Jatadhara Movie Review: If making faces counted as horror, then Valak and Samara Morgan can retire. Because Sonakshi Sinha in Jatadhara is here to haunt us for real - not with chills, but with some very powerful cringe. Forget nightmares - the only thing that’ll keep you awake after watching this film is the memory of Sinha’s chattering teeth and your own uncontrollable laughter. 'Jatadhara' Makers Perform Real Tantric Rituals on Set to Capture Authentic Energy and Spiritual Power.

Jatadhara is a bilingual (Telugu-Hindi) supernatural fantasy entertainer starring Sudheer Babu in the lead, Sonakshi Sinha in scream mode, and Divya Khossla, who, for some reason, is labelled 'special appearance' in the film even though she has a decent amount of screentime, maybe even more than Sinha’s.

'Jatadhara' Movie Review - The Plot

Sudheer Babu is Shiva, a ghost-hunter who doesn’t believe in ghosts. So, like everyone asks him, what the hell does he hunt then? He’s not an atheist or anything - Shiva is highly religious, proudly wearing the sacred threads his mother ties on his wrist. He only doesn’t believe in ghosts because he hasn’t seen one yet. Yet, why he believes the apparatus he carries around to detect ghosts actually works is never explained.

Watch the Trailer of 'Jatadhara':

While on a ghost-hunting trip, he comes across Chitra (Divya Khossla), an archaeology student who appears and disappears out of frames like a ghost - because the film wants us to mistake her for one. They fall in love, of course, but Shiva has better things to do with his time, like going into a haunted village rumoured to have a sone ka kalash guarded by a fearsome (he he he) Dhana Pishachini (Sonakshi Sinha). But it’s not just his ghost-hunting obsession that draws Shiva there - there’s history too, of course.

'Jatadhara' Movie Review -  A Sloppy Mess

Jatadhara is directed by two individuals - Abhishek Jaiswal and Venkat Kalyan - but from the way the final product looks, it feels like no one was there to man the sinking ship. The film is amateurishly directed and weirdly edited, especially in the first half, where scenes crisscross into each other without any rhythm or logic. Action shots end mid-motion, and even character placements seem all over the place.

A Still From Jatadhara

For example, Dhana Pishachini gets a proper introduction in a very long flashback scene that refuses to end (unless you’re curious to know how many more contortions Sinha and Shilpa Shirodkar can do with their faces and tongues). That should’ve been an introduction worthy of the character; ideally, in the first half, she should’ve only been hinted at or shown in glimpses. Instead, she’s dropped into random scenes as if Sinha’s contract demanded she appear every fifteen minutes. I wonder if that contract didn’t include a dialogue clause, because as far as I remember, she has just one line. The rest is screaming and screeching.

A Still From Jatadhara

The use of AI in the film would make any cinephile cringe. It’s shoved in from the very first scene - a random prologue that distracts from whatever the film's narration wants to say - to the later moments featuring animals and even a full-blown Kailasa sequence. It feels as if someone gifted the team a bundle of free Veo 3.1 credits and told them to go wild. Honestly, they could’ve made the whole film with AI, considering the wooden and over-the-top performances we’re subjected to.

'Jatadhara' Movie Review - Weak Screenplay

There’s absolutely no consistency in how events unfold. Dhana Pishachini’s powers are woefully inconsistent - she can supposedly control people from afar, yet she’s weirdly selective about who to attack and when. The annoyingly long flashback is also riddled with plot holes. 'Jatadhara' Pre-Release Event: Sudheer Babu’s Electrifying Fan Frenzy Takes Hyderabad By Storm (Watch Video).

SPOILER ALERT: A black magician sacrifices himself to appease the demon after killing the hero’s relatives… which begs the question: why do the ritual at all if everyone’s dead anyway? Why did the hero’s parents sacrifice themselves to stop them from killing him when they could’ve just handed him over to the relatives, which happens anyway later?

A Still From Jatadhara

Also annoying: a film so steeped in black magic and bhoot-pret tries invoking Newton and Tesla to science out the spooky stuff - though science doesn’t help at all. As always, divine intervention saves the day in a laughable climax, where an uncomfortable-looking Sinha leaps around attacking a conveniently shirtless Sudheer Babu in a clumsily edited sequence that pauses for the hero to break into a tandav. It might’ve been a decent scene if the icy backdrop didn’t look so obviously green-screened - even the VFX gives up midway, you can literally spot frame glitches when Sudheer Babu's feet sways away.

'Jatadhara' Movie Review - The Performances

As for the performances (sigh), Sudheer Babu carries the same wooden expression throughout, though he fares slightly better in the climax. Sonakshi Sinha turns in what might be her career-low - and I’ve endured Welcome to New York.

A Still From Jatadhara

Divya Khossla’s role in the film is as consequential to the plot as the person writing this review. Shilpa Shirodkar can at least claim she’s better at making faces than Sinha.

'Jatadhara' Movie Review - Final Thoughts

Jatadhara dares to end with a sequel tease - and sure, that kind of confidence deserves a nod. But what the film truly needs is an exorcism for the sloppiness that’s seeped into every frame - from its acting and direction to the writing and editing. If you ever feel horror films don’t scare you anymore, try sitting through Jatadhara. You’ll be terrified - not by Sonakshi Sinha Jim-Carrey-ing her way through the performance, but by the thought of how something like this got made.

Rating:1.0

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(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 07, 2025 11:30 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).