Adhura review: A feeble horror-thriller, set in Ooty, fails to send chills down the spine

If romance and larger-than-life movies are something that Hindi cinema knows best, then horror is a genre that Indian filmmakers are still fumbling with, sadly. Maybe, horror comedies have become a thing, but surely it can’t replace your ‘sends-chills-down-the-spine’ horror spectacle.

Think about it, and you’ll find that back home we don’t have our equivalent of a Conjuring (2013), Friday The 13th (2009) or even an Insidious, which released its fifth and final instalment on Thursday. With the emergence of streaming, filmmakers are attempting horror without sleaze in ways that it hasn’t been done before, but yet horror as a genre still lags behind, even if it is slowly emerging out of the misconception that horror in India is equivalent to B-movies.

Adhura, a seven-episode horror-thriller — starring Rasika Dugal, Ishwak Singh, and the young Shrenik Arora — is a well-intentioned attempt at horror, but unfortunately its intention doesn’t salvage it from being silly and shallow. Shot in the picturesque Lawrence School in Ooty (Tamil Nadu), which was recently featured in the Hotstar special School Of Lies, Adhura is set in Nilgiri Valley School.

The reunion

The story unfolds across two timelines, 2007 and 2022, when the 2007 batch, including US-based college professor Adhiraj Jaisingh (Singh), returns to Ooty for their 15th reunion. But it’s, alas, haunted by a terrorizing entity that seems to have latched onto a young and bullied boy, Vedant (Arora), who is tended to and cared for by the school counselor Supriya (Dugal).

Flashbacks show a young Adhiraj dating Malvika, who, 15 years later, is married to Dev Pratap Jamwal (Rijul Ray), another student from the 2007 batch. Jamwal, along with Suyash Verma (Sahil Salathia, now a struggling television actor) and Rajat (now a salesperson), berate and bully Ninad Raman (Poojan Chhabra), Adhiraj’s best friend, for his perceived homosexuality that isn’t definitively revealed until the very end.

Ninad is often protected by Adhiraj, and is closer to him than his girlfriend, Malvika. On the last day of the school, Ninad disappears, and remains so even after Adhiraj, who feels guilty for hurting him (the reason remains undisclosed for the better part of the show, but soon and sadly becomes quite predictable), comes to the reunion in the hope that he will meet him again, but to his disappointment Ninad doesn’t show up (until he does…)

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Cut back to 2022, months before the reunion, Dean Vyas, the coach who assumed the position right after the graduation of the batch of 2007, dies a mysterious death. Meanwhile Vedant Malik (Shrenik Arora), a timid boy, is frequently bullied by his peers, until suddenly he begins acting weird, almost as if he is possessed by a spirit. Consequently, he is kept away from all reunion activities to avoid embarrassment and trouble in front of the ‘Old Boys’ (batch of 2007), most of whom are VVIPs, but we wouldn’t have the film if Vedant didn’t cause trouble, would we?

Underwhelming horror

So, trouble ensues, as one after the other ‘Old Boys’ start dropping dead. Abhiraj and Supriya are tasked to discover the truth, and a series of ominous hurdles come their way, except that these apparent scares are more silly than scary. Ananya Banerjee and Gauravv K. Chawla’s attempt at creating a petrifying experience is marred by poor execution and uninspired storytelling. The characters come across as one-dimensional and devoid of personality, making it difficult to care about their fates or feel any sense of fear on their behalf.

The acting in Adhura is decent at best, and bland at worst. The performances come across as forced and unconvincing, with little emotional depth or believability. The lack of chemistry among the cast members further detracts from the overall experience.

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The monochrome craft that the actors wield robs Adhura from being substantial — it’s not bad, but it’s neither good, if you know what I mean. Dugal, alongside Singh, who’ve both proved their mettle as great actors, make the show bearable, but are themselves let down by a facile screenplay.

The predictable plot that relies merely on Arora’s ability to sinisterly stare upwards, also known as the trademark Stanley Kubrick stare, is tedious after a point, and doesn’t add anything to the pot of emotions that one must feel while devouring a supernatural/horror thriller. The jump scares are poorly timed and telegraphed, robbing them of any impact, while the film relies too heavily on loud sound effects and cheap visual tricks, sacrificing genuine terror for cheap thrills that quickly become repetitive and ineffective.

Supriya’s character arc seems redundant in the larger scheme of events, almost making a joke out of postpartum depression, given the brief and trifling treatment that portion of the story is given. Some of the other details too seem evidently foolish, like why is the ghost not directly killing the people he eventually will, and is instead hurting them momentarily and then leaving them be, for another time? It’s also too out of the place, and uninventive to capture one’s imagination.

Alas, Adhura is not a subpar horror film like most Indian horrors are, but it does prove a point, which is that India has a long way to go when it comes to mastering the genre, without relying either on sleaze, clichéd horror tropes, or excessive blood and gore for that matter.