We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Editor’s note: As we edge towards Halloween, theatres and streamers are getting inundated with fresh horror—from Hollywood, Bollywood, Gujarat, Indonesia, Italy, you name it. This week, we also have five handpicked horror flicks for a separate Halloween segment. Among oven-fresh releases, do not miss the Malayalam blockbuster everyone and their cat has been talking about, Lokah, and the chilling serial killer miniseries, The Monster of Florence.
New Releases
Thamma (Hindi)
The latest in production house Maddock’s bloated horror-comedy universe, that began with Stree and gained confidence with Munjiya, is now tackling vampires.
Ayushmann Khurrana stars as Alok, a shrinking violet of a journalist who encounters a mysterious female vampire (Tadaka, played by Rashmika Mandanna). Soon enough, he too becomes one. Thamma, directed by Aditya Sarpotdar and also features heavyweights, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Paresh Rawal. Reviews are mixed: Times of India praises its “slick visuals” and “strong performances”; Scroll feels that the film is “bite-free and bloodless”.
Where to watch: Theatres
Pitch to Get Rich (English, Hindi)
Hustle culture is unavoidable today. Pitch to Get Rich, now streaming, sees A-listers Karan Johar and Akshay Kumar play fashion gurus and business moguls, as 14 founders, businesses, and entrepreneurs from the fashion world scramble to pitch their chic-est, most inventive concepts in hopes of landing major investment from industry bigwigs. It’s a dynamic show with multiple rounds and levels, and will—as the show progresses—see the contestants strike board room deals, host pop-ups, run social media acclaim. That sounds like a lot of work, but there’s a Rs. 30 crore kitty at play here!
Where to watch: JioHotstar
Regretting You (English)
Mother and daughter have to rebuild trust between each other and stop fighting in this Colleen Hoover adaptation, featuring a likeable, chirpy cast: Allison Williams (HBO's Girls; Get Out), McKenna Grace (The Handmaid's Tale), Mason Thames (The Black Phone) and Dave Franco (Now You See Me; Neighbors). Directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in our Stars). On paper, a critic-proof tearjerker that isn't too heavy and is just about cute.
Critic Louisa Moore of Screen Zealots found the film "an unapologetically melodramatic adaptation" that "...may not be high art, but it’s a great story and highly entertaining". Meanwhile, Jacob Oiler of AV Club wrote that "just about every other genre cliché helps the film avoid being merely detestable and approach the sublimely ridiculous."
Where to watch: Theatres
Lazarus (English)
Reputed horror and mystery writer Harlan Cohen has become a regular streaming fixture; many of his works have been adapted for the small screen and, over the past decade, he’s had a pretty prolific TV career.
On Lazarus, Cohen turns creator for this original series about a psychiatrist, Joe Lazarus (Sam Claflin), haunted by his late psychiatrist father’s lingering presence. As Joe tries to make sense of his father’s suicide—as well as the death of his sister a couple of decades ago—things take a turn, with our protagonist getting all tangled up in a series of murders.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
The Monster of Florence (Italian)
You know what's better than true crime? Nay, the best, in fact? True crime, done really well. Italian crime specialist writer-director Stefano Sollima (Gommorrah, ZeroZeroZero) tackles one of Italy's most chilling unsolved cases in this four-episode miniseries. This was a serial killer who murdered eight couples in the countryside around Florence, Italy, between 1968 and 1985. He was never caught.
Collider's Samuel R Murrian found this a "vastly superior and more thematically responsible project" compared to the recently released Monster: The Ed Gein Story, a speculative and sensationalist take on the infamous US killer. But rogerebert.com's Brian Tallerico wasn't impressed. He wrote, "turning an unsolved case into a commentary on sexual violence is an ambitious idea but it’s half-heartedly executed." You, the audience, are judge, jury, executioner.
Where to watch: Netflix
Vicious (English)
Something you hate. Something you need. Something you love. These are what must be fed to a mysterious wooden box that Polly (Dakota Fanning) receives, in this new horror film from Bryan Bertino, best known as writer/director of the 2008 sleeper hit The Strangers. Already battling her personal demons, Polly is saddled with this box of horrors that makes her life increasingly hellish. Will she be able to lift the curse? Fanning’s performance has drawn praise: Hollywood Reporter speaks of her “compelling performance”, as she “commands the screen solo for long stretches of time.”
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
The Perfect Neighbor (English)
Geeta Gandbhir’s Sundance award-winning documentary is assembled entirely from police bodycam footage. The 97-minute film tracks the escalation of racial tensions in a Florida neighbourhood that led to a shocking murder in 2023.
Scroll notes, “in The Perfect Neighbor, there is suspense over how Susan’s neighbours will react to her latest complaint, a Rashomon-like ambiguity over who is right and wrong. The bodycam initially simply watches, seemingly neutral, before emerging as an unseen witness to divisions in American society and the police’s response to crime.”
