Directed by: Ram Kumar [1], Mohana Krishna Indraganti [2] || Produced by: G. Dilli Babu, R. Sridhar [1], Dil Raju, Sireesh, Harshith Reddy [2]
Screenplay by: Ram Kumar [1], Mohana Krishna Indraganti [2] || Starring: Vishnu Vishal, Amala Paul, Saravanan [1], Nani Babu, Sudheer Babu, Nivetha Thomas, Aditi Rao Hydari [2]
Music by: Ghibran [1], S. Thaman, Amit Trivedi [2] || Cinematography: P. V. Shankar [1], P. G. Vinda [2] || Edited by: San Lokesh [1], Marthand K. Venkatesh [2] || Country: India || Language: Tamil [1], Telugu [2]
Running Time: 152 minutes [1], 140 minutes [2] || 1 = Ratsasan, 2 = V
A question that’s stewed in my cinephile mind for some time now is how to define the subgenre formula of the serial-killer movie, or movies that are about serial murders. Most of the time, these types of films are told from the perspective of law enforcement (e.g. beat cops, detectives, etc.) and follow the tone of either mystery thrillers or crime dramas with a darker than average twist (e.g. Memories of Murder [2003], Zodiac [2007], Colors of Evil, A Killer Paradox [both 2024]), but can just as often swerve into horror territory (e.g. Silence of the Lambs [1991], Seven [1995], The Chaser [2008]). This inclination toward horror is more probable when the protagonists are ordinary civilians or even the killer, themself (e.g. Maniac [2012]), and/or if the story contains supernatural elements (e.g. The Call [2020], The Black Phone [2021]). With enough action-packed set-pieces (e.g. foot and car chases, shootouts, fistfights, etc.) though, the formula can just as easily hybridize with the action genre (e.g. I Saw the Devil [2010], The Gangster, the Cop, The Devil [2019]).
I’m a fan of The Last Jedi (2017; don’t crucify me, George Lucas fans), but haters of that movie often criticize it for “story twists that make the film less interesting,” which is how I would characterize V. Indraganti’s film starts as something unconventional and then reverts back to a formulaic, run-of-the-mill bland South Indian action film in its second half.
As readers may have surmised from the examples referenced above, many of the best serial-killer films of the modern era (the 2000s-2020s) hail from South Korea, my reigning pick for the greatest (i.e. most consistent, most original, etc.) national film culture on the planet. I would argue that their serial murderer features of any genre persuasion are the Korean industry’s bread and butter, but another national industry that’s quietly built a decent catalog of films about homicidal predators is that of India. The largest film industry on the planet for some time now in terms of the number of films produced per annum, Indian cinema consists of multiple ethnolinguistic regional industries — Bengali cinema in the east, Hindi-language “Bollywood” studios in Mumbai, and Dravidian-language (i.e. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam) South Indian Cinema (SIC) production stables in the peninsular region, to name the big ones — such that even sidestream or niche film movements can accumulate significant libraries relative to other, smaller national film cultures. Previous Indian projects I have covered that concern serial murders include Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, Thar, Delhi Crime (all 2022), HIT (2020, 2022), and Game Over (2019).
Two additional South Indian movies that incorporate these depraved criminals as the defining attributes of their screenplays are Ram Kumar’s Ratsasan (English = “Demon”) and Mohana Krishna Indraganti’s V. Together, they represent the considerable range of the subgenre’s hybridization potential in popular South Asian cinema, which is more prone to genre-blending than most major film cultures. We’ll start with the latter, as it boasts one of the weirder, more unpredictable, and ineffective thriller narrative structures I’ve encountered in some time.
V begins as a sort of rah-rah, macho cop action-movie led by protagonist Sudheer Babu that is soon invaded by a creepy, enigmatic serial-killer (Nani Babu, no relation) in the first act a la the better Predator movies (1987, 1992). While I enjoyed this narrative subversion at first, where the slow-motion heavy, braggadocios action set-pieces stereotypical to SIC blockbusters must contend with a different, subtler type of foe, that subversion is itself a deception to later reveal a lame narrative twist that V was… just another vapid action movie all along. Nani plays a memorable antagonist in the first two acts of V and his chemistry with Sudheer is one of the movie’s strengths, yet either his ego or the producer’s oversight or writer-director Indraganti’s wannabe cleverness gets the better of the movie. The cat-and-mouse game played by the Babus trades the violent murders and backlit portrayals of Nani’s shadowy figure for a sanitized, whitewashed third act that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Coming from the opposite end of the subgenre’s range is Ratsasan, a Tamil-language crime drama about an aspiring filmmaker turned police officer (Vishnu Vishal; that’s writer-director Ram Kumar inserting himself into the script, I take it) who becomes embroiled in a murder mystery that soon encompasses his social circle. At 152 minutes long, Ratsasan is 12 minutes longer than V and yet feels almost 10 minutes shorter thanks to its plethora of well paced narrative twists, decent exposition, and patient unfolding of its principal mystery. Vishal has a decent arc by the end of the whole affair, but the story also has a gigantic, overstretched supporting cast — another one of my rapidly growing pet-peeves as a cinephile — and even with its decent pacing, is still way too damned long.
Lead Vishnu Vishal puts aside his lifelong passion of becoming a filmmaker to pursue justice for homicide victims as a sub-inspector policeman in Tamil Nadu in Ratsasan.
Its chase and fight sequences aren’t brilliant by any means, yet they’re well staged and maintain the film’s dark, almost horror-esque tone. They also don’t portray Vishal as the typical sort of unstoppable heroic protagonist that drain most Indian crowdpleasers, North or South Indian, of their tension.
Put another way, neither V nor Ratsasan is a benchmark crime saga of any flavor with antagonists on the scale of a Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Zodiac, or I Saw the Devil. I also wouldn’t put either of them on the same level as some of the above referenced Indian examples like Game Over or Thar, but Ratsasan succeeds in part as a good ole-fashioned murder mystery that mixes the right genres in comparison to the misguided M. Night Shyamalan-type twists that V makes. Both films suffer from many of the common trappings of mainstream South Asian filmmaking, namely excessive runtimes, too many supporting castmembers, and V in particular doesn’t seem to understand the inherent fascination most people have with the subgenre; that being said, V and Ratsasan together showcase the sheer tonal range of serial murderers on film and help explain the morbid trendiness of those characters in a South Asian context.
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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Though a far cry from the likes of auteur-led Hollywood or Korean murder mystery classics, V and Ratsasan both try for a tone, narrative structure, and overall directorial style that’s different from your average 3-hour Bollywood romantic melodrama or 2.5-hour South Indian masala action film. Ratsasan succeeds a great deal more than V by fully committing to its serial-killer antagonist and pacing a much brisker screenplay, but altogether is still too long and features too many supporting characters. V, by comparison, ain’t a half bad-looking movie over its first act, but as the film becomes more action-packed, the more conventional it grows in a negative way until it executes one of the dumbest story twists I’ve seen in these types of movies.
—> I’m ON THE FENCE with respect to Ratsasan and do NOT RECOMMEND V. As far as movies about homicidal villains go, these two features are still minor league players.
? Were people in India with progeria offended by Ratsasan? Do people over there get offended by stuff like that?
Express Elevator to Hell 
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