Chhorii 2 Review: Nushrratt Bharuccha And Soha Ali Khan Deliver A Chilling Horror Masterpiece
Chhorii 2 Review: Nushrratt Bharuccha shines in her career-best role, while Soha Ali Khan haunts as Daasi Maa in this chilling, visually stunning horror sequel.
Chhorii 2 A
Chhorii 2 Movie Review: Over the past decade, Hindi cinema’s tryst with horror has largely been a dalliance with gimmickry—haunted havelis, shrieking banshees and dim corridors teeming with predictable jump scares. Yet, once in a while, a film emerges from this cluttered fog with the audacity to unsettle not just the nerves, but also the conscience. Tumbbad (2018) dared to do it. Chhorii (2021) echoed it. And now, with Chhorii 2, Vishal Furia doesn’t just revisit his own haunting universe, he reimagines it. What he delivers is nothing short of a masterclass in horror storytelling that is as intellectually arresting as it is viscerally terrifying.
At its eerie heart, Chhorii 2 is a ghost story but the specters here aren’t just paranormal entities; they’re societal norms, patriarchal rot, and inherited violence. The film begins with a chilling prologue: a young girl clutching a lantern stumbles through a menacing sea of sugarcane, her voice trembling with a child’s hope as she searches for her mother. But what she finds instead is a procession of pale-faced doppelgängers echoing the line, “Maa bula rahi hai." The scene crescendos with a descent into a well—a literal and symbolic plunge into the darkness that awaits.
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Seven years pass. That girl is now Ishani, afflicted with a rare condition that makes sunlight her enemy. Her mother, Sakshi (played with stunning gravitas by Nushrratt Bharuccha), now lives in the protective cocoon of Inspector Samar’s (a composed and grounded Gashmeer Mahajani) home. Their tranquil facade is swiftly shattered when Ishani is lured away by a sinister entity. What follows is Sakshi’s descent—physically and emotionally—into a labyrinthine underworld beneath the sugarcane fields, where evil thrives under the guise of tradition.
Here, we meet the true horror: a patriarchal cult led by the enigmatic Pradhan, a spectral force who communicates through the ominous Daasi Maa (a superbly haunting Soha Ali Khan, swathed in ritual and black veils), and executed by Tau Ji, teenage acolytes, and a resurrected Rajbir—now desperate for redemption through ritual sacrifice. Their goal? The beheading of Sakshi, and the Samarpan of Ishani to Pradhan, over three harrowing days. Thus begins a chilling countdown drenched in dread and ancient dogma.
Furia constructs his narrative like a gothic fugue, layering psychological terror over socio-political commentary. His genius lies in the restraint—eschewing cheap thrills in favor of lingering dread, he immerses us in an atmosphere that seeps under the skin. It’s not ghosts that haunt Sakshi, but the twisted justifications of violence masquerading as tradition. As she navigates the underground maze, the very architecture becomes an allegory—narrow, suffocating tunnels mimicking the societal structures that trap women generation after generation.
The screenplay—coiled and claustrophobic—is less concerned with twists than with truths. Hallucinatory visuals blur the line between reality and illusion, mirroring Sakshi’s own unraveling psyche. It’s a clever narrative device, one that invites the viewer to question what’s real, much like Sakshi does. At times, we’re not just witnessing a horror film; we’re trapped within a fever dream of cultural trauma.
And yet, amidst this darkness, Furia carves slivers of humanity. Characters are never mere tropes. Even the terrifying Daasi Maa, embodied with spectral precision by Soha Ali Khan, is shaded with sorrow and complexity. She is not just a mouthpiece of evil, but also a victim of indoctrination—her voice soft with dread, her eyes screaming what her lips cannot.
Visually, Chhorii 2 is spellbinding. Anshul Chobey’s cinematography is a lesson in controlled chaos. Using torchlight, moonlight, and chiaroscuro shadows, he turns fields into corridors of paranoia and wells into gaping maws of damnation. His use of Dutch angles at moments of psychic fracture elevates the disorientation, pulling the audience deeper into Sakshi’s nightmare.
The aural landscape is no less accomplished. Adrija Gupta and Rob Della Fortuna’s score evokes the dread of The Conjuring and Insidious, but with a distinctly Indian flavor. Their music doesn’t just accompany the fear—it composes it, orchestrating terror like a haunted lullaby.
Performance-wise, Nushrratt Bharuccha delivers her career’s finest work. As Sakshi, she captures the metamorphosis from maternal warmth to warrior resolve with remarkable poise. There is a scene—no spoilers—where she stares into the eyes of death, and yet her voice does not waver. It’s a moment that defines her arc and elevates the film. Soha Ali Khan’s Daasi Maa is a revelation: a haunting figure cloaked in ritual, whose voice alone could chill the spine. Together, they’re the twin poles of this narrative—one nurturing, one nihilistic.
However, Chhorii 2 is not without blemish. Secondary characters are sketched too thinly, introduced only to fade into narrative oblivion. The pacing, particularly in the final act, becomes indulgent, and the abrupt ending, while thematically potent, feels more like a setup for a sequel than a satisfying denouement. These are forgivable sins in an otherwise sinfully good horror tale.
Ultimately, Chhorii 2 is more than a film. It is a reckoning. A cinematic exorcism of the ghosts we pretend don’t exist—those buried not in haunted wells, but in patriarchal customs, generational silence, and social complicity. Vishal Furia doesn’t just scare us. He confronts us. And in doing so, he redefines what Indian horror can be: not a genre of jump scares, but of generational truths wrapped in shadow. If you dare to look beyond the veil, Chhorii 2 offers not just a scream but a cry for liberation.
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