Vash Level 2

Vash: Level 2 literally hits the ground running — pun fully intended. The sequel to the 2023 Gujarati film Vash (which found its Hindi remake in last year’s Shaitaan, starring Janki Bodiwala from the original, along with Ajay Devgn, R. Madhavan and Jyothika) retains the deeply unsettling psychological horror vibe of the first film, all the while expanding its canvas in terms of plot and players.

Writer and director Krishnadev Yagnik’s Gujarati movie Vash (2023) turned out to be a thrilling saga of black magic. The film was later remade in Hindi as Shaitaan (2024). Sequels of horror films are always expected to overpower the first one but that doesn’t happen always. But Vash Level 2 actually goes up several notches as far as the vashikaran (casting a black magic spell) is concerned. Vash Level 2 continues 12 years from where Vash ended (hence, you need to watch the first film to understand the second one). Atharva (Hitu Kanodia) is leading a quiet life with his daughter Aarya (Janki Bodiwala), who is still under the black magic spell, after his son Ansh (Aaryan Sanghvi) and wife (Niilam Paanchal) are killed. But unknown to the world, inside a dark corner of his bungalow, he has kept hidden the black magic monster Pratap (Hiten Kumar), who is responsible for the tragedy in his and his family’s life, in the most inhuman condition possible. He doesn’t let him live, nor die.

A pack of teenage schoolgirls wreak havoc across a city. They overpower everyone and everything in sight, seemingly possessed by superhuman strength and violent desire. The attack is visceral and unstructured, like the beginning of a dance rehearsal gone wrong. Their school uniforms become a symbol of danger. The police are clueless; the parents are terrified. The setting is notoriously sexist, so the sight of them spreading chaos is oddly empowering. In most movies, it would be. But Vash Level 2 is not most movies. The sequel to Vash (2023), Krishnadev Yagnik’s national award-winning supernatural thriller that was remade as Shaitaan (2024) in Hindi, our simplistic perception of female empowerment is thrown out of the window (or, well, off a terrace). Even their “rebellion” is defined by subservience; their agency is shaped by the crippling lack of one. For they are actually controlled by a sinister male stranger (Hiten Kumar) who laced their lunch with black-magic dust. The rampage is happening against the girls’ wishes; their bodies are weaponised but their minds are scared. Most of them attack hawkers, motorists and street-dwellers and bash their heads in, regardless of gender or status. The smash-the-patriarchy allegory unfolds like a cruel joke. The brainwashing and societal-conditioning metaphors unfold like punchlines.