‘Shaitaan’ (2024) Movie Review - Vikas Bahl’s Horror Thriller Squanders Its Potential

If you were to arrive at the theater after the opening credits of Shaitaan, you would find yourself confused for some 20–30 minutes. This is probably what you would think: "The actors are there as expected, but why does this feel like a comedy film?" The banter between Kabeer (Ajay Devgn) and his son, Dhruv (Anngad Raaj); Kabeer's "uncool joke" about carbs directed towards his wife Jyoti (Jyotika); the whole family, including Kabeer's daughter, Janvi (Janki Bodiwala), pranking Jyoti in the car while she is sleeping, it all tries to elicit chuckles from you or make you smile. Isn't this supposed to be a horror film? Why give us those cutesy shots of Kabeer and his family having a good time? I half-expected a voice-over saying, "Choose LIC for a happy life." These scenes are indeed shot like a TV commercial. Where is that Vikas Bahl who made Queen and Super 30?

Shaitaan, though, begins to do its (black) magic when the titular entity appears on the screen. This Devil - whose name I forgot almost instantly, but thank you, IMDb - is Vanraaj Kashyap (R. Madhavan), and, as his moniker suggests, he lives somewhere in the forest and dreams of ruling over everybody. For the successful completion of his mission, Vanraaj has to sacrifice close to a hundred girls on a special night. Why only girls? Why not both girls and boys? Is the demon he is sacrificing to...sexist? Vanraaj, after all, comments, "Bahut freedom de rakhi hai tumhe," after learning about Janvi's Ladakh trip.

Shaitaan has nothing to say about this. I have not seen Vash (Bahl's movie is a remake of this film, which also had Bodiwala in it), but this can be taken as a sign of creative bankruptcy. I don't know why filmmakers refuse to dig deep into their story, and their setting. Most of them - like Bahl here - remain content with superficiality. Shaitaan definitely has potential. The filmmakers, sadly, are too self-satisfied. Vanraaj's control over - and obsession with - Janvi gives rise to uneasy thoughts about the sexual exploitation of teenagers and child molestation. The fact that Janvi follows a stranger dutifully and ignores her father and mother completely also brings to the surface parents' fear of losing connection with their child.

These thoughts alone fill you with discomfort for a while. But since the movie overly depends on these thoughts to do the heavy lifting, it loses its grip on you pretty quickly. The "puppet act," too, starts to feel unsurprising. Bahl is unable to imbue these scenes with a sense of terror. His camera depicts violence without a powerful charge, whether physical or emotional. When bodies are injured or fall on the ground, it seems as if one of those dolls from the opening credits is being thrown around.

The actors manage to hold your attention, though Madhavan is terribly miscast as a villain. He never looks like an unhinged monster. His "evil laugh" tries too hard to impress (or distress?). Instead of elevating suspense, Madhavan's twisted jokes and cackle end up clashing with the stressy mood. The two forces cancel each other out, and you are left with bland food (or shall I say tea, given how much the characters talk about this drink?). Once you get detached from the film, you think, "Why don't the parents cover their daughter's ears with their son's noise-canceling headphones, or why didn't they seal Vanraaj's lips with tape after overpowering him, albeit for a few seconds?"

Near the beginning of the film, Kabeer tells Janvi he will find her from anywhere. He gets to fulfill his promise near the end. Look at him riding a cycle despite having an injured leg and a knife cutting through his left hand. "Father of the year," Vanraaj calls Kabeer, and you nod in agreement. If you still fail to grasp that Shaitaan celebrates a father's mightiness, that scene after the "One Year Later" text makes the message more apparent. So why was this movie, meant for Father's Day, released on Women's Day? Is there some patriarchal intention involved here? Or maybe instead of reading too much into any of these things, you can shift your attention towards that scene where Jyoti single-handedly starts beating up the shaitaan himself. Hell hath no fury like a woman whose child has been stolen.

Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times