South Indian Cinema is a hub of movies that are larger than life and present over-the-top action sequences that often challenge the laws of science. But some genres like horror and comedy are often missed and are only in the limelight when someone else remakes them in other languages. Deekay brought a movie that amalgamates these two less acknowledged genres together in his movie, Kaatteri. It made its theatrical appearance on 5 August 2022. And this article is based on the review of the movie, Kaatteri.
Kaatteri is a Tamil-language comedy-horror film that stars Vaibhav, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Sonam Bajwa, and Aathmika with other recurring casts. S. N. Prasad has composed the background score of this songless movie. Its only single, titled, “En Peru Enna Kelu”, was released in June 2020. The review for the movie Kaatteri is mixed and has an IMDb rating of 6.8, which is quite good. However, let us review the movie in this article and know a bit more about the pros and cons of Kaatteri. So, let us begin.
About Kaatteri
The word Kaatteri is a Tamil word for Forest Vampire. It’s a 2022 Indian Tamil- language comedy horror film by Deekay, who both wrote and directed it. K. E. Gnanavel Raja is its producer, who produced it under his banner, Studio Green.
The forests of Chennai and Sri Lanka are the locations for the principal photography of Kaatteri. It began on 20 April 2018 and was winded up in June 2018.
The Star Cast
Kaatteri features four female leads named Varalaxmi Sarathkumar as Mathamma, Sonam Bajwa as Shwetha, Aathmika as Kamini, and Manali Rathod. Vaibhav, as Kiran, is the leader of this group who brings his friends to this village.
Other significant cast members include Kutty Gopi, Ponnambalam, Karunakaran, Rajendran, Ravi Mariya, Mime Gopi, John Vijay, Lollu Sabha Manohar, and Chetan.
The Plot
Set in the 1960s, the movie Kaatteri begins with a background story. A stranger murders all the people living in an unknown village and paints them as an incident to hide the massive homicide.
In the present time, Vaibhav visits the village with his fellow kidnapper friends, a psychiatrist (tasked to kidnap them by their boss), and a friendly policeman. He is finding his missing companion and the treasure he heard of. But they are trapped in the ghost game that haunts them till the end. Kaatteri is available on Netflix.
Kaatteri Movie Review
The movie begins with intense background music creating a curiosity about the upcoming horror. The next thirty minutes of dull introduction of various casts set them up in their respective roles. With the poorly executed direction and the writing, the movie gives fewer and scattered opportunities to laugh. Most of the time, the predictable scare jumps and poor bathroom jokes fill the gaps left.
But for people familiar with Deekay’s work, the politically driven sarcasm and logic-less gags will tickle your bones. The typical run and chase between the half-witted protagonists and ghosts with random scare jumps are subtle comedies to watch. In the meantime, the humor of the first half evaporates in the second half without notice. And the poor makeup ghosts and their random appearances fill the rest of the movie. The story ends abruptly, which quite upsets a curious viewer.
The casts don’t get many opportunities to perform at their full. Vaibhav gets less scope to perform his jokes as well. The female leads are only for glamour. They are objectified in the name of comedy, and this makes it uncomfortable in the 21st century.
The background scores are very basic, like an old-fashioned horror-comedy. Although the camera work is decent, bad VFX ruins the horror factor. The ghosts appear like those in festival fairs. They are even funny in places. However, the different unrelated ghosts that appeared in various scenes were a good idea.
Overall, in this review, we can say that Kaatteri tried its best to become a convincing horror-comedy, but it failed in its execution with lackluster writing and overly exaggerated performances by the actors. However, its flashback sequences are good. A movie like Kaatteri was once a trend in the Tamil industry, but in the new era of horror blockbusters, it feels like an outlier. It’s a movie for enjoying a very light horror and childish comedy.
READ MORE: Beast Movie Review: Another Big South-Indian Movie
