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The problem with Hindi horror movies used to be that they’d sabotage their scares with music and romance. This was done mainly as a promotional tactic to lure (family) audiences to theatres, and to then give them an opportunity to use the washroom or get a popcorn refill during the interval. Neither the music nor the romance had any business being in those movies, but they were left intact anyway. They contributed nothing to the plot; in fact, they actually brought it to a standstill. The music and romance issue with Hindi horror has now been replaced with an even more irritating trend: social messaging. The latest film to fall prey to this bizarre, self-defeating strategy is Maa.
It would, however, be a stretch to even describe it as a horror film, seeing how far it strays from the genre in its final act. This is when Kajol’s grieving single mother, Ambika, discovers that her teenage daughter has been kidnapped by a forest-dwelling demon, who intends on impregnating her to carry forward his ‘vansh’ or some nonsense. Ambika rushes into the lion’s den, so to speak, determined to rescue her daughter from the demon’s clutches. But before she leaves on her mission, she is told by the superstitious locals that she must perform a ritual, and seek the blessings of Goddess Kali. Kali is the only one who can vanquish the demon, she is told. And so, Ambika… does a song-and-dance number.
This is where the concept of internal logic comes into play. Why do we forgive gravity-defying car stunts in the films of Rohit Shetty? Why do we anticipate a joke in even the most serious moments of a Marvel movie? Why is it okay for Tamannaah Bhatia to dance in the middle of Stree 2, but not for Kajol to in Maa? The answer: internal logic. In Stree 2, it is established that the protagonists will try and lure the Sarkata demon by essentially using Tamannaah as bait, and so, when she dances seductively, you buy it. Not because something like this could happen in the real world, but because it is consistent with the movie’s internal logic. However, when Maa teases a ritual and gives us a song-and-dance number instead, the only thing you’re going to feel is narrative whiplash.
It takes you out of the film immediately, whereas a scary ritual sequence might have been the perfect appetiser for a final-act showdown. The climax itself is watered down because of director Vishal Furia’s habitual instinct to lecture his audience. He broke out with the Prime Video film Chhori, which was a remake of his Marathi horror movie Lapachhapi. For the third time, Furia allows a social message that should’ve remained in the subtext to take the centre stage. During the climax — an ugly, CGI mess — Ambika delivers a sermon to the villain (and us) about what a terrible thing it is to murder young girls. In its final moments, you see, Maa reveals itself to be a film about female infanticide; it’s like a spiritual sequel to Chhori, which was about female feticide.
It is one thing to make a movie like Pad Man, and hope that it would be watched in remote villages where menstrual hygiene isn’t commonly practiced. Perhaps some of the folks who come across it might even be guilted into buying pads for the women of the family. But ask yourself this, could a baby murderer’s mind be changed by the second instalment of a horror movie franchise? Bizarrely, it seems as if the intended audience for this movie isn’t fans of scary movies, but potential baby murderers. This is the only explanation for why Maa addresses them at the end and not you, unless, of course, you were planning on murdering babies. In which case, shame on you.
The movie’s priorities are all over the place. It doesn’t need a musical interlude at all, especially at a point when children need to be rescued. Nor does it need to preach. But it does both things. Instead of revealing (or gradually teasing) that Ronit Roy’s character was the villain all along, the movie announces it in minute one. There was an opportunity there to subvert expectations, to examine ideas of betrayal and honour. How scary, for instance, would it be to find out that your well-wisher was the one secretly conspiring against you the whole time? But the movie doesn’t even entertain this notion; in fact, casting Roy in the role suggests that Furia never even thought of hiding the villain’s real identity.
None of it matters, because Maa isn’t interested in telling a compelling campfire story. With an air of city-bred superiority, it seems to be saying that sexism exists only in rural India, and that it is the job of the educated class to ‘save’ the backward villagers from their own beliefs. At no point does the film suggest that Ambika might be out of her depth, treading as she is on uncharted territory. But, once you imbue a character with magic powers, nothing is off the table. Once a film’s internal logic is broken, everything is fair game. There can be no surprises.
It’s not that Ambika shouldn’t ‘save’ her daughter from certain death at the end; she must, because that’s what a movie like this demands. Maa even pushes her to the very brink of madness, when she raises a machete to kill the kid (don’t ask). But this is empty tension, because you know that she isn’t really going to harm her daughter. Ironically, even though Maa is against the idea of murder, it seems to be quite comfortable with the idea of massacring the grammar of horror filmmaking. It does this by shoehorning in a message that, to be entirely honest, shouldn’t be up for a debate anyway. Plus, slotting your audience in the same category as criminals isn’t the smartest of moves.
Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
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