The hit Indian horror movie Tumbbad is shocking in the best ways

Human fear is universal, but the expression of that fear varies from culture to culture. This is great fun for horror fans. Horror of your own culture Being immersed in his stories can sometimes overshadow the sense of unfamiliarity and surprise the genre relies on.Look to another country, like Japan, for a fresh take on a culturally specific horror trope ringSpanish Orphanagein Iceland lambor Taiwanese incantation — Horror fans can encounter familiar shocks dressed up in vivid new ways that can dig under even the most worn-out skin. Along the way, they can also learn interesting things about how many ways there are to form and share the same fear.

that’s one of my great joys Tambad, Rahi Anil Barve’s stunning 2018 Hindi horror story about God, greed and bloodshed. The raw bones of this film are familiar enough. Humans succumb to their own vices, and humans face supernatural explanations. But the particular form the story takes, and the images used to lay it out, are unfamiliar to Western audiences. A big hit. A great find for the Halloween season.

in india Horror movies have a long but relatively narrow historyWhen Tambad Perhaps because it’s so creepy, clingy, and streamlined, perhaps because it’s a quintessential Indian story rooted in Indian history and its particular trauma. There are secrets and discoveries, each with a slightly different flavor of horror.

The first is a simple night bump fable full of sudden shocks and frightening real-life effects. The second has a much more Lovecraftian feel, with the protagonist deliberately infecting himself with terrifying knowledge and accepting its effects on his psyche. Help the story revolve around God. Names not actually derived from Indian mythologybut will certainly be familiar Fans of HP Lovecraft and his followers, even if he was reskinned. And Chapter 3 builds entirely on his two hard-hitting impacts in the first, with him one of the most shudder-inducing reveals modern horror has to offer. That said, it’s more about creeping horror and inevitability than jumping horror and raw violence.

Set in 1918, the first film sees young brothers Vinayak and Sadashivrao frustrated by poverty in the rural town of Tambad, against the backdrop of Mahatma Gandhi’s early rebellion against British rule. They live in the shadows of a sprawling, decaying mansion that is secretly owned by their father, a decrepit hermit named Sarkar. However, he has never acknowledged them, nor has he had a relationship with his mother (Jyoti Marche), who has been his servant and mistress for decades.

It is said that the family’s fortune is hidden in Sarkar’s mansion. Especially he feels that Vinayak is entitled to a portion of that money. This is not only an escape from the day-to-day life of the family, but also a way to show respect and pride for the place you crave as the son of a rich man. Instead, his inheritance is a mystical duty to a monstrous old woman chained to her home in her mother’s care. Talk about her – and, as it turns out, for good reason.

Image: Amazon Prime Video

The second chapter begins 15 years later, during the turbulent times of the British Indian Empire. Now an adult (and played by Bollywood producer Sohum Shah) Vinayak returns to Tambad in search of the fortune he never found in his childhood. Soon after, he returned to his wife in the sprawling city of Pune, bringing a mysterious gold coin. In an attempt to sell the coins, he makes an ill-fated deal with his friend, moneylender and merchant Raghav (Deepak Damle). Both men are driven by greed and a desire to improve their position, for which they suffer.

The final chapter begins in 1947, Immediately after division, shook India, but barely touched Vinayak and his family. You have to decide whether to pass Vinayak is hesitant to let go of his family secret, but as always, his greed makes it impossible to drop the idea entirely.all of them leaves Tambad It spans three generations. Writer-director he asks the open questions Rahi Anil Barve asks — questions he began to explore when he wrote the first draft of the film in 1997 when he was 18 — family and country. What does it take to stop the cycle of greed that destroys at the same rate?

All three chapters work well together as a kind of dark fairy tale about greed. The Shah plays Vinayak as a contemptuous and abusive man who thinks mostly about his petty pleasures and expects everyone to serve him. He is cruel and selfish, and is as much a villain in the work as the dark god his family serves.

Image: Amazon Prime Video

But Barve and his team have also shown sympathy for him, given where he comes from. The fable at the beginning of the film states that the gods cursed his Tumbad for Vinayak’s family, and that the constant rain that engulfs the place is a form of divine wrath. These storms are prominent in Barb’s sharp, gruesome image throughout the film. Visiting Tambad’s mansion or sheltering in his own hovel, Vinayak and his mother and brother are continually skinned and smeared in mud. (Barve says he spent several years shooting the film during the monsoon season to get the right atmosphere.) I haven’t commented, but they all look cold and tenuous…and on the verge of being completely washed out. It is perfectly clear why Vinayak dreams of escaping and getting rich as he wishes.

However Tambad Deploying rich metaphors about how those dreams rob Vinayak of most of his freedom and happiness from his life, he leaves him in a perpetual nightmare haunted by the price of his riches, squandering it without paying for it. Resent everyone around him who shares. the price he pays. He cannot part with his wealth, but neither can he fully enjoy it. Important history is happening around him, his country is suffering, changing and strengthening, yet he isolates and isolates himself by focusing only on his own interests. A beautifully crafted trap, embedded at the heart of an equally beautifully crafted story, the supernatural horrors are utterly terrifying, but Vinayak is far more terrifying.

Image: Amazon Prime Video

Barve makes sure to do all of this by presenting a visual richness and richness that keeps the viewer’s eye on the screen. He shoots in real abandoned rural locations, giving Tumbad’s setting a solitary yet majestic texture, relying on as much practical effect as possible to give it weight. Especially when his CGI makes an appearance at the film’s explosive climax, rather than trying to blend in with the rest of his world, he’s made the action more bizarre and unsettling. Intentionally contrasted with effect.

the color of Tambad Especially the hideously raw red wine that defines Vinayak’s secret and its price is unbeatable. And the images are just as vivid, giving even longtime horror fans unforgettable moments they’ve never seen on screen before. All horror is meant to take the audience out of their comfort zone and make them feel threatened by the unknown and unknown. Tambaddepending on the flavor of Indian mythology and the shape of Indian history, It goes further than most horror stories. Along the way, it leads to stranger, darker, more jubilant places.

Tambad is streaming on amazon prime video.