Until 2020, there was a concerted effort from the Indian wing of Netflix, or maybe I should say the Hindi wing of Netflix, to tell stories set in the horror genre. Although Bollywood’s relationship with horror had been quite shaky, the streaming platform started off strong with Ghoul. With the ever-dependable Radhika Apte at the helm, the miniseries was a pretty interesting take on John W. Campbell Jr.’s Who Goes There? Then there was Betaal, which, unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoyed quite a bit. The idea of the Brits coming back to haunt us as zombies is an interesting concept, and it had some committed performances from Vineet Kumar Singh, Aahana Kumra, and Manjiri Pupala. After that we got Typewriter, which seemed promising because it had Sujoy Ghosh at the helm, but it was just a boring mess. In Ghost Stories, let’s be honest, only Dibakar Banerjee’s segment was notable; the rest was garbage. Leila was a return to form, but the negative propaganda ruined its chances of getting renewed. And Kaali Khuhi served as the final nail in the coffin. Now, after 5 very long years, Mandala Murders is here to resurrect the genre. Has it succeeded in its endeavor? Let’s find out.
Gopi Puthran and Manan Rawat’s Mandala Murders, adapted from Mahendra Jakhar’s The Butcher of Benares by Avinash Dwivedi, Gabe Gabriel, Chirag Garg, Anurag Goswami, Matt Graham, and Puthran, is set in a fictionalized version of Varanasi called Charandaspur, which is home to a cult called the Aayastis. Their whole deal is that, with the help of a complicated device, they allow people to get a boon from their deity, Yast, if they are willing to part ways with their thumb. But apparently that’s not the actual price they have to pay to seek the help of the supernatural; it’s something way more heinous, and it is being extracted to give Yast a human vessel. So, in the 1950s, the folks of Charandaspur banded together and shut down Aayasthal. 75 years later, suspended police officer Vikram returns to the city with his dad, Vishwanath, with the aim of searching for his mother, Vasudha, who went missing when his younger brother, Pawan, passed away in a car accident. However, as soon as he gets there, we come to know that the Aayastis have become active again, and they are taking lives left, right, and center. While Vikram gets some help from his old friend, Pramod, and a CIB officer, Rea, the investigation into the serial murders faces some tough scrutiny from Kavita’s (Vikram’s comatose girlfriend) elder sister, a politician named Ananya.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a classic, and the mistake that everybody makes while adapting it is that they think the complexity lies in the plot, not in the emotions. The whole point of that story is humans playing God and a monster proving to be more human than the humans. If you can’t get that part straight, it doesn’t matter how many times you jump through time periods, how intricate the lore of your world is, or how many broken characters are involved; it’s not going to stick. And that’s the biggest mistake that the writers of Mandala Murders make. It becomes so obsessed with doing some vague world-building and convoluted character work that it literally fails to breathe life into its Frankenstein’s monster. They try to talk about environmentalism, witch-hunting (and how it’s rooted in misogyny), greed, ambition, corruption, nihilism, grief, and death through the lens of sci-fi and horror. I can certainly appreciate the effort to turn the “holiest city in the world” into a canvas for what’s eating the country from the inside. I like the fact that there’s a Darr-esque subplot tucked into this whole mess. I think Vikram, Rea, and Ananya are compelling characters. It’s just that the whole thing jumped from the page to the screen way too prematurely. This needed a lot of time in the oven—especially the dialogue—before shooting even a single scene.
Visually, Mandala Murders looks alright. There’s clearly been a lot of thought put into the production design, art direction, props, costumes, set design, lighting, locations, SFX, and VFX, and it shows. The Aayastis’ den, their “currency,” their totems, and the device that they use to grant boons are really detailed. The body horror aspect of it is really good. I mean, the first truly shocking thing that you see is a human who has been turned into a starfish. Yeah, the whole torso is gone, and the guy’s limbs are sewn to his head! That’s gnarly, and as a fan of horror, I love that. The overall tone of the show is mostly consistent. Puthran and Rawat treat their story with utmost sincerity. There’s no tongue-in-cheek humor or winking-at-the-camera going on, and I appreciate that, especially at a time when Bollywood is trying to make the next Stree on the big screen as well as the small screen. But I suppose they got scared that all the mystery-solving and supernatural shenanigans would scare away those who were scarred by previous Netflix horror projects, and they tried to keep them hooked with action scenes. I’m not going to sugarcoat this: the action is extremely bad. I understand what they were going for, but much like the screenplay, the stunt choreography and the actors involved needed a lot more polishing. I know that everyone will blame the camerawork and editing, but when the raw material is bad, cinematographers and editors can’t do anything to salvage it.
When it comes to the acting department of Mandala Murders, everyone is great. Vaibhav Raj Gupta’s character journey is so depressing that after a certain point, I felt that he should be put out of his misery. But just because Gupta injects Vikram with so much pathos, it’s interesting to watch him reach new depths of sorrow. Vaani Kapoor is excellent. It’s so weird that the term stoicism has always been associated with male characters, but, yeah, female characters can also be stoic. She is so reserved most of the time, which is why her occasional bursts of emotion hit hard. There’s a moment in the last episode where Vaani portrays this mixture of vengeance and sympathy while killing the “villain” of the show, and it’s just so beautifully done. Surveen Chawla is brilliant. It’s really awesome to see her pull off these complex and flawed characters one project after another; she is on a dream run. Yogendra Vikram Singh, Rahul Bagga, Siddhanth Kapoor, Sharat Sonu, Monica Chaudhary, and the rest of the supporting cast are top-notch. The extended cameos from Jameel Khan (that’s a Gullak reunion), Shriya Pilgaonkar, Manu Rishi Chadha, Raghubir Yadav, Rahul Singh, Sunny Hinduja, Anang Desai, and Aaditi Pohankar are all pretty amazing.
I won’t say I had a great time watching Mandala Murders. The pacing is bad. The storytelling is needlessly complicated. There are plot holes galore. But as a fan of horror who has grown up watching stuff like Aahat, Ssshhhh…Koi Hai, Mano Ya Na Mano, and Vikraal aur Gabraal, I am always going to root for sincere attempts to breathe new life into the Indian branch of this genre. In this current socio-political climate, I can understand how difficult it must have been to show Hindus and Muslims living together in a fictional version of Varanasi while depicting a cult that’s, well, a lot like the cults we have in real life, some of which even have a solid presence on social media as well as representation in the administration. I can only hope for things to get better so that storytellers like Gopi Puthran and Manan Rawat can say whatever they want to say without fear of backlash or IT raids. The show has a lot of room for improvement, and since the cast is solid, I think it should be renewed so that we can learn more about Yast, who is a pretty interesting take on Frankenstein. A bit undercooked, but interesting. If that sounds like a recommendation, please, watch Mandala Murders on Netflix. By the way, if you want to watch a really good modern take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I highly recommend giving Laura Moss’ Birth/Rebirth a try. You can thank me later.
