Stree 2 Review: Comedy dominates headless monster sequel
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The small town of Chanderi is rid of its resident ghost, Stree—the evil spirit who would abduct men in the night. But with Stree gone, a headless monster begins to target Chanderi’s women, and it’s once again up to ladies’ tailor Vicky and his friends to solve the haunting of this new terror in town.
Directed by Amar Kaushik, the 2024 horror comedy Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank sees most of the original cast reprise their roles and tackle a headless monster. The film begins with a fun stage musical enacted by kids to tell the legend of Stree and how she was defeated by Vicky (Rajkummar Rao). The music of the song is unimpressive—one wouldn’t want to hear it again—but it serves as an excellent recap chapter to start off the sequel.
It’s been a few years since Vicky and his mysterious lady friend (Shraddha Kapoor) weakened Stree by cutting her hair. Things are calm in the town of Chanderi until a young woman named Chitti (Anya Singh) goes missing late night after waking up the entire street with her screams for help. An eyewitness claims he saw a headless man (sarkata) drag her away. Bookshop owner Rudra (Pankaj Tripathi) receives a letter with the missing pages of the Chanderi Puraan, serving as a clue to who the headless monster might be. So, Vicky teams up with Rudra and his friends Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) to fight the new ghost, and their plan includes turning to Stree for help. Shraddha Kapoor’s character, a nameless witch of sorts, also joins their quest to rid Chanderi of the new evil forces.
For a horror-comedy, there’s never a lack of humor in Stree 2; it’s packed to the hilt with jokes—some incredibly silly, while others are rib-tickling funny. Some are ridiculously literal (and meta), like a scene where Rajkummar Rao dresses up like an Indian prince, and one of his friends says, “Ab lag rahe ho na asli Rajkummar” (now you look like a real prince).
A lot of the laughs in the middle of the film are courtesy of Abhishek Banerjee’s hilarious portrayal of Jana, who still has PTSD from being Stree’s victim in the past and is once again used as bait to draw her out for help. Rajkummar Rao as popular Chanderi tailor Vicky is still moon-eyed over Shraddha Kapoor’s character, and while the romance is thin between the two in Stree 2, they share some awkward-cute moments courtesy of Vicky’s crazy crush.
But as far as the most crucial element of Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank is concerned—the headless ghost—the new supernatural antagonist is just never scary enough. He feels like an exaggerated gag out of the older Ramsay Brothers’ horror movies, and the CGI for the ghastly ghost is quite underwhelming too. Another realm where Stree 2 pales in comparison to the 2018 Stree is music. Except for the track titled “Aayi Nai,” which is a catchy desi dance track, all the other songs aren’t as recall-worthy.
A few unexpected cameos in Stree 2 add to its entertainment factor in the second half. However, the final showdown between Sarkata and Vicky was chaotically prolonged and wasn’t tense or nail-biting at all. Nonetheless, any lack of scares in this horror-comedy is almost immediately compensated by something funny. For instance, when Vicky is trying to channel his inner hero to defeat the villain in the climactic minutes, he is told to act “dil se” (through his heart), so he starts to sing the “Dil Se” song. Depending on the viewer, some will find it funny as hell or completely stupid. Well, that holds true for a lot of the jokes, so I hope the inner child in you is ready to laugh at a lot of the silly lines in Stree 2, because that’s where it shines the best.
Rating: 7 out of 10.
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