Mandala Murders is adapted from Mahendra Jakhar’s The Butcher of Benaras. The 2014 novel is about a collaboration between the Indian police and the American Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate a plot involving the Vatican and the ancient Sanskrit astrological text Bhrigu Samhita.
Instead of the Vatican, the Netflix series revolves around a secret cult led by Rukmini (Shriya Pilgaonkar) that worships its own god, Yast. The cultists are accused of black magic by the townsfolk living around their forest lair.
The image of Yast resembles Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man – an obvious detail explained by a character. Frankenstein’s monster is also mentioned in case viewers don’t get the connection with stolen body parts.
Created by Gopi Puthran and co-directed by him and Manan Rawat, Mandala Murders is hands down one of the grisliest shows in streaming. Digits, limbs and heads are chopped off, with mysteriously missing blood splatter.
Investigative officer Rea (a ramp-ready Vaani Kapoor) and suspended Delhi cop Vikram (Vaibhav Raj Gupta) combine forces to solve a trail of murders. Both have deeper connections to the case than they imagined, and both are troubled by recent incidents that haunt them.
Vikram returns with his father (Manu Rishi Chadha) to their old home in the town Charandaspur. Vikram reconnects with his old buddy Pramod (Sharat Sonu) because every hero needs a sidekick. They have barely unpacked when a photographer’s body is found floating in the river. The torso is missing and a mandala symbol is carved on his forehead.
Imperiously striding down her mansion and wooing the town’s population for an imminent election is Ananya (Surveen Chawla), who has a bed-ridden husband and also happens to be the sister of Vikram’s fiancee. Ananya’s political rivals are two gangsters (Rahul Bagga, Siddhanth Kapoor), who have their own short-lived track.
The corpses start piling up. A mystic (Raghubir Yadav) claims that the murders are part of a ritual, and that he’s next. The garishly clad Jimmy (Jameel Khan) helps Rea and Vikram decode the symbolism of the mandalas.
An old book, aptly titled Macabre, written by an Englishman (Edward Sonnenblick) who had witnessed a previous battle between the townsfolk and the Yast followers (over, believe it not, a nuclear power plant), supplies a helpful history.
Over back-and-forward timelines, multiple subplots, a profusion of minor characters and some pointless scenes, the writers (Gabe Gabriel, Matt Graham, Gopi Puthran) are particular about the peculiar logic of what is happening and why, hence the dense writing.
Mandala Murders aims to blend sci-fi with mythology but makes a hash of it. The sci-fi is laughable – a particle physicist builds a wish-fulfilling machine that looks like a cartoon robot and demands the sacrifice of a thumb (for what?). The mythology is mostly mumbo-jumbo.
What Mandala Murders does reasonably well is the police procedural. The introduction of a streaming star in the final episode suggests that a sequel is on the way.
The scenes of Charandaspur’s nooks and crannies and the action sequences are efficiently shot by Shaz Mohammed and Sandeep Gn Yadav, though the numerous close-ups of chopped up bodies could have been avoided. Vaani Kapoor, Surveen Chawla and Vaibhav Raj Gupta have the bulk of the scenes and keep the show watchable. However, the gruesome, nightmare-evoking visuals take away from the popcorn enjoyment of a crime thriller.
