Angulika (2020) is just obscure enough that while there's an IMDB entry for the movie, it only lists about five actors and doesn't say which characters they play. I have looked, but haven't found a cast list that's in a language I can read. There are actors, they're great, but I can't tell you much more than that.
Six hundred and twenty years ago, hedonistic king Kalindra is living in a cave, hiding from the sun. he was cursed by someone named Angulika after doing something extremely bad; this part of the movie is heavy on dodgy CGI and light on exposition. It is clear that Angulika is related to the sun god, and that's why the sun burns Kalindra whenever it touches him. Kalindra's loyal ministers arrive with a group of mystics in tow, and the mystics have a suggestion. The way for Kalindra to escape his curse is to die, hang out in a grave for a few centuries, and then, on the eve of the next Angulika Eclipse, wait for Angulika's reincarnation to pass close to his grave, allowing him to return from the dead, kill her again, and gain power over the entire world. (Is Angulika named after the eclipse, or is the eclipse named after Angulika? That's the kind of detail that would be included in exposition.) Everyone agrees that this is a sensible plan, and so they carry it out.
Centuries pass, and Pravalikka is on her way to visit her family's ancestral palace, accompanied by her husband Balu and their young son Rahul. Pravalikka is Angulika's reincarnation, and so Kalindra's spirit is awakened. His ghostly voice lures little Rahul into the woods. Rahul knocks a small hole in Kalindra's tomb, unleashing the ghost, and spooky things begin to happen.
And then, suddenly, it's ten days later. Pravalikka and her family are missing, and because her father is the Home Minister, it's a political matter. The case is assigned to Priya and Gautham, two "young, dynamic officers with tech knowledge," as the subtitles put it. Priya in particular is affected by the case. (It turns out that she and Pravalikka have been friends for years, but nobody mentions this until quite late in the movie, because the filmmakers are adamantly opposed to providing helpful exposition.)
Priya and Gautham travel to the palace. They meet an angry holy man, Gautham fights some thugs, and then they run into the film's excruciating comic relief, three filmmakers who are scouting for locations for a horror movie, and then for some reason cops and comic relief all decide to camp out in the woods together. (the camping trip provides the excuse for a musical number, so I am not complaining, but it's still a weird choice.)
Priya and Gautham are clearly on the right track, because they're pulled form the case after two days. Priya insists on continuing, and in the process, she manages to attract the attention of the evil ghost, and Gautham takes her to a psychologist. And then, finally, over an hour into the movie, we get a bit of exposition when the psychologist arranges a telepathic link between Priya and Pravalikka's maid Shantha, because that is totally a thing that psychologists can do. Thanks to the telepathy, they learn what happened during the missing ten days, and realize that they're actually working two cases, one a mundane murder, and the other a supernatural struggle for the fate of the world.
The main plot, with an angry ghost seeking revenge on the reincarnation of the woman who thwarted him, is lifted shamelessly from 2009's Arundhati, to the point that ghost-kalindra is doing an impression of Arundhati's villain. The investigators, one a believer and one a skeptic, are Mulder and Scully by way of Anjaan: Special Crimes Unit's Vikrant and Aditi. The powerful mystical ring pulled out of the water nods strongly in the direction of Tolkien. And horror filmmakers being menaced by genuine horrors is such a cliche that I just reviewed a spoof of that very plot point last week.
Despite the plethora of influences and the scriptwriter's dogged insistence on never explaining anything until the very last moment, Angulika does eventually make a bit of sense, at which point the movie switches genres and becomes a devotional movie instead. Sometimes you just have to go where the movie takes you.
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