The Village review: Arya’s sci-fi horror is unwatchable, makes Ramsay Brothers seem like Alfred Hitchcock in comparison

Director: Milind Rau

Cast: Arya, Divya Pillai, Aazhiya, Aadukalam Naren, George Mayan, PN Sunny, Muthukumar K, Kalairaani SS, John Kokken, Pooja, V Jayaprakash, Arjun Chidambaram, Thalaivasal Vijay

Where to watch: Prime Video

Rating: 0.5 stars

Watching Prime Video’s new sci-fi horror series The Village felt like a punishment, like some sort of self-inflicted torture. The show outdoes most other works in being as contrived, artificial, gross, and melodramatic as possible. Possibly, there are worse series on Indian streaming scene. I am yet to see one though. Watching (enduring?) this Arya-starrer for six episodes felt like the cinematic version of Two Girls One Cup, something I would not wish on my worst enemies.

The Village is the story of a doctor names Gautham (Arya in his web series debut) who is on a road trip with his wife and daughter when they are stranded near an abandoned village named Kattiyal. As Gautham goes off to find help, his family is abducted by some creatures of the night. Residents of a nearby village warn Gautham that Kattiyal is haunted. Parallely, a physically handicapped scion of a pharma empire has sent a team of mercenaries to the same village to look for some miracle cure for his legs. How Gautham and this team find their way to Kattiyal and uncover the secret of those monsters forms the crux of The Village.

Based on Asvin Srivatsangam, Vivek Rangachari, and Shamik Dasgupta’s graphic horror novel of the same name, The Village banks on a good premise for a modern-day horror story that tackles elements like corporate greed, caste and class divide, and industrial pollution. However, while the novel succeeded in telling them with sensitivity, the series puts all that aside for crass sensationalism and gross gory visuals.

I am all for gore and violence to be used for realism or even shock value in cinema. The Boys and Invincible are good examples of using gore effectively to shock the audience and make them know just what the stakes are. But The Village’s approach is one of titilation. It wants to maximise gore, sexual violence, and all sorts of brutalities for some sort of perverse entertainment. The presentation of the violent scenes leaves a very bad taste in one’s mouth. And at that point, one does question the makers’ intent.

The scenes depicting graphic violence are so drawn and stretched that they become discoforting to the point of being unwatchable. And when this comes from someone who liked Saw and The Boys, you know it’s nt about the blood but how the violence has been presented. The story is very 21^st century but the tone and tenor of The Village is something very 70s or 80s. Heck, eve Veerana or Shaitani Ilaaka from the Ramsay Brothers was more watchable than this fare.

The Village also does not do a very good job of scaring you. The jumpscares are not just ineffective but predictable. Since most scenes are so stretched, they lose their shock value. Anyone who has seen a fair share of horror would know who the next casualty will be. You can see the plot twists from a mile away. And given how graphic the series is, casual viewers will anyway stay away. The Village fails to achieve the most basic requirement of any visual project – hold the viewer’s attention.

The VFX and CGI are dodgy too but still not as bad as the other elements. The creature design is good and inspires some hope. And the execution is good for a show of its budget. Perhaps that, and the score, are the only redeeming factors for The Village. The opening theme song and the background score try to make up for the shortcomings of the plot and direction in holding the viewers’ gaze for a few minutes.

But what really takes The Village into the pits is the bad direction. The characters behave so unnaturally and artificially that the suspension of disbelief is impossible. Whoever wrote the dialogue and screenplay seems to have never met a real human being, it seems. Despite the threat of death looming above you, the characters take all the time in the world, appearing so foolish that you do not want to root for them. Even an accomplished actor like Arya is reduced to being a caricaturish horror hero. John Kokken fares no better. George Maryan saves the show somewhat with his comic timing, bringing some life to tense situations.

But by and large, The Village remains terribly unwatchable. It lacks any grace and finesse, fails to scare the viewer, grosses out even those with the strongest of stomachs, and titilates when it should be terrifying. It is so bad that you can’t even cringewatch it. Stay as far away from it as you possibly can!