Tumbbad turns an ancient god, a permanently rain-soaked village and a hidden hoard of gold into one extremely bad inheritance. FolknHell heads to India for a beautifully grubby tale of greed, family and what happens when somebody works out how to exploit the monster.
For our first trip into Indian horror, FolknHell descends into Tumbbad, Rahi Anil Barve's 2018 tale of buried gods, cursed treasure and one family's remarkable inability to leave well enough alone.
Vinayak Rao discovers that beneath the crumbling family estate lies something ancient, hungry and surrounded by gold. Better still, he discovers a method for getting at the money without being eaten. At which point an ancestral curse starts looking suspiciously like a reliable income stream.
We talk about the film's extraordinary rain-soaked production design, its womb-like descent into the earth, those wonderful ancient locks, the increasingly unpleasant Hastar and a story in which greed passes from one generation to the next with alarming efficiency.
There is also the important folk horror question. A threat tied to one place? Absolutely. Something literally living in the land? Very much so. An ancient power surviving into the modern world? This one barely makes us get the checklist out.
All three of us landed on 7/10. Not perfect, and the first section could perhaps move rather faster, but this is dark, strange, beautifully made horror that deserved to be much easier to find when we originally recorded the episode.
Spoilers throughout. Watch the film first unless you are happy having the treasure uncovered for you.
Yes, Tumbbad is folk horror, and unusually it barely requires an argument. The threat belongs to Tumbbad, comes from beneath its earth and reaches backwards into an ancient belief system that the Rao family really should have left alone.
More importantly, it is a very good film. Atmospheric, grotesque and visually terrific, with the pleasingly nasty idea that the monster can be managed right up until human beings decide they can improve the system.
Andy Davidson: 7/10
Dave Houghton: 7/10
David Hall: 7/10
Total: 21/30
🔗 Visit the FolknHell website for more episodes and blog posts
🔗 FolknHell Film Page for Tumbbad: https://www.folknhell.com/tumbbad-review
🔗 FolknHell Transcript Page: https://www.folknhell.com/blog/tumbbad-transcript
🔗 FolknHell Editorial Article: tbc
🔗 YouTube episode: https://youtu.be/ZjuhALyNgss?si=n7653UgX58hMl6Ej
🔗 IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8239946
🔗 Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tumbbad
🔗 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbbad
Spoilers throughout, with discussion of child death, violence, body horror and flesh-eating.
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