My Brother the Car

 

 Kutti Pisasu (2010) looks like a bit of a mess, a confusing blend of genres which includes vengeful ghosts, transforming robots, a spunky kid, a tiny evil guru, and the Invisible Man, all with Shaktimaan-level special effects.  But there's more to this movie than meets the eye: this is a devotional movie, and the end result is something like "Devi Maa meets Transformers."

Gayathri (Sangeetha) and Pichumani (Ramji) are a happily married Brahmin couple with a very nice house which they share with their precocious daughter Priya (Baby Geethika) and Gayatri's pandit father (Delhi Ganesh).  Priya is about five, but she's such a talented dancer that she gets to star in a big televised dance number, and this has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.  The art contest she won at school is a bit more impactful, as her teacher and classmates are all impressed by the yellow antique car she claims to have drawn without noticing.

Priya is slightly odd in other ways as well - when her grandfather asks her about favorite family members, she mentions a dark brother who only appears in her dreams, and she keeps repeating things that Gayatri's deceased friend Savithri (Kaveri) used to say.  And sure enough, on a dark and stormy night Priya is possessed by Savithri's spirit.

Surprisingly, that is a good thing.  Savithri's family have been protected by the Goddess Kali (Ramya Krishnan) for the past two hundred years, after an ancestor asked the Goddess for a boon, and while Kali clearly enjoys her work, she still takes it very seriously.  So what happened to Savithri?  A flashback eventually explains.

 Five years ago Savithri lived with her brother Karuppu (Ganja Karuppu).  She was absolutely devoted to her friend Gayatri, and for some reason as also engaged to scuzzy biker Nanjappan (Riyaz Khan.)  Nanjappan and his friends like to hang out in an apparently haunted mansion which is also a cave, and that's where they are reunited with old friend Mandhira Moorthy (Shafi), who is now a powerful magician.  Moorthy has a plan to attain the power of a god, but it requires a virgin sacrifice, and Nanjappan is happy to volunteer his fiance.  Kali appears to Karuppu and delivers a vague warning, but Karuppu refuses to interfere with his sister's wedding plans and tells the mystery woman to go away, which means that the Goddess is powerless to help.

The ritual is scheduled to take place on the same day that Gayatri goes into labor, and after dropping the mother to be off at the hospital, Karuppu goes to fetch his sister, only to discover that she's been abducted and taken to the haunted house.  He reaches the house and manages to spoil the ceremony, but dies alongside his sister, and the vengeful magician binds his soul to his car, chaining the vehicle to prevent him form taking automotive vengeance.  (Moorthy may have seen Taarzan the Wonder Car and decided to play it safe.)  

Five years later, Kali destroys the chains binding the car, and Savithri takes possession of Priya, because it is time for vengeance.  And so they take vengeance!  On Saturday one of Nanjappan's friends is ambushed down at the docks by an old yellow car which transforms into . . . well, it transforms into Bumblebee from Transformers.  Priya shows up to join in the fight, and the fire-breathing five year old delivers the coup de grâce.  Priya returns home and darkly warns that someone killed on a Saturday will be joined by someone else on the next Saturday.  And sure enough, on the next Saturday another of Nanjappan's friends is killed at an empty circus, and the security footage shows Nanjappan performing the deed.  He's arrested.

Priya/Savithri convinces Gayatri to let her continue her vengeance, but asks her to swear not to tell anyone, which I am sure will not cause any problems down the line.  Mandhira Moorthy returns and breaks Nanjappan out of prison, then sends his tiny Nepalese guru Kullumani (Kadhal Dhandapani) to impersonate Priya and convince Gayatri to tell the spirit of her friend to go.  Bad things happen, and soon it's clear that Kali will have to personally intervene; it may be what She was planning all along anyway.

I do not have the space to explain just how bonkers this movie gets, and just how bad the special effects are.  Still, the presence of Kali really ties everything together, and the Goddess is so powerful that pretty much everything can be explained.  Ramya Krishnan obviously having a fantastic time, and her performance drives the movie, which is just as well because the apparent lead, Baby Geethika, is a child who was probably cast for her dance skills rather than her acting.

Grave matters.

 

 Uppu Kappurambu (2025) begins with a dramatic voiceover explaining the history and peculiar customs of the village of Chitti Jayapuram, dramatized by children playing with traditional dolls.  The history isn't that important to the plot, but the customs are: the position of Village Head is strictly hereditary, and the villagers bury their dead rather than cremating them.  And when the Village Head dies, both customs are tested.

The late Village Head doesn't have any sons, so the position passes to his daughter Apoorva (Keerthy Suresh.)  She's shy and awkward, but her father has prepared her well, and she's armed with pat answers to most of the problems the villagers are likely to bring to her.  Unfortunately, the village is home to two rich and powerful men, and both stern and stentorian Bheemayya (Babu Mohan) and slick and vain theater owner Madhubaba (Shatru) want her to fail, so both men have their henchmen and sycophants ask a series of complicated questions to disrupt her first village council meeting.

