I don’t know what to say about this Indian horror movie other than I had high hopes for it. I have heritage from there and I grew up with lots of Indian movies being played in my household but, being a lifelong goth (since I created a vampire version of Hide and Seek when I was around 6), I had always been curious about what the subcontinent had to offer in that genre.
Unfortunately, I was repeatedly disappointed by mainstream Indian horror. It was inevitably adaptations of remakes of foreign movies or themselves, and usually played for family laughs rather than true terror. The stuff of Casper. Where was the real horror?
With mixed results, I tried picking movies that seemed outside the norm like Pakistan’s noble attempt at a zombie grime-fest Zibakhana [Hell’s Ground], or India’s dreamy but meandering No Smoking, an adaptation of the Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc.. (Note: Don’t @me because I haven’t seen either Zindalaash or Tumbbad yet. I’m saving those.) But each time I was disappointed. I can’t seem to find anything in the middle of the spectrum of ‘wacky and safe’ and ‘borderline experimental’. I feel close to the issue from an awkward sense of ethnic pride. Where are the Indian Ari Asters? The Pakistani Robert Eggers? Iran has both Ana Lily Armipour and Marjane Satrapi. Come on, guys; get a movie on.
So it was disappointing, but not surprising, that Kriya turned out to be a bit of a mess. *sighs into my seviya*
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An Englishwoman in Salem 