Baramulla (2025) Review: A Tense Thriller That Grips

DSP Ridwaan Sayyed (Manav Kaul) is a man of reason, a cop who believes in evidence and procedure. He’s transferred to the serene district of Baramulla with his wife Gulnaar (Bhasha Sumbli) and young daughter Noorie (Arista Mehta), looking for a quieter life. Instead, he finds a town rattled by a series of child kidnappings. As he digs deeper, the cases start to defy logic. Witnesses speak of shadows that move wrong, of a presence that lures children into the woods. Ridwaan’s rational worldview fractures when the supernatural events encroach upon his own home, targeting his family. He’s forced to confront a chilling, centuries-old secret buried beneath the town’s placid surface, one that threatens to consume everything he loves, with only his colleague Khalid (Ashwini Koul) and the cryptic local Ansari (Mir Sarwar) offering fragments of a terrifying puzzle.

Kaul is the film’s anchor, delivering a performance of quiet, coiled intensity. He makes Ridwaan’s disbelief believable, and his subsequent descent into frantic protectiveness is the emotional core that holds the picture together. His scenes with Sumbli, who plays Gulnaar with a subtle, growing unease, are grounding. Their relationship feels real, which makes the supernatural threat to their family unit genuinely tense. Arista Mehta, as their daughter Noorie, is appropriately wide-eyed and creepy in the way child actors in horror often are, though her role is underutilized beyond being a narrative pawn.

Director Jambhale demonstrates a keen eye for composition. The cinematography is lush and ominous, capturing the beauty of the valley while drenching it in an impending sense of doom. The sound design is particularly effective, using ambient noises - wind through leaves, distant calls - to create an unsettling soundscape. The first hour is patient, building an atmosphere of creeping paranoia that is genuinely effective. The mystery feels organic, rooted in local folklore and the trauma of a region that has seen its share of real-world violence, which adds a layer of unspoken poignancy.

However, the film’s ambition begins to unravel in its second half. The central mythology, involving a vengeful spirit or entity, is introduced with heavy-handed exposition but never properly defined. The rules of the horror are vague; the entity’s motivations shift to fit the plot’s needs, which saps the tension. Instead of scaring us with what we don’t see, it starts showing too much, and the practical effects and CGI, while earnest, fail to match the sophistication of the film’s earlier mood. The pacing stumbles, with repetitive dream sequences and false scares that dilute the impact of the moments that do work. A promising subplot involving another missing child, Ayaan (Rohaan Singh), is introduced and then almost forgotten, a symptom of a script that’s juggling too many threads.

The film also leans heavily on the "protecting the family" trope, which, while effective in creating stakes, results in a fairly conventional final act. It doesn’t have the nerve to offer a truly bleak or surprising conclusion. Instead, it resolves in a manner that feels both rushed and predictable, undercutting the existential dread it had spent so long building.

Pros

• Manav Kaul’s commanding, nuanced lead performance.
• Stunning cinematography that effectively uses the Baramulla setting.
• A genuinely atmospheric first half with excellent sound design.
• The thematic blending of local folklore with personal trauma.

Cons

• A muddled and ill-defined supernatural mythology.
• Significant pacing issues in the second half.
• Reliance on familiar horror clichés and jump scares.
• An underwhelming and conventional climax.
• Underdeveloped supporting characters and subplots.

Baramulla is a film caught between two identities: a somber, character-driven drama about a father’s fear, and a visceral, folk-horror spectacle. The former is where it excels, largely thanks to Kaul's presence. The latter, unfortunately, drags the experience down with clunky exposition and a finale that doesn't justify the journey. It’s a movie you’ll appreciate for its admirable attempts and its gorgeous, melancholic surface, but you’ll likely leave feeling that its secrets were far less interesting than the mysteries they hinted at. An average horror film elevated by a great actor, it’s a recommendation for Kaul’s fans and those who enjoy slow-burn atmospheric thrillers, provided your expectations are tempered.