Aroopi crosses into Tamil: a yakshini horror on fresh faces

Aroopi arrives in Tamil with a tagline that sets the tone: some secrets never stay hidden. The Malayalam horror, written and directed by Abhilash Warrier, unveiled its Tamil trailer and music in Chennai, and the cut leans hard into mystery and dread, building toward a story stacked with twists. For audiences who like their thrillers heavy on suspense, it makes a confident first impression.

It is a yakshini horror, shot largely inside a house said to be around 300 years old, and much of its weight rests on craft. Gopi Sundar handles the background score, with Robi Varghese Raj behind the camera. In a genre where sound does half the scaring, the team has put its faith there, and it shows in the trailer.

The film is unusual in who it bets on. Producer Pradeep Raj, a businessman rather than a film-industry insider, came aboard after hearing the story from Warrier and his friend, the film’s lead Vysakh Ravi. His one condition, he said, was that the film lean on fresh young talent over established names. “There’s no shortage of talent in India,” he told the room. “What’s short is the right stage to show it.” He is betting audiences will leave the theatre asking why nobody had filmed a story this good before.

For Vysakh Ravi, the night marked his first outing as a hero, the close of a journey he traced back nearly ten years to the many scripts he and Warrier built together before settling on this one. Neha Chawla, who plays the yakshini, called it the most challenging role of her career, made stranger still by that centuries-old house. Sakshi Badala, in her first Malayalam film, was candid that the language had been a wall to climb.

A deep bench fills out the rest, with Joy Mathew, Sindhu Varma, Kannan Sagar, Vijupal and Kiran Raj among the cast. Warrier wrote the story, screenplay and dialogue himself, and Punartham Productions backs the film. The Tamil release, the makers say, was a call they took only because they trusted the story to travel beyond Malayalam.

Aroopi releases in theatres worldwide soon.