Film opens window for horror genre in India
STARTING out with Hitchcock-style edge-of-the seat horror thrills and holding great promise for a new generation of horror movies in Indian cinema, Stree devolves, especially in the second half, into a goofy, absurd comedy reminiscent of Saif Ali Khan’s zombie film, Go Goa Gone.
The rural town of Chanderi is haunted by a female ghost seeking vengeance on men for having been killed many years earlier.
Her call disappears without trace, leaving only their clothes behind in a heap.
Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) and his friends also encounter the ghost, called Stree, as in the title, and one of them disappears before several other men in the village disappear too.
Then the sceptic Vicky also hears her call, but there is a twist to his tale, because he has fallen in love with a girl (Shraddha Kapoor), who only appears in the town every year during the four days of a religious festival.
Is she really the witchhunter she claims to be or perhaps Stree herself ?
Unfortunately, director Amar Kaushik mixes horror, black comedy, satire and zombies, and even includes an illogical item number in his attempt to send out a message about misogyny and chauvinism.
However, the end result is an absurd plot with lots of holes in it.
The main cast tries hard in good performances, given what they have as a story, but overall the mayhem of the manic mission leads to a very miss-able film.
The eerie portions, however, hold great promise for the future of the horror-only genre in Indian movies.