'Thamma' Review: Ayushmann Khurrana's horror-comedy fails to sparkle

We should have read the warning signs; when a film’s promotions centre around not one or two but three item songs featuring women in skimpy clothes, you need to wonder if it has anything else to offer. But then it’s Diwali and you walk into the theatres with hopes of a good time at the movies, even if expectations of spectacularly original cinema are less.

This brings me to memories of Diwali releases in Bollywood down the years. The festive season often coincided with some of the most iconic releases starring A-listers, great music and fabulous entertainment. A small example: Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, which hit the theatres in 1995 and 30 years later, is making a comeback on our reels with a nostalgia overload.

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However, it’s Bollywood and this is 2025 - so, naturally, the Diwali platter serves up yet another addition to an already crowded “universe.” This year’s offering is Thamma, the Ayushmann Khurrana–Rashmika Mandanna–Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer - a much-hyped horror-comedy from Maddock Films, the studio that struck gold with the genre-bending Stree and has been churning out supernatural comedy spinoffs ever since.

Thamma introduces us to the world of betaals — an Indianised take on the bloodthirsty vampires of Hollywood. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Alok Goyal, a clueless, virality-chasing journalist who’s mauled by a grizzly bear in the jungle. You wonder which part of India has grizzlies, but it’s okay… you can’t be asking GK questions of a fictional desi universe, can you?

Anyway, Alok is rescued by a stunning yet mysterious woman, Tadaka (Rashmika Mandanna), and is soon drawn into the hidden realm of betaals. Their chief (Thamma) is the sinister Yakshaasan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who has been chained and locked up for defying the sect’s laws, which forbid feeding on human blood. The reason: the horrors of the 1947 riots had so repulsed these creatures that they swore off humanity’s “poisonous” blood. Perhaps it’s meant as a sly commentary on mankind’s own savagery — so vile that even vampires recoil from it. I say “perhaps” because this fascinating idea, though ripe with potential, is never fully explored. Just like the opening sequence, supposedly set in 323 BC with a stony-faced Alexander facing the wrath of Yakshaasan in an Indian jungle for daring to set his eyes on “bharat”. I couldn’t see the point of it except to prove our betaals’ nationalistic credentials.

A lot happens thereafter, but the focus is mainly on the Twilight-inspired inter-species romance between Alok and Tadaka and its repercussions in vampire-land and among humans. Their love story blossoms despite the disapproval from Tadaka’s clan, and the only way they can be together is if Alok becomes one of them. Does he? How can they defeat Yakshaasan? Can Alok be the new Thamma to build a balance between the earthly and other-wordly creatures? Watch the movie to find out.

Thamma is obviously ambitious in scale. The Maddock Horror Comedy Universe (abbreviated by the makers to MHCU in a not-so-subtle hat-tip to MCU), ups the ante, adding elements from all their previous hits like Stree, Stree 2, Munjiya and Bhediya. There is an extended fight sequence between Alok and Bhediya which, though over-extended, is quite engaging. Then there are appearances by characters from the other films, in tune with the ambitions of the filmmakers to take the franchise forward. In that sense, Thamma is more of a world-building exercise with the next instalments going deeper into it until it leads to an Avengers-like finale.

All these ideas are interesting on paper, but what matters on screen is the execution. Thamma fails to hit the mark because writers Niren Bhatt, Suresh Mathew and Arun Falara add too many ingredients, failing to do justice to any of them. It’s like they set out to make a comedy (because that’s what is expected), then had a tough time balancing it with the horror (which is the core of the series), but decided to take the route of mythology and a drop of history (because. it always appeals), and mixed it all up with Kantara-Kalki style grand folk performances and a generous dose of item songs. The result is a film that’s mid, generic, says too much and means little.

Take, for instance, the utterly redundant item numbers — that tired, overused trope filmmakers still cling to for a dash of glamour. For a franchise that began on such a confident footing with Stree and its organically feminist undertones, Thamma does a complete volte-face, throwing in dance tracks featuring the ultimate item queens, Malaika Arora and Nora Fatehi, with Rashmika joining in. No one would complain if the songs were truly electric, or the choreography dazzling. But they feel wedged into the narrative, with Nora given just a token line to nod at her Stree connection (remember Kamariya?). While the item songs objectify the women, the film’s heroine has a strange arc, too. Rashmika, despite getting some solid action moments and rescuing the hero more than once, is styled to remain demurely hot and wide eyed with her dare-to-bare blouses and superbly toned abs on display. Unfortunately, her stilted dialogue delivery and discomfort with Hindi can’t be compensated for with an overdose of sex appeal.

Then there’s Nawazuddin Siddiqui, clearly having a ball with his role. As a villain who drops bits of English, a side effect of centuries spent drinking Anglo blood, he tries injecting humour and sass into his menace, but clunky writing leaves him stranded. Holding it all together is Ayushmann Khurrana. It’s always a pleasure to watch him on screen, and he keeps Thamma’s energy afloat. His goofy, lost-charmer act feels a little too familiar from his small-town social dramas, but he’s a worthy addition to this expanding “universe,” joining Rajkummar Rao (Stree) and Varun Dhawan (Bhediya).

The real spark comes from veteran Paresh Rawal, playing Alok’s bewildered father who can’t make sense of his son’s bizarre transformation or the world he now inhabits. But when his dialogues are lifted straight from old memes and viral news reels, you really can’t take them seriously. Honestly, can’t our writers come up with new one-liners?

Thamma has brisk pacing and it definitely entertains if that’s only what you are looking for. But the screenplay’s inconsistencies are hard to ignore. The narrative rises, dips, then flounders again, leaving the film uneven at best. For a horror, it’s never scary; for a comedy, it’s not funny enough. In the end, the film turns into a chaotic Twilight-meets-Lokah-meets-What we do in the Shadows-meets-Dracula hotchpotch. Not bad for Diwali but nothing to celebrate either.

Thamma

Director: Aditya Sarpotdar

Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Rashmika Mandanna, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Paresh Rawal

Stars: 2.5/5