Scream stream: When the idea of Hastar sends chills down your spine in Tumbbad

Just like Diwali is incomplete without diyas and Christmas is incomplete without pudding, Halloween is incomplete without spine-chilling streaming of horror films. In fact, you really don’t have to be a fan of horror films to appreciate the delectable taste of Tumbbad. The Sohum Shah-starrer 2018-film is a spectacle of epic horror and surely a trendsetter in the Indian horror film genre. 

The thrill starts in the film with the myths that garnish the legacy of Tumbbad – a hamlet in Maharashtra. It rains incessantly in that village. The legend has it that Hastar was the favourite child of her mother – the goddess of wealth and food, who gave birth to all the other gods and goddesses. Hastar hid all the gold and when he asked for food, all the other gods and goddesses attacked him. His mother saved him under the condition that he would never be worshipped. But people in Tumbbad built his temple and started worshipping him. As a result of all the other gods’ curses, it rains in Tumbbad all the time. A character now wants to usurp Hastar’s gold. What happens to the gold and where does greed lead us to? Such nuances are delicately explored in the film.

The film does not rely much on jump scare. Instead, it used the soundscape, minimal dialogues, incessant rain, a dilapidated mansion, a deep tunnel, and the idea that one can see Hastar at the end of the tunnel. Tumbbad does not leave any stone unturned to make the atmosphere scary rather than screaming, in-your-face ghost stories. That marks a unique chapter in the Indian horror genre.  

The film also uses historical interference to make the film more realistic and relatable. Against the backdrop of India’s independence, Tumbbad explores how greed has started expanding and how traditional mahajans and loan sharks have started turning into businessmen. Once such social implications come in front of us, we realise that Hastar is not the source of real chill. It comes from the dark sides of human minds which are beautifully captured in the film that streams on Amazon Prime.