Chhorii 2 Review: Sigh. Lost Cause

Chhorii 2 frustrates way more than it frightens, sighs Sukanya Verma.

From female foeticide to child marriage, Chhorii's running theme of social evils meets spooky scares seeks to engage its viewer by startling and enlightening them in turns. But Director Vishal Furia's limp and unscary sequel achieves neither in spite of his constant dedication to creepy imagery.

Heavily relying on paranoia and paranormal alone, this hastily whipped-up follow-up, unlike the first one that slickly adapted Furia's Marathi horror Lapachhapi, is staggeringly devoid of significance and storytelling.

Offering nothing more than an empty allegory on patriarchal control, Chhorii 2's bigger crime is how quickly it collapses under the weight of its drowsy momentum and laughable attempt at giving us the heebie-jeebies.

Spending a bulk of its running time meandering across corridors strewn in silly jump scares and ritualistic gobbledygook, Chhorii 2 frustrates way more than it frightens.

In the first one, Nushrratt Bharuccha plays Sakshi -- a strong-willed, pregnant woman leaving city life behind to adjust in a rural Haryanvi setup, only to discover the cruel history of her deceptively modest husband and his male child-obsessed family.

Chhorii 2 resumes seven years after the traumatic events of the past when Sakshi is forced to return to the damned village holding her seven-year-old daughter captive for sacrificial purposes.

Where Chhorii drew its ghostly mood across the visual of tall fields, the sequel unravels inside claustrophobic caves constructed beneath the well.

For whatever lame reason, the village chief wants a mysterious, menacing Soha Ali Khan to perform mumbo jumbo on Sakshi's abducted, allergic-to-sun daughter while her mommy tries to reach her across a maze of dimly-lit tunnels, ghoulish children and ghoongat-clad souls.

Between kids unconvincingly tossed against its gender politics, laborious walks into hallucinatory tricks and traps and paedophile demons treated like demigods for no apparent reason, Chhorii 2's rudimentary filmmaking struggles to make sense of its regressive horrors.

Touching on the subject of a minor's sexuality as triflingly as it throws visuals of a supernatural Soha and her charred-face alter ego with CCTV camera skills, Chhorii 2's randomness knows no bounds.

What is Soha playing exactly?

A witch?

A wife?

A drone camera?

A botched VFX file that should have never left the recycle bin?

Sloppiness abounds in sights of burnt skin looking like sundried tomatoes and sounds of a beastly half belching so hard, it's hard to tell if it's a cry for antacid or another wife.

The coast may be clear for a third Chhorii flick but it's all for a lost cause.

Chhorii 2 streams on Amazon Prime Video.