Starring : Vineet Kumar Singh, Aahana Kumra

Directed by : Patrick Graham, Nikhil Mahajan

Producer(s) : Gauri Khan, Gaurav Verma

Cinematography : Shrinivas Achary, Tanay Satam

So, continuing the series of reviewing movies and shows during the lockdown period, our today’s pick is the Netflix original web series Betaal. Let’s now see how it is.

What’s it about?

Betaal is about a corrupt contractor who wants to construct a highway by opening up a tunnel that has been closed for several decades, in a remote tribal village of India. He is warned against dark forces that live in the tunnel, and why he shouldn’t open it, but the contractor goes ahead anyway. The rest of the story is about how our protagonists played by Vineet Kumar Singh as Vikram Sirohi, Aahana Kumra as DC ‘Ahlu’ Ahluwalia and Suchitra Pillai as Commandant Tyagi survive the dark forces in the tunnel.

What’s good?

Aahana Kumra is neat in her role. Suchitra Pillai gets a solid role after a long time and does really well. The build-up to the actual plot to the story is established well. The production values are excellent, with every frame looking fantabulous and chilling at the same time. The sound design and the background score are on point, raising every second to the next level. The actors have given in their best performances and made the most out of the material they’ve been given to work with. The editing is pretty good.

What’s bad?

The plot of Betaal looks very promising right from the word go, and the trailer was quite intriguing as well. The first episode of Betaal is promising enough, but from the second episode onwards, everything goes for a toss. Betaal becomes unintentionally funny at times, and it isn’t as scary as it should have been. Betaal would have been much better if there was a better story in the later episodes. There are several logics which go for a toss as the makers have taken too many liberties for the sake of creativity. The place gets slow at times and brings boredom in places.

Final Word

Overall, Betaal has a good premise and starts off well too. But from the second episode, things get a bit over the top and dragged. All those who like serious and dark themes can give this web series a shot and as there are only 4 episodes, it wouldn’t take a lot of time during this lockdown. But do not expect a great storyline or chilling scares with this one.

Rating: 2.5/5