Stree 2 Review: Shraddha Kapoor’s Film Is Bemusing Than Petrifying

One too many? Maybe not yet, but Stree 2, a follow-up to the 2018 horror-comedy that inaugurated a whole series of nether-world yarns from the Maddock Films stable, takes the supernatural gender-war fable anchored by a vengeful female spirit a step further in purely physical terms but definitely not higher as a spectral-battle-of the-sexes. The one-liners keep flowing apace, the fun quotient is strong enough for the most part and the four principal male actors go along pretty nicely and competently with the madcap flow of the fantastical story that leaps from one thing to another in the hope of creating an illusion of momentum.

Watch closely and what you are likely to find is an endless and sometimes exhausting going around in circles. Could that be deemed to be the USP of Stree 2? Is the lunacy at the film’s core inspired enough to make amends for what it lacks by way of genuine scares? One isn’t sure. Stree 2 is more bemusing than petrifying.    

The quartet of oddballs – ladies’ tailor Vicky (Rajkummar Rao), his two wastrel friends Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) and Chanderi’s resident librarian and occultist Rudra Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi) – team up with the ashen-faced Girl with No Name and No Backstory (Shraddha Kapoor), the very woman they ran scared from in Stree, to ward off a new, more vile and vicious force.

One of the producers, Maddock Films’ Dinesh Vijan, and the director, Amar Kaushik, are the same, but Stree 2 has been written by Niren Bhatt based on the concept that Raj & DK that created the first film. The spirit is intact. It is the zing that has gone missing.

No matter how unbelievable things tend to get in Stree 2, the audience is supposed to take it all in their stride and believe that such things can transpire during the days of a major religious festival that culminates in a “maha puja” in Chanderi’s temple and its fairground. This is after all a horror film set in a central Indian small town steeped in history, mythology and folklore where it should be only natural to let scepticism take a break.

So, everything goes in a cavernous subterranean space where rock formations are upside down and a river of molten lava flows around an enclosure where numerous young women in white are held captive by the Sarkata Purush (decapitated man) who seeks more than just his pound of flesh. 

The clueless foursome led by Vicky decide to take on the towering headless monster whose horrific wandering visage is meant to send chills down the spines of the townspeople, men and women alike. But this time around it isn’t men but women – “adhunik soch waali ladkiyan” – who are at risk.

So, we are back where we began – the headless hobo of Stree 2 represents the ugly face of patriarchy that is out to stamp out feminist rebellion with a mix of intimidation and hauntings in which the giant ghoul uses his hair to ensnare girls who cross the line of ‘acceptable’ behaviour.     

Strangely, barring the first time that we see it in the very opening sequence of the film, the free-floating head is anything but genuinely scary.

Stree 2 is laugh-out-loud hilarious all right but the film gets stuck in a loop that is perfectly summed up in an overstretched and predictable climactic battle in which Vicky and the girl he is enamoured of but knows nothing about face step into the cave where the monster, evil incarnate, hides.

The humour in Stree 2 is at times pretty rudimentary. The name of Bittu’s girlfriend, Chitti, and a chitthi (letter) that Rudra Bhaiya receives cause much confusion among the friends. There is very basic wordplay on disha batani. But one stray meta joke lands big time. Rudra says he is an old man. Someone replies: “Aap Atal ho”.

Stree 2 goes maddeningly amiss in a scene in a mental asylum. One was under the impression that Hindi cinema had shelved its outdated notions of insanity and moved on for good measure. The portrayal of the inmates of the institution is outright offensive. A Bollywood A-lister puts in a special appearance here but that cannot wipe out the blot that the calamitous insensitivity leaves on the film.

For a film that banks upon its quirks and surprises for effect, Stree 2 feels rather stodgy and laboured. The attempt to offset the obvious loss of novelty through the means of a gender reversal of the ghost that send the people of Chanderi scurrying for cover does not quite bear fruit.

A direct linkage between Bhediya and Stree 2, both directed by Amar Kaushik as parts of the evolving Maddock universe of supernatural films, is established by the appearance in the climax and in a post-credits scene of the feral creature around which the former film revolved. These little sleights are targeted at the committed constituency of filmgoers who lap up horror films.   

Puerile and dragged out to snapping point, Stree 2 is not as much of a washout as it could have been because of the occasional flashes of bright comicality and straight-faced gullibility that shine through in the writing and the unwavering quality of the performances.

All the principal actors know exactly what the game is. Embracing the zaniness of the project with gusto, they appear appreciably more into the swing of things than they were in the precursor. If only Stree 2 had kept pace with the wonderfully clued-in cast, it would have been an unqualified success. If it isn’t, it is only because it shies away from breaking the mould and does not aim for more than just more of the same.