Film Review: STREE

Genre: Comedy, Horror, Thriller
Rating: 3/5
115 minutes 
Director: Amar Kaushik 

In 1967, that talented director Raj Khosla completed his trilogy of suspense films — Woh Kaun Thi (64), Mera Saaya (66) and Anita (67) — all of which had the enigmatic beauty Saadhna in the role of the spooky and elusive woman as the central character.
Now, half a century later and in his debut feature, Amar Kaushik has taken up the onerous task of helming a horror comedy, a most unenviable task.
In smalltown Chanderi, MP, Vicky (Rajkumar Rao), the son of a tailor, has inherited his father’s talents. The town has an eerie reputation — that of a female ghost (Stree) calling out to males by their names who, if they turn around, are abducted — during the village annual puja festival. The only way of preventing it is to legibly paint the words ‘Oh Stree, kal aana’ outside the houses.
Based on an Indian urban legend ‘Nale Ba’, writers Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK’s (‘Shor in the City’, ‘Go, Goa, Gone’) collaborative screenplay is an amalgam of horror and comedy. Vicky’s well-meaning friends Bittu (the underrated Aparshakti Khurana, brother of Ayushman) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) provide excellent support, especially the former who suspects a village belle (Shraddha Kapoor) of being Stree. The icing on the cake is in the form of the talented Pankaj Tripathi, who doles out unsolicited advice to the trio. Vijay Raaz, in his cameo as a soothsayer, too is brilliant.
The film has its share of comedy moments — when Vicky’s daddy enlightens his son on the ‘birds and the bees’, referring to sex education as ‘friendship’, or when the wives confine the males of the house indoors to ensure their safety.
Though classified in the horror genre, the film works mainly in the comedy segment, with Tripathi’s brilliant sense of comic timing aiding his one-liners (dialogues by Sumit Arora) of which he has the bulk.
The film, however, rests on Rajkumar Rao’s shoulders, and he doesn’t disappoint. Shraddha continues to look alluring in film after film and in Stree, she doesn’t let down the filmmakers down. Nora Fatehi’s item number is needless.
Production design by N. Madhusudan (who had done the art direction in ‘Ki & Ka’) is excellent. If only the writers would have paid as much attention to the ending as to the one-liners – – –