Kakuda Review: Tired Tropes Make For Tiring Horror-Comedy

Directed by Aditya Sarpotdar and written by Avinash Dwivedi and Chirag Garg, this horror-comedy movie has a runtime of 120 minutes.

Kakuda Review: FAQ

Kakuda real story takes place in a village called Ratodi in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district where, every Tuesday at 7.15 PM, every villager must open the smaller door of their house so as not to incur the wrath of Kakuda, a vicious entity, who only targets the man of the house who does not comply with the ritual. Sunny and Indira, who get newly married and move to Ratodi, face the wrath of this horrible entity and must do whatever it takes to overcome the hurdle.

This Sonakshi Sinha new movie has its moments of fun and reminds you terribly of Stree. The mix of comedy and horror is done well and the film feels watchable and approachable from the first few minutes of its runtime. Sonakshi Sinha and Saqib Saleem make for a fun couple with some good chemistry and the science vs superstition debate is a relatable one, making you wonder what is happening in Ratodi and whether Sinha’s Indira will be able to help the village’s inhabitants and her own husband from a terrible fate.

However, Deshmukh’s Victor Jacobs, who talks about audio frequencies and sporting some funky tattoos to make him look edgy, pushes Kakuda down an odd blackhole. The story was kooky enough from the beginning, making us root for these normal, everyday characters and it would’ve been a hoot if Indira and Sunny pushed against everything and everyone to find a way to stay with each other. Victor’s entry derails that reliability, bringing a “quirky” ghost hunter in the mix to push the comedy elements further, effectively taking things too far.

Stree was such a memorable film because, regardless of the ghost story, Rajkummar Rao’s Vicky was a relatable character who rose to the occasion, making him the perfect underdog to follow through this maze of cruelty and superstition. Victor, as a character, is unremarkable, taking away Indira and Sunny’s shine and adding so much unnecessary drama that it makes things more cringy than funny.

After the first half though, Kakuda really flies off the rails and loses itself. I found it resembling Stree too much, but without the social critique or anything remotely with depth. The surface-level explanation of the curse is a little underwhelming and there are so many unnecessary elements that it leaves you questioning why the over-stuffing of tropes was required. After the first cliche comes on-screen, you hope for things to not go down this cliched path but it’s clear that there’s nothing new that the movie wants to tackle.

The movie tries to tackle another social stigma by bringing it out in the open but the impact it leaves is unremarkable and muddled, with the comedy or the horror elements not leaving the slightest of marks. Some sequences are funny, but they don’t pertain to the main storyline at all and are mostly secondary storylines. Kakuda is such a watered-down version of the horror-comedy genre that it sometimes feels like it doesn’t take itself seriously, throwing one trope after another and bogging the runtime down excessively. The cast is great though and had they been given better characters to portray they would’ve thrown this ball out of the park.

Kakuda Review: Final Thoughts

Kakuda is a forgettable horror-comedy that tries to be on the veins of Stree and will remind you of the movie more often than not but is nothing like it as well. It tries to discuss something important in the guise of a horror but the story lacks that punch that differentiates it from others of the genre. The gags are tired and repetitive and Victor Jacobs doesn’t hold much mystery to make viewers get drawn to him. The Indira storyline (which I won’t be revealing) is so hilariously silly that it’s difficult to take it seriously. Some parts of the movie are humorous but all in all, rewatching Stree might be a better idea.

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