Where to watch: Netflix
The Elixir (Indonesian)
A dysfunctional family has a herbal medicine business. An experiment gone wrong ends up creating a potion—the elixir—that wakes the undead in their town, leading to a full-on zombie outbreak. Fun, right? Wrong!
Where to watch: Netflix
A House of Dynamite (English)
Heavy hitters galore in this sprawling nuclear thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker; Zero Dark Thirty). Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, and Tracy Letts star in this procedural where a stray unidentified nuclear missile sparks off mayhem and chaos. Will POTUS Idris Elba (that just sounds right) get his act together in time or collapse under pressure?
The Guardian, in its gushing review, also reignites an unspoken fear we’re all carrying with us these days:
Bigelow, with screenwriter Noah Oppenheim, broaches one of the most frightening thoughts of all: that a nuclear war could or rather will start with no one knowing who started it or who ended it. I watched this film with translucently white knuckles but also that strange climbing nausea that only this topic can create.
Where to watch: Netflix
Parish (English)
Giancarlo Esposito, who has now moved beyond his iconic Breaking Bad turn through fine small-screen performances and a screen presence that swings furiously between calm and menacing, stars here as the titular Gracián "Gray" Parish. He has left a life of crime behind to be an old-fashioned family man. But when his son is murdered, Parish is left with no choice but to return to his troubled past as he sets out on a violent quest. The American series has been loosely adapted by Danny Brocklehurst, from his own BBC One mini-series, The Driver (2014).
Where to watch: Netflix
Halloween home viewing…
Creep (English)
The great thing about horror cinema is that the idea is the star. Not movie stars and certainly not the budget. Exhibit A: the extremely inexpensive Creep from 2014. Featuring just two actors, director Patrick Brice himself and co-writer/producer Mark Duplass, the film follows a videographer hired by a man to film him before he dies of cancer. Then they meet, in the middle of nowhere. Oh boy…
Where to watch: Netflix
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (English)
Francis Ford Coppola is an arthouse experimental filmmaker who struck gold with The Godfather. He then frequently found himself flush with funds to mount the craziest big-budget projects. Coppola turns Bram Stoker's classic into a voluptuous, expressionistic saga combining shadow play, puppetry, in-camera visual effects, and ultra-edgy costumes from Japanese icon Eiko Ishioka. Featuring rich performances from Gary Oldman in the titular role, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, and Tom Waits in a weird cameo.
Where to watch: Netflix
Come True (English)
Another great example of an idea being king. A low-budget mishmash of David Cronenberg-style techno horror and Nolanesque noir where reality is unstable, Come True is a Canadian horror thriller that follows a young woman, haunted by nightmares, who agrees to participate in a controlled sleep study. Doesn’t take long for reality and dreams to merge.
Where to watch: MUBI
Bramayugam (Malayalam)
One of Malayalam cinema’s greatest stars of all time playing the literal Devil in a black-and-white horror film set in 17th century rural Kerala? Director Rahul Sadasivan’s folk horror blockbuster broke many myths about Indian horror when it was released in 2024, that it cannot be carried by stars, cannot have idiosyncratic formal experiments like being shot in B&W, and has to be punched up with comedy to comfort audiences. A must-watch.
Where to watch: SonyLIV
Train to Busan (Korean)
A zombie movie set in a moving train. Juicy idea, done exceptionally well in this South Korean thriller from director Yeon Sang-ho. A global phenomenon, during its release in 2016, the film combines heart-stopping scares and thrills with well-written characters and emotional beats. Best experienced on a giant screen at home with friends and family.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, JioHotstar, MX Player
Fresh off the big screen…
Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra (Malayalam)
This unlikely Malayalam blockbuster (what else comes from Kerala but unlikely blockbusters?) is a folklore-based super-heroine tale with a mild political edge. Reportedly, grossing over 300 crores from a 30-crore budget, writer-director Dominic Arun's film stars Kalyani Priyadarshan in the titular star-making role. Chandra is a mysterious night-shift cafe worker, who is actually an immortal being. The antagonists are an organ-trafficking ring led by a bunch of chauvinist baddies. A sequel has been announced.
Where to watch: JioHotstar
Vash Level 2 (Gujarati)
A sequel to 2023’s psychological horror film Vash (which was also remade in Hindi as Shaitaan last year). Set 12 years after the first film, Level 2 sees Atharva (Hitu Kanodia) living with the trauma of his daughter, Aarya (Janki Bodiwala, who won a National Award for her performance in Vash) being possessed. This time, an entire girls’ school has become possessed. While the final result is anti-climactic as per Scroll, they’re all praises for the “terrific” first hour, that “goes from the routine to the horrendous with immense smoothness.”
Where to watch: Netflix
souk picks