Ashu, claims that he is still not scared. The old lady smirks as the lights of the house suddenly turn off. The stunned boy looks around him. The lights turn back on immediately and he sees that he is the only one in the room: as if no one was ever there. The lights go off and turn back on again, this time to reveal his friends, all of whom are now ghosts, giving him eerie smiles. The old woman appears back on her chair, giving him a witch's smile. Realizing what is going on, the boy tries to make a frantic escape out of the house but the doors are all jammed and locked. Just as the boy looks back at the upstairs room to see if he was followed out, he sees the old lady right beside him, smirking. The old lady's hair is snow-white and scattered; her killer smile gives the boy a heart attack and he dies at the scene. The next morning, the house is swarming with police and the media. The police clear away the bodies of the dead children. The old servant of the house tells the police officers that a long time ago, the house belonged to an old lady who loved children but unfortunately, she had no children of her own. He explains that once, he had left her for hours to get her some medication (just as the old lady had told the children), and when he returned, he found her dead. The film ends with a reporter reading the tragic story of a camping trip-turned-nightmare for the six children. He says that the exact cause of death of the children is still unknown and will most likely never be known, however, one thing is for certain- all the children died of cardiac failure or in simple words — fear.

Additional Story

• Manoj Pahwa as Satish (the man who goes to watch the film)
• Sarita Joshi as Satish's mother

Story 1

• Amitabh Bachchan as Professor Sunil Khanna
• Riteish Deshmukh as Altaaf

Story 2

• Arjun Rampal as Kunal
• Bipasha Basu as Varsha
• Makrand Deshpande as Rahul

Story 3

• Suniel Shetty as Vishwas Talegaonkar
• Sonali Kulkarni as Vishwas Talegaonkar's wife
• Rajpal Yadav as Prabhakar Pandit

(Salesman)

Story 4

• Anil Kapoor as Karan Chopra
• Mallika Sherawat as Riya

Story 5

• Randeep Hooda as Ajay Doshi
• Zakir Hussain as police officer
• Rasika Joshi as murdered woman's mother-in-law

Other cast

• Ava Mukherji as old woman (storyteller)
• Shweta Prasad as Ashu
• Priyanka Kothari in an item number in promotional video
• Isha Koppikar in promotional video
• Mohit Alawat in an item number in promotional video