Mrs Serial Killer is streaming on Netflix.
Mrs Serial Killer movie cast: Jacqueline Fernandez, Manoj Bajpayee, Mohit Raina, Zayn Marie, Darshan Zariwala
Mrs Serial Killer movie director: Shirish Kunder
Mrs Serial Killer movie rating: 0
The opening sequence had me reeling. If you think I’m exaggerating, stay with me, do.
To wit: one number petrified young woman, bound to a bed in a dimly-lit room, surrounded by hospital equipment. Ominous music. Another young woman, circling the bed, raising a sharp object, and going slaaaaash.
Now you’d think that this can be a perfectly fine introduction to a film called Mrs Serial Killer: the attacker could well be married, and be a serial killer, as the title helpfully tells us. So we should all be on our guard, right, and eyeing the slasher with a great deal of fright, right? So, so wrong. There’s something so ludicrous about these two ladies going at each other, exchanging dialogue which is worse than ludicrous, delivered as if they were in some kind of a weird sorority, that you want to flee far, far away.
Here’s a sample. Q: ‘kaun hai’? A: ‘serial killer’. No, I’m not making this up.
But wait. Let’s pause. Let’s not be hasty. After all, this thing also has Manoj Bajpayee in it, right? Just how ghastly can a film with such a wonderful actor be? As it turns out, and I can vouch for every single painful moment of it, it is beyond ghastly.
Let me tell you a little more. Please, please, don’t say no. You with me, still? Thank you, thank you.
Turns out that the woman with the sharp object is the wife (Fernandez) of a surgeon (Bajpayee), who is in jail for the grisly (very, very ) murders of a bunch of young women, all of whom were pregnant. A drunk cop (Raina) fetches up at the couple’s home, makes inappropriate comments, lurches about, in search of evidence. Clearly, there’s history between the wife and him: that’s why she opens the door to him, late at night, in her nightwear, see?
Meanwhile, a young woman with a very interesting choice of hair colour, pops up. She is a martial arts expert. She’s also going to be a mum. Aha. She has a wimpy boyfriend. Hmm.
Had enough? No? Real sucker for punishment, aren’t we? All right, here you go. There’s a shady lawyer (Zariwala) lurking in a baroque mansion, who gives all kinds of tips to the wife in order for her to save her dear, loving husband. Cries out she, ‘meri hi story mein saari conflicts kyon aati hain’? Good question.
Don’t know about you, but I’m done. Nothing, not Fernandez in her perfectly coiffed curls, nor Raina trying very hard to appear as if he knows what’s going on, nor the sundry others who come and go, help. Nor, I’m forced to regretfully report, Bajpayee, who should have known better.
I will leave you with this hard to beat back-and-forth: ‘toh maaro, yeh roz roz ke torture se toh achcha hai’, says one character. Replies the other: ‘torture tumne abhi dekha kahaan hai?’
Dekh liya, bhai, dekh liya.