More Gone Girls:
The 2021 film Chhorii, used the horror format to make a comment on the gruesome practice of female infanticide. A woman found herself trapped in a village in the grip of patriarchy and superstition. She escaped then, and surfaces seven years later, working as a teacher and caring for her daughter, in Chhorii 2, also directed by Vishal Furia.
With the help of a kind cop, Samar (Gashmeer Mahajani), Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharuccha) has found shelter and a job. Her daughter, Ishani (Hardika Sharma) suffers from a rare sun allergy and is forced to stay indoors or step out with her skin covered.
Suddenly, Ishani and her carer Rani (Pallavi Ajay) are abducted and taken to the village from where Sakshi had run away. Samar and Sakshi follow and while he is fighting off stone-pelting boys, Sakshi lands up in a subterranean area with multiple tunnels and hidden rooms.
The headman of the village, called Taau (Kuldeep Sareen) declares that Ishani has to be ‘surrendered’ in a few days, and Sakshi beheaded by her husband Rajbir (Saurabh Goyal), who had survived her attack on him in the last film. The dark maze which is part real and part illusion, is ruled by a mysterious woman called Daasi (Soha Ali Khan), who looks after Ishani and forges a connection with the child. Taau believes that the sacrifice will restore honour to the village, and get rid of their troubles.
There was potential for real horror here—imagine a village of boys, who are raised with weird values; there is only one scene in which they come to look at Ishani, because they have never seen a girl. Ishani’s companion in her cell is a child of indeterminate gender, but dressed as a boy.
After taking its time bringing the action to the village—supposedly in the grip of a drought, but covered with sugarcane plantations—the film has Sakshi wandering around the dungeons for ages, looking for her daughter. Samar and his team vanish and return abruptly, but of course, he must go into the underground place all by himself, without backup. Not that Sakshi needs much help—after being dragged over rough ground a few times, and getting no food or water, she remains remarkably energetic through the ordeal.
The film might have been scary if it had not wandered into the fanciful— Daasi and other veiled women shape shift randomly, and there’s the hidden monster. The reality of the situation is far more terrifying than any ogre a screenwriter’s imagination can conjure. Meanwhile, Ishani bleats for her mother once in a while, but is otherwise not as traumatized as a seven-year-old would be with what she is put through. Imagine demanding a story from her tormentor!
As far as horror films go, Chhori 2 builds up an eerie atmosphere quite efficiently, but recent successes like Stree, Munjya, and the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise have shown that the genre has moved up considerably in imagination and sophisticated use of CGI. Chhorii will need to catch up, if as hinted at the end, there is to be a third film.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
