Munjya - Sprightly Frightly Fun

Munjya

Hindi / Comedy / Mild Horror

120 mins

Disney+ Hotstar

 

Aditya Sarpotdar, the director of this movie has a few mid to decent Marathi movies - Faster Fene, Mauli and the loony Zombie comedy Zombivli (which i quite enjoyed, its on Zee5).  In the same vein, this is a  light hearted horror comedy Munjya .

The film is based on a Konkan/Maharashtra lore of the Munjya. A young boy (Gotya) is angry and heartbroken when Munni, girl (a much older) of his dreams is married away. Enraged and after a sound thrashing, he has his thread ceremony on the same day. Few days later, he heads off to a Chetukvadi, a cove near their seaside village. There he attempts to offer his  own sister as sacrifice in a black magic ritual to attain Munni. His attempt is thwarted and he is buried under a peepal tree.

Many years later, a young man Bittu (Abhay Verma) is living in Pune with his hair dresser Punjabi mother (Mona Singh) and grandmother ( the revered Marathi actor Suhasini Joshi). Bittu has nightmares of Chetukvadi (?). He has a long-time crush on  his neighbour Bela (Sharvari). Bittu's family gets an invite to an engagement ceremony of his cousin sister Rukku (Bhagyashree Limaye) , where they have to head to their seaside village and...

The movie is very straightforward and makes no bones about it. If you watch closely, in the first few minutes, you know what is to follow. Sathyaraj (Kattappa !, ) plays a healer, who "helps" Bittu and his cousin brother Spielberg to trap and get rid of Munjya.

Munjya's VFX persona is a cross between Gollum and Groot. One may have been irritated in theatres with the shrieking, though. Due credit however to the young actor who has dubbed for it. The movie has plenty of loony fun ( even Munjya makes jokes!), minimal jump scares and a subtle message on "consent in a relationship".

The performances by the cast overall is good. It was also nice to see new young faces in a Hindi movie after ages! Sathyaraj is fun ( i wish they had kept his voice. Thanks to the  short run time, a nice adaptation of Folklore, the movie is a decent one time watch. There is a popular dance number at the very end and a post credit sequence which ties to the Stree film universe.