Name: The Village
Cast: Arya, Divya Pillai, Aadukalam Naren, George Maryan
Director: Milind Rau
The Village, which is said to be India’s first adaptation of a graphic novel into a web series, has finally dropped on Amazon Prime Video, with a total of six episodes encapsulating the series. The show features Arya playing the role of a doctor who embarks on a road trip with his wife and daughter and takes a detour to avoid an accident that happened on a highway. Let’s find out if the series is worthy of anyone’s time!
The Village plotline
Dr. Gautham Subramanian, played by Arya, is traveling along with his wife, Neha Subramanian (played by Divya Pillai), and his daughter Maya (Baby Aazhiya), on a road trip, along with their pet dog. While traveling on the highway, the family encounters an accident that has blocked their pathway and gridlocked them in traffic. Looking for an alternative route on GPS, Neha finds a service road that offers a detour that goes through a fictional village called Kattiyal, which is located in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu.
The family soon finds themselves stranded in a ghost town where they apparently get a flat tire, which urges Gautham to traverse across the town to find help, all the while leaving his family behind inside the car. The horrors of the land start to take place from there on, which develops the story of the series, consisting of events from both the past and the present. The series also follows a subplot consisting of a group of trained mercenaries who are trying to collect samples from the village as well.
The Village: The Good
The Village largely rides on the core concept and story, which were based on the graphic novel of the same name written by Asvin Srivatsangam, Vivek Rangachari, and Shamik Dasgupta. The idea of a village being the center of mystery where people go in and never return is a trope that has been seen in countless settings over the years, but rooting such a story in the likeness of a local Tamil setup really brings the potential of stories being innovative in nature and rooted to Indian concepts.
The action sequences and the gore the series has had were a fun sight to watch in certain portions and offered engaging and thrilling gasps while viewing. The horror element of the story was heavily attributed to the stunning jump scares it gave from time to time, with the responsibility highly riding on the scores and sound design of the series. The efforts made by the make-up department have to be appreciated as well.
The Village: The Bad
Coming to the bad aspects of the series, The Village went wrong in almost every other department it embarked on. The series, setting aside the initial few minutes of the first episode, really started to scrape the bottom of the creative jar it already had nothing of.
From an acting standpoint, every actor was either unbearable to watch, overdramatic, or unnecessary. Apart from the Beagle dog, which was the family pet of the Subramanian family, every other actor made it tough to watch the series.
The group of mercenaries who were brought in by a paralyzed antagonist to find samples to cure his spine were both not what the characterization meant them to be and were really out of place, often forgetting that they were meant to play the alphas in the show. The characters lacked every probable characteristic and growth they needed to make this series at least a bearable watch.
Coming to the technical aspects of the series, most of the sets, especially scenes involving mutated plants and animals, were developed so badly that they made the local festival decorations look like a Van Gogh painting. The effort, or rather, the lack of it, was visible in every shot. Every shot that included a CGI character or VFX was so out of place and horribly executed that it looked like a last-minute rendering, making it unintentionally awkward to watch.
The screenplay of the show, along with poor narration and directing, made every action and dialogue by the characters look forced and cringe-worthy, to say the least. The choppy editing that only seemed to know how to apply jump cuts did not offer anything else to salvage from it either.
Performances by the cast
Arya, the leading man of the show, performs as if he doesn’t even care why he bothered to appear in this series. Apart from the occasional sighs and shouts, the actor does not add anything else to the plot, nor does his concerned acting for his family make you root for his survival. Moreover, Divya Pillai, who played Arya’s wife in this, lacked charm, charisma, and even chemistry with him. Both actors appearing stiff together were also added by an over-acting daughter making your blood crawl whenever she opens her mouth.
On the other end, the performances given by actors Aadukalam Naren, George Maryan, and Muthukumar do not make it better either. Adding to them, the unnecessary antics by actors John Kokken, Thalaivasal Vijay, and Arjun Chidambaram only made it more and more unbearable to watch. Moreover, the list of overdramatic acting from the series should also include actress Kalairani playing every emotion more than was ever required.
Verdict on The Village
In summary, The Village is a gory and profanity-filled horror thriller web series with a solid premise that was let down by the acting, directing, editing, visuals, and production design. For a series that had each episode between 35 and 50 minutes and was only six episodes long, it easily became one of the most drawn-out web series from the Tamil industry.
Disclaimer: The above-given review is based on the first four episodes of the series.
