Director Rambhala seems to have taken the word ‘horror comedy’ too literally. His Dhilluku Dhuddu 2 takes its genre too seriously. His writing process seems to be on these lines — a scene with jump scares and one trying for laughs; rinse and repeat.
By doing that, he completes an entire first half. The storyline revolves around Viji (Santhanam), who’s a troublemaker in his locality. He gets back home inebriated every day, only to disturb the peace of his neighbours. They hatch a plan to get rid of him: make him fall in love with Maya (Shritha Sivadas) who seemingly attracts the supernatural. Will their plan work?
- Genre: Horror-comedy
- Cast: Santhanam, Shritha, Rajendran, Urvashi
- Storyline: An auto driver falls in love with a doctor who attracts the supernatural.
The entire first half follows a generic horror-comedy template, which Kollywood audiences have experienced aplenty in the last few years. Santhanam is ill at ease in the romantic scenes and the action sequences (there are two incredulous ones that could have easily been removed) but comes to life when it comes to humour. He’s a little passive in the first half, but in the second, when he and a group of people enter a haunted bungalow (yawn), the comedy really picks up.
It’s inside the bungalow that Santhanam and his sidekick (‘Motta’ Rajendran) are in full form; there’s a particular sequence featuring a door that will surely have you in splits. The comedy works to a large extent, but the horror elements fall flat — for an audience who have experienced the supernatural many times on the big screen, the ‘pei’ is no longer too much of a draw.
Dhilluku Dhuddu 2 is certainly late to the party as far as the ‘horror comedy’ bandwagon is concerned, but it might just give some hope to Santhanam’s dwindling career. His comic style is still very much the same — one that gives more emphasis on the ‘counter dialogue’. He’d do well to experiment a little bit, and a horror-comedy is a step in the right direction, albeit late by at least a couple of years.