Chhorii 2

If there is a perfect audience for a horror film, I’d like to believe it is me. This is not false bravado but an honest confession. Bring in someone with green eyes, throw in a jump scare, pull someone from under the bed, and you will see me scream my lungs out. I am always scared and always jumpy. I am the reason that other people, those not scared in the least, are rattled because I make my fear everyone’s business. And yet, Vishal Furia’s Chhorii 2, Vishal Furia’s sequel to his 2021 film, left me disinterested, unscared and, worse, bored. In the last couple of years, there has been a resurgence of the horror genre, except that the effect is softened by comedy. Horror comedy, the consequent hybrid result, has in turn evolved into a commercial goldmine. The context is important because Furia does not give in despite obvious temptations. He remains admirably focused and crafts Chhorii 2 in the same world as Chhorii. Except even the latter, a remake of his 2017 Marathi film Lapachhapi, was not effective to begin with.

When Chhorii 2 begins, it doesn’t just pick up where the original story left off. It drags us deeper into a mythology soaked in fear, grief, and generational trauma. Seven years have passed since Sakshi escaped that cursed village. She’s now a mother and someone who’s tried very hard to build a life from the wreckage of what she survived. But as fate would have it, she gets dragged back, literally in one sense, to the village. Here is all you need to know about Chhorii 2, its plot, ending analysis, release date, cast, reviews, where to watch, and more. Sakshi is now raising her daughter, Ishani, a quiet child with a mysterious condition — her skin burns in sunlight. It’s not fully explained, but it seems to be photosensitivity. It reminds one of the Nicole Kidman-starrer psychological horror movie The Others (2002). Except instead of a Victorian mansion, this one is set against the backdrop of rural superstitions and unresolved trauma.

Seven years after the events of Chhorii, Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharrucha) is happily staying with her daughter Ishani (Hardika Das). The 7-year-old girl suffers from a rare condition where she gets instantly burnt in the sun and so, darkness is her ally. She’s either at home or covered top to bottom when stepping out. But one fateful night, revenge and vengeance claw their way into their happy little world. The mother-daughter duo is now back in the same cursed village and sugarcane fields they once fled. They are trapped in a cave where there’s an Adimanav, who feeds on ‘seva’ and ‘samarpan’ from young girls, a Daasi maa (Soha Ali Khan) who aides the caveman in his ‘healing’ quest, young and old torchbearers of toxic misogyny, and corpses gunning for revenge, among other elements. What primarily worked for Chhorii when it released in 2021 was that it balanced the chills and thrills with its messaging about female infanticide. But the sequel fails to do just that. The weight of its social commentary is unfortunately borne by its thrills - that rarely get you to the edge of your seat. The supernatural characters, too, fail to evoke any horrors.

Early in Chhorii 2, Nushrratt Bharuccha’s Sakshi, a school teacher, is in the process of explaining the concept of ‘cavemen’ — their origin and evolution — to her young students. Given that a major part of the film, thereafter, will play out underground, with the action being dominated by an ‘aadi manav’, loosely translated in English as ‘original man’/‘first man’, it is an intelligent and effective foreshadowing technique employed by director Vishal Furia. But while Chhorii 2 does traverse some intriguing territory in marrying quite a few novel horror tropes with the greater horrors that the human mind is capable of, it eventually descends into a hurried hodgepodge of mumbo-jumbo and banal balderdash.

If Chhorii (2021) was an overlong, preachy and screechy horror film centered on female infanticide, Chhorii 2 is an overlong, preachy and screechy horror film centered on child marriage. In a post-Stree world, this social horror template feels a bit hollow without humour — like the cinematic equivalent of a gender studies student on a gap year. The sequel takes place seven years after the events of Chhorii, Vishal Furia’s Hindi remake of his Marathi movie about a pregnant woman (Nushrratt Bharuccha, as Sakshi) who walks away from a patriarchal and baby-killing village with the ex-wife (Pallavi Ajay, as Rani) of her murderous husband. If this sentence sounds complicated, never mind. Just remember that Sakshi is the hero because she went through hell and back to protect her girl-child.

Seven years after the harrowing events of Chhorii, Sakshi leads a peaceful life with her daughter, Ishani. The latter suffers from a rare condition where exposure to sunlight can prove fatal. Their peace is shattered one night when a ghostly figure appears and lures Ishani away. When Sakshi returns home to find her daughter missing, she desperately seeks help from Inspector Samar. In terms of performances, Chhorii 2 is an out and out Soha Ali Khan show. She brings an undeniable authority and composure to the portrayal of Daasi Maa, a key architect behind an archaic ritual that usurps the lives of girls. While Nushrat Bharucha is effective as a mother who leaves no stone unturned to protect her daughter, the film doesn’t demand anything significantly different from her as a performer (in comparison to the first part).

Both the Marathi horror film Lapachhapi (2017) and its Hindi remake Chhorii (2021) were directed by Vishal Furia. Furia returns with a sequel that picks up seven years after the earlier story. Chhorii 2 begins in the same sugarcane fields that were intrinsic to its predecessor, indicating that Sakshi’s connection with the village – where she had left her husband for dead – has not been entirely severed. Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharuccha) is now a teacher and single parent raising her seven-year-old daughter Ishani (Hardika Sharma). Ishani has a condition where she burns instantly in the sun and is therefore kept perpetually in a darkened room at home or covered from head to toe when stepping outside.