Stree

This week, we dive into 2018’s Stree, a hugely popular Indian horror-comedy inspired by the “Nalay Ba / Come Tomorrow” urban legend, and one of the first mainstream Bollywood hits to lean into folklore rather than cheesy haunted-house or revenge-ghost formula.

We talk about the film’s charm, likable buddy dynamic, romantic-comedy “meet cute,” and its role-reversal premise where men are the ones being hunted by a vengeful spirit during a village festival.

We break down the lore, the standout musical number, and the cast—Rajkummar Rao’s committed tailor performance, Shraddha Kapoor’s perfectly mysterious presence, and Pankaj Tripathi’s scene-stealing exposition.

We also unpack the ending twist, sequel setup, and why this feels more spooky campfire tale than graphic horror.

chainsawhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13…

Expand to read episode transcript

Automatic Transcript

Stree (2018)

Episode 503, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, this week was my turn to pick the movie, and I may have surprised Craig a little bit with this one. Maybe a little bit, maybe not. He knows I, I like to do things kind of outside of our, uh, normal purview or just really old stuff.

This is a newer movie, so I thought you’d like that. It’s from 2018, but it’s definitely outside of our purview. It is more in the Bollywood area, and I don’t know, have we ever done… Except for one. We did one Indian horror movie before this, I think, right?

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: Yeah, we did one in a shopping mall for Christmas.

It was, um- Yeah.

Craig: Uh-huh. I remember that.

Todd: It’s funny, I, um, I recently was dating an Indian woman for a brief time, and, uh, when she learned I was doing a horror podcast, she said, “You have to see this movie, Stree. It is wonderful, and it’s had sequels, and it was really, really popular when it came out, and you’re gonna love it.”

So she sat me down and had me watch this, and that is why I knew about it. So, uh, this is 2018’s Stree, and it was very famous and big when it came out, ’cause it was a bit against the grain of a lot of the other Bollywood films that had come across thus far. There had been horror movies in, in Bollywood, but, uh, they, they tended to kinda fall under two camps, you know?

They’re mostly just, like, cheesy haunted house-type stories or revenge-type ghost stories, and this was the first thing to really kinda break out of that mold and be a movie that’s actually based on an urban legend. And so, uh, it was a huge hit. It had some very big stars in it and, uh, spawned, uh, two or three sequels.

So, uh, here we are doing it. And yeah, so this is my second time watching this. And Craig, had you even heard of this before?

Craig: You told me about it when you saw it. Okay. I, I just remember you tell- well, I just remember you saying it was interesting and you thought I’d like it and we should do it at some point, but that’s been a while ago.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Um- Yeah … so when you recommended it, I, I remember that, that you had mentioned it before, but that’s it. That’s all I knew. I didn’t know anything about it. You said that it was Bollywood, and I have some expectations there. Mostly I kind of expect a musical number, and there is one. Right. And w- actually, there’s two really if you count-

the credit sequence, which you should, ’cause it’s great.

Todd: Right.

Craig: And, and that’s different. I mean, we’ll talk about it when we get there obviously, but you know, that’s something that I’ve come to expect from the Bollywood that I’ve been introduced to, so that was nice. But yeah, I didn’t really… I didn’t know anything else about it.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I didn’t know that it was based on a legend. I, I had no idea even what type of movie it was going to be. You also, I think, mentioned that it was a horror comedy, so I was going in with that in mind, but that’s about it.

Todd: Well, it’s worth mentioning that because we don’t do many of these movies, I’ve learned a lot about Indian movies fairly recently, and we often say Bollywood when we’re referring to Indian movies, but India’s a huge country, and it has many different regions, and a lot of people are producing movies in different areas.

Uh, I think that the Indian film industry might even be bigger than the Hollywood film industry, if you can believe that. Worldwide, they have a pretty big reach. Of course, they’re huge in India, and India’s a very populous place, and so there are film traditions in India that many of us in the West are, u- unless we’ve really sought this out and become fans of, of Indian cinema, we really don’t know a lot of this stuff.

Right. And so there are famous directors in India who are at least as famous as Steven Spielberg. This woman I date is 38 years old, and I mentioned Steven Spielberg to m- her, and she said, “Who’s that?” Mm. If that gives you any indication of just how separate those two worlds can be for us, you know?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: So but when we say Bollywood, we often mean Indian movies, but actually India produces films in lots of different languages. Hindi movies are tend, are Bollywood. There’s Telugu, which they call Tollywood. There are Tamil films, which is Kollywood. There’s a Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali

And many of India’s biggest, most recent blockbusters were not Bollywood films at all. Oh. They weren’t Hindi films. Yeah, they were from some of these other areas. So it’s really complex and really complicated. I, I couldn’t explain any of it to you ’cause I really don’t know much. But, uh, if you’re interested in Indian cinema, there is a ton to dive into, and, uh, I, I think it’s worth your while.

The stuff I’ve seen I’ve really enjoyed. They’re really good filmmakers. They’ve got tremendous actors, beautiful cinematography, and like you said, often music, and that’s what they’re most r- well known for.

Craig: Yeah, and I don’t… Y- yeah, I didn’t know, uh, all of those different regions had their own version.

When, when I think Bollywood I g- like, I equate it with Hollywood. I, I mean, like- Right … big budget, like, you know, really well made, a- as I think that this movie is, or at least it appears that way.

Todd: Oh, yeah.

Craig: Uh, you know, it’s, it’s beautifully shot. It’s, it stars beautiful people. It, it seems really well made overall, so that…

I, I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t even really look into it. I assume that it, it’s… It seems like a big budget movie. Is it?

Todd: Yeah. It’s, it’s a big budget movie, and, uh, and it has some big stars in it. The, the main star who plays Vicky in here is Rajkumar Rao, and he right now is one of Bollywood’s… considered one of its, their best actors.

And, uh, one thing that she explained to me is that unlike most Bollywood superstars, like Bollywood is a- actually a little like Hollywood in a way that, like, there’s dynasties there, and a lot of people become actors because their parents or their grandparents- Hmm … were in the industry, you know?

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And most Bollywood superstars are like this way, and this is one of the very few guys who was able to build his reputation almost entirely on acting ability.

Craig: Oh, nice.

Todd: Uh, he didn’t have family connections or even what you’d consider conventional, like, leading man looks, although I think he looks pretty nice.

Craig: Yeah, he’s handsome.

Todd: And he’s known for really, like, not always playing the same role, you know what I mean? A, a lot of, uh, actors get typecast into playing a certain kind of role, and he’s known for really just disappearing into the role that he’s in. He’s played a lot of different characters. So, uh, he’s kinda known to be, like, an actor first and a movie star second.

And, and he actually learned sewing for the movie. He spent, like, 20 days with …