Tumbbad

Storyline

Directed by Rahi Anil Barve and creative director Anand Gandhi, the 2018 period mythological folk-horror masterpiece Tumbbad took six years of meticulous production to complete and is universally hailed as the greatest horror film ever made in Indian cinema. Set across three distinct chapters spanning 1918 to 1947 in a cursed, perpetually rain-soaked village in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, the film explores an ancient myth: Hastar, the first-born monster-god of the Goddess of Prosperity, whose greed for all gold and grain resulted in him being erased from the scriptures, his name cursed forever. Sohum Shah delivers a transformative, magnificent performance as Vinayak Rao, an obsessive Brahmin who discovers the subterranean ancestral secret hidden beneath his crumbling family manor. By lowering himself into the red, fleshy womb of the earth with a dough doll, Vinayak extracts pure gold coins from Hastar's loincloth before the voracious god can devour him. However, as Vinayak's insatiable avarice passes down to his young son Pandurang, their hubris unleashes terrifying karmic retribution. Featuring Pankaj Kumar's breathtaking, rain-drenched natural lighting and Jesper Kyd's haunting score, Tumbbad is a visual and thematic triumph.