Betaal
2020
Original language: Hindi
- action & adventure
- drama
The story
A remote village becomes the arena of a breathless battle when an undead East India Company officer and his battalion of zombie redcoats attack a squad of modern-day soldiers.
What it’s like
Dusty daylight, sun-bleached earth and deep, muddy night shadows give this series a hard, grounded look, with the camera mostly handheld and close during the fights and the frame widening over empty scrub and crumbling stone when the story pauses. Lantern glow and torchlight carve the darkness, and the score leans on low drones and percussive pulses that rise and drop out abruptly. The mood is grim and feverish, a sun-scorched dread that sits somewhere between war drama and folk horror, with a restless, breathless rhythm that rarely gives the viewer room to exhale. Two timelines braid together, and the emotional arcs follow soldiers and villagers who are forced to confront the violence of empire and the cost of old crimes. Expect intense, explicit violence: frequent gunfire, bloody close-quarters combat, zombie dismemberment, and scenes of mass killing that some viewers may find heavy. There is little that is gentle here. It suits viewers who want a tense, brutal genre piece for a late-night binge and are comfortable with graphic gore and disturbing war imagery.
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