Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Starring: Pranav Mohanlal, Sushmita Bhat, Gibin Gopinath, Shine Tom Chacko, Arun Ajikumar
Where to watch: Jio Hotstar
To watch or not to watch: One of the best horror movies to come out last year. Rahul Sadasivan knows his craft

Rohan (Pranav Mohanlal) is an architect, the son of a super successful architect, studied in the USA, living in Kerala in a mansion on his own, is a f**kboy who smokes up, drinks and throws lavish parties for his friends at this home. One day, he learns that his recently ex-girlfriend Kani (Sushmita Bhat) has unalived herself. Kani was a Bharatnatyam dancer, quite dedicated to her craft, but from a slightly less affluent family than Rohan (but then, who isn’t), and probably more into Rohan than he was into her. It is also implied that her unaliving herself was a direct consequence of them breaking up. Rohan feels a bit guilty and responsible for her, and goes to visit her family to offer his condolences. He goes up to her room, is reminded of her, picks up one of her red hairclips as a keepsake, and talks with her brother Kiran (Arun Ajikumar). He also meets Madhu (Gibin Gopinath) who is Kani’s neighbour and works as a contractor for Rohan’s father. Rohan comes back home and starts experiencing unexplained sounds at night. This escalates to him being beaten up brutally by an invisible force, and creepily enough, Kiran is thrown off the terrace to his death by the same force. This makes him seek guidance, and Madhu comes to the rescue. They find the cause of the haunting and how it can be undone. Exciting.

Rahul Sadasivan is attempting to do something fun in the horror genre, which, if knowledge and memory serve, has not been done till now in India. This movie is the third in this universe he has created, and while arguably the weakest of the three, it is still a brilliant watch. Pranav Mohanlal is a nepo baby, and yes, nepotism is bad for all the right reasons, Pranav is an example of when it can be good too. His performance doesn’t falter even for a moment and his demeanour as Rohan feels very authentic, and it probably is, given his pedigree. Where it is weaker than its predecessors is in the story, which lacks atmosphere and can be on-the-nose, and since the previous movies were so, so good, there is little to be done to make this one better than them, so temper the expectations accordingly. But it wins in execution, like the others. The build-up of the haunting and its impact on Rohan is slow and delibrate, leaves the viewer wondering in anticipation. The movie doesn’t deliver on the grandiosity of the title (which is Latin for Day Of Wrath, and it doesn’t explain which Day and whose Wrath it is about), but it makes for a good horror movie.

Malayalam cinema is where it’s at these days, especially in the genres of suspense/thriller and horror. It has given us bangers after bangers in recent years, and hopefully this continues. Bhoothakalam was definitely an award-winning calibre movie, working with story and atmosphere rather than any tropes. Diés Iraé does falter in that department – less atmosphere and more shock factor, even (cheap) jump scares and really sh*ts the bed towards the end. But here’s the thing, even then it is a good movie, not just by Indian standards, but by global standards. It introduces drama in the story, which was absent in the previous instalments by Sadasivan, and still less drama than the Conjuring/Insidious universe. Movies like these give hope to cinema, which has taken a nose dive in the recent years, and you only have to look through the recent posts on this website to get proof of that. Rahul Sadasivan is a director and writer to look out for; he gets it right! Watch this movie please. Support the cinema which doesn’t take the audience for granted.