One-Line Review: Thamma has a solid premise, but it was a huge let-down due to lame writing and mediocre making.
Thamma YouTube Trailer
Cast: Rashmika Mandanna, Aayushman Khurrana, etc.
Release Date: October 21, 2025
Director: Aditya Sarpotdar
Vampire comedy lacks blood and bite
~ Scroll.in
Introduction
Alok, a budding journalist, gets stuck in a jungle and is rescued by a mysterious girl, Tadaka, who appears to be a Betaal (Vampire).
Our rating for Thamma is 06/10.
Summary
While hiking through the woods, Alok and his friends embark on an impromptu path to explore the denser areas, only to face an attack from a bear. Alok gets chased by the bear and is saved by Tadaka, a mysterious girl in the forest. Alok falls for Tadaka, fascinated by her ways of talking and being. The same ‘tribe’ to which Tadaka belongs finds Alok in the forest and takes him to their place. They introduce themselves as Betaal—a group of people who are dead and cursed to survive by drinking blood. The man who turned them into Betaal and Yakshaasan would have gone crazy for human blood and hence will be magically imprisoned inside a cave. Alok will be sentenced to be imprisoned in this same cave along with Yakshaasan.
Tadaka saves Alok from this cave and takes him to his home. After reaching Alok’s place, where he was believed to be dead, Tadaka starts to learn his ways of living while Alok is unaware of Tadaka’s real self. After discovering that Tadaka is a betaal and has died, Alok becomes frightened. Alok dies in an accident, and Tadaka revives him by turning him into a betaal. How Alok copes with this new lifestyle and the challenges the betaal world brings along is the rest of the story.
Review
Thamma had a plot to turn into a potential blockbuster, but unfortunately, lame writing and investing money in the wrong places made it a lousy watch. Thamma had a promising star cast who did their best, and if the script had been sound, it would have met all the necessary criteria. Instead, it became an underwhelming film with a lot of forced, lame sequences.
Performances:
Rashmika Mandanna as Thadaka was outstanding throughout the film. Though she had a lot of scope to perform, it felt as if her primary purpose for being in the cast was to deliver glamour. It was odd to see someone from the betaal tribe roam around in the woods wearing a costume like that.
Ayushmann Khurrana, as we all know, is one of the finest actors we have. He did what he’d been instructed to do the best. Apart from that, there was no X factor from his side that uplifted the movie.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s character, unfortunately, looked terribly written with unnecessary mannerisms. In an attempt to make the character look hilarious and cool, it looked irritating and weird. If only his Yakshaasan had been written as a serious role, perhaps it would have worked. The same with Paresh Rawal’s character, who played the role of Ayushmann’s father. With so much potential, all that character did was deliver a lame, forced, outdated one-liner, miserably failing to evoke laughter.
However, Abhishek Banerjee emerged as the unexpected highlight. He should be literally called the lifeline of MHCU. His were the only portions that genuinely invoked laughter.
Technical Departments:
Thamma is a film that demands a great deal of VFX work. The team was able to pull off a decent quality at this front. Though, honestly speaking, if they focused more on making than on planning item songs, the stories brought by Maddock to this universe might have a great chance of working compared to how they are turning out now. The soundtrack was good, and so were all the other departments, including art and costumes.
Writing:
The biggest drawback of Thamma is writing. The script was so lame and spoon-fed that even such an interesting plot looked very below average onscreen. The concepts were really good, but when it comes to characterizations, everything either felt clichéd, boring or lame. All we can do now is to hope that better work will be put into writing to make the upcoming installments of this universe turn out to be good.
Conclusion
Try watching Thamma just to keep yourself updated with the horror universe created by Maddock if interested; otherwise, it is just a passable film.
