A sinister dark presence is hanging over Mumbai. Literally so – this malevolent force that appears both as a gooey web of tentacles and faceless clones of its victims is creeping over Mumbai’s Victorian-era facades and modern but already crumbling buildings. The black mass has already claimed Bani (Jahnvi Rawat). Who’s next?
Diligent police officer Kalpana (Priya Bapat) sets out to investigate, her quest leading her to a wellness retreat managed by Ayesha (Surveen Chawla). Kalpana has to swat away workplace sexism and only has the support of her loyal colleague Kanitkar (Anand Ingale).
The Darkness – it’s always capitalised, spoken of as a fact rather than a possibility – is also threatening to consume Jay (Karanvir Malhotra). Jay’s elder brother Prithvi (Pranay Pachauri) has already been affected. Prithvi is lying in a coma, unable to reveal what he knows about the phenomenon and whether it has anything to do with his medical practice.
Jay himself can’t decide whether the darkness is a product of his clinical depression or a projection of his guilt over his previous actions. Jay teams up with paranormal investigator Rumi (Prajakta Koli) to find out the connections that seem to exist between Prithvi and Bani, reality and suggestion, the known and the unimaginable.
The other characters include Darius (Vatsal Sheth), Uberai (Dilip Shankar), Sahay (Parvin Dabas) and Jude (Kavin Dave). Jude insists that a comic book has predicted whatever is happening. The past weighs heavily on the present for nearly everybody involved, with even Rumi’s mother Saba (Priyanka Setia) seemingly playing a part.
Andhera is an ambitious mesh of psychological horror, supernatural elements and rogue technology. The Prime Video series always has some new idea or the other to peddle when it appears that the twists are running out, the J-horror type moments are losing their shock value and the solutions are becoming too obvious.
Andhera is the handiwork of creator Gaurav Desai and director Raaghav Dar. Desai has also co-written the Hindi series with Karan Anshuman and Chintan Sarda.
The show resembles a tour down a rabbit hole with several detours. Big on psychobabble, heavy on jump scares and rich in atmospherics, Andhera is a fitfully frightening affair, its parts more intriguing than its sum.
The plot takes some time kicking in, what with so many interwoven strands, flashbacks and parallel happenings. Andhera is only the latest web series to stick to the seemingly mandatory eight-episode stipulation when matters could have been wrapped up in fewer chapters.
More than the mostly serviceable performances, Huentsang Mohapatra’s camerawork, Ketan Sodha’s background score, Vivek Sachindanand’s sound design and Preetisheel Singh’s make-up deliver the chills and thrills. With the exception of Priya Bapat and Surveen Chawla in some sequences and a consistent Prajakta Koli, Andhera doesn’t have any outstanding turn that creates emotional investment in the proceedings.
The focus on the foul-tempered, needlessly aggressive Jay and his dynamic with his sibling Prithvi steals the attention away from Kalpana’s back story. While the revelation of the actual mastermind is hardly a surprise, there’s yet another curveball in store for viewers who think they have solved the mystery.
There’s plenty of show and lots of hokum tell. As a show about a darkness that lives within and without its characters, Andhera delivers the goods, even if it takes far too long to get there and wastes too much time on repeating itself.