Apoorva may be awkward, but she's quick on her feet and manages to deflect every question thrown at her, until Chinna (Suhas), the village undertaker, comes to her with a real problem: the cemetery is running out of space, and there are only four plots left.  The village laws are very strict about everyone being buried in the same graveyard, north of the village, and the surrounding area belongs to other villages.  There is no chance that anyone will agree to switch to cremation, so the four remaining plots are suddenly the hottest commodity in town, and a useful wedge issue for Bheemayya and Madhubaba to use to get Apoorva to step down.

 Apoorva doesn't step down yet, though.  She asks for time, and then consults with Chinna to find a solution.  Chinna knows the graveyard business, and he's clever, caring, loyal and highly motivated, since his own mother (Talluri Rameswari) is very ill, and her dying wish is to be buried in the village, in the shade of a large tree.  

And that's the plot; Apoorva and Chinna try to solve the cemetery problem while dealing with  a village of eccentrics and a cluster of unexpected deaths, and along the way they develop a genuine respect and an unlikely friendship.  (Just friendship - the lack of a romantic subplot is kind of refreshing.)  This is a quirky comedy, so everything rests on the characters, and these charcaters fit the bill.  They're flawed but compelling, and it's worth spending some time to watch them grow.

Merry Monster Mash: Thamma

 It was bound to happen sooner or later.  The Maddock Horror Comedy Universe has been dropping hints about vampires for a few movies now, and the bloodsuckers arrive in force with Thamma (2025), bringing us that much closer to Bollywood's own House of Frankenstein, though perhaps not Abbot and Costello Meet Stree.

This is Bollywood not Hollywood, and like the other Maddock movies the film mixes movie monster mythology with ancient Indian legend; strictly speaking these are Betaals rather than vampires, created to protect the world by drinking the spilled blood of the demon Raktabīja.  We first see the Betaals in action as they feast on the armies of Alexander the Great, but by the present day they appear to be confined to a stretch of forest in northern India, and bound by a strict code that forbids the drinking of human blood.  Not every Betaal is happy with this arrangement.  In particular, Yakshasan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the sire and leader (or Thamma) of this sect believes that they should grow their forces and use their power to take over the world.  He is confined to a cave and bound by mystical chains until one of his descendants breaks the law and sires another Betaal, though, so it should be fine.

Mild-mannered journalist Alok Goyal (Ayushmann Khurrana) is not fine.  His attempt to create a viral  video clip has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, so he's gone camping with some colleagues deep in a secluded stretch of forest in northern India.  His selfie is photobombed by an enormous and angry bear, and he is chased through the woods by said bear, finally collapsing in a makeshift center, so he doesn't notice when something tosses the bear away and rescues him.

 When Alok wakes up, he's being tended by the beautiful but mysterious Tadaka (Rashmika Mandanna).  She promises to take him home when he's recovered from his bear-inflicted injuries, and that gives them plenty of time to fall in love, though every time Alok tries to kiss the girl, she vanishes.  (Mostly because she doesn't want to be tempted to drink his blood; Tadaka is obviously a Betaal, and the movie doesn't try to hide that fact.)  Tadaka is not supposed to keep humans in Betaal territory, though, so they are captured and brought to answer for their crimes.  They escape, and Alok convinces her to return to Delhi with him, because it's time for some fish out of water comedy.

Alok was declared dead after he went missing in the forest, and while his mother Sudha (Geeta Agarwal Sharma) is just happy to see him, his father Ram Bajaj (Paresh Rawal) is suspicious, especially because this striking woman appears to be interested in his son.  The comedy gets more complicated when a group of Betaals are sent from the forest to bring Tadaka back, Tadaka reveals her true nature to Alok while defending him and herself from a gang of rowdies, and Police Inspector P. K. Yadav (Faisal Malik), assigned to investigate the fallen rowdies, turns out to be a member of an urban faction of Betaals. Yadav insists that Tadaka go home.  She does, Alok follows, and after a fatal car crash Tadaka has to make a choice.  She chooses to save Alok by turning him into a Betaal, and then things get really complicated.

 Thamma is deeply rooted in the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe; Alok's father consults with Elvis Karim Prabhakar (Sathyaraj), the faith healer and exorcist from Munjya, and series stalwart Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) is also consulting with Prabhakar on a werewolf-related problem, leading to a cameo by Varun Dhawan and a completely gratuitous "Wolfman vs. Dracula" clash.  

On the other hand, this is a slightly different genre than the other Maddock movies.  They were all intensely personal hauntings that happened to resonate with particular social issues, while this is a story of star-crossed lovers set against a background of grand vampire politics.  Thamma is funny, but it's romantic-comedy funny rather than comedy-comedy funny.

Still, Thamma hits the necessary romantic beats, giving Tadaka a bit more agency than the usual star-crossed heroine while letting Alok display the appropriate dogged determination.  The movie has a great cast and some interesting world-building, and it sets up big things for the future of the franchise while still delivering a satisfying and self-contained story.