Annabelle Sethupathi Review: An Outdated Horror-Comedy!

Annabelle Sethupathi Movie Review: Tamil Cinema went through a phase of horror-comedy movies. Films of this genre filled the theatres, but only a handful of directors experimented with this subject to provide a new experience to the audience. The rest of them fit into the same old revenge drama template.

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Annabelle Sethupathi, on Disney+Hotstar, is one such film that is inspired by the dozens of formulaic movies available in the market. Starring Taapsee Pannu, Yogi Babu, Radhika Sarathkumar and a handful of others as the primary cast, Deepak Sundarrajan writes and directs this film. Also, Vijay Sethupathi appears in an extended cameo role.

Rudra (Taapsee) and her family are small-time thieves. They land themselves in a grand palace only to find that it is infested with ghosts and how they get them out of the untimely situation forms the rest of the story, with an uninteresting backstory for the palace and the supernatural beings living in it.

Right from the beginning, Annabelle Sethupathi failed to fascinate me, and I was pretty sure it headed towards a colossal disappointment. I wish to know how director Deepak Sundarrajan persuaded Taapsee Pannu and Vijay Sethupathi to do this movie. Maybe he intriguingly narrated the script but was unsuccessful in executing it. Even the comedy scenes were pathetically written and were not funny at all.

Director Deepak Sundarrajan missed out on writing an engaging and entertaining script to make it into a feature film. Annabelle Sethupathi looked rushed and without a purpose. The movie lacked any emotional value or an intent to entertain the audience.


Instead, it tests the viewers’ patience to the point where I pray the film ends soon. Thanks to the team for releasing it in Disney+Hotstar I had the privilege to skip certain portions of the movie as I didn’t want to torture myself watching the nonsense happening on the screen.

Taapsee Pannu, last seen in the 2019 film Game Over, returns from her hectic Bollywood schedule, only to star in an insignificant film. The film has an ensemble list of cast, like an obedient puppet to the director, throw things around all the time. Because our beloved Deepak Sundarrajan still thinks that ghosts are capable of only that and meddle with the electricity.

Vijay Sethupathi is omnipresent. You go to the theatre or open Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, you find him there. He sure is a man of golden heart. Rising from the bottom, earning himself a place at the top amongst the top tier actors, he still chooses to do such nonessential, meaningless films.

On the whole, Annabelle Sethupathi has little to zero positives, offers nothing new, enjoyable or entertaining. The technical nor the music departments positively help the film. It falls flat as a run-of-the-mill horror-comedy. By the end, I regretted the 140 minutes, wishing I could have seen a couple of episodes of the newest season of Sex Education on Netflix.

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On top of this, the film ends with a note hinting for a part 2. I wish I had half the confidence of Deepak Sundarrajan to boldly make such an announcement after making an inglorious film. Watch ‘Annabelle Sethupathi’ on Disney+ Hotstar here.

‘Annabelle Sethupathi’ Rating – 1/5

Images via CineVasanth PRO


Nirmal Raj

A cinephile from the Kollywood Capital, Chennai.

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