Andhera, directed by Raaghav Dar, premiered on 14 August and is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, featuring Priya Bapat, Karanvir Malhotra, Surveen Chawla, Prajakta Koli, Pravin Dabas, and Pranay Pachauri.
Story
The narrative opens with the baffling death of Bani Baruah, an escort whose body never turns up, prompting the police to classify the case as a missing‑person investigation. Because protocol demands that a female officer close such files, Inspector Kalpana Kadam (Priya Bapat) is assigned to sign it off—though her gut tells her something is amiss.
As she delves deeper, Kalpana finds herself pursued by a literal darkness that the series dubs Andhera. This darkness is more than an absence of light; it breathes, follows, and watches from places no one should be able to occupy. Parallel to this, the story follows brothers Prithvi (Pranay Pachauri) and Jay (Karanvir Malhotra).
Prithvi, a doctor, has been assisting Dr. Sahay (Pravin Dabas) in a clandestine experiment financed by the pharmaceutical giant Uberlife, which aims to unlock immortality. Andhera emerges as the experiment’s malignant by‑product, targeting anyone who comes into contact with it. Ultimately, Jay, his vlogger friend Rumi (Prajakta Koli), and Kalpana must unite to confront the living darkness.
Performances
Priya Bapat gives Kalpana Kadam depth beyond a standard procedural lead, blending toughness with the weight of her own personal hauntings.
Karanvir Malhotra, portraying Jay, captures both the volatility and the guilt of a man convinced he caused his brother’s death. Surveen Chawla brings poise to Ayesha, but the endless withholding of her character’s secrets dilutes the impact when those revelations finally surface.
Prajakta Koli is effortlessly natural as Rumi, the vlogger drawn to documenting the supernatural—her camera often becoming the audience’s uneasy eye.
Behind the scenes
The series leans on its background score as a hidden powerhouse, rising and falling with meticulous timing to draw you deep into its dream‑logic realm. Visually, the show flips between crisp, well‑lit city scenes and shadowy interiors that hint at either looming danger or a cost‑saving approach to lighting. The editing is incisive, though occasionally overly self‑aware, slicing away just as the tension begins to build.
Mumbai is portrayed as both radiant and threatening, its winding alleys and soaring skyscrapers forming a mythic urban tapestry where every shadow could hide something alive. The production design is richly detailed enough to make you feel that even the darkness has a specific address.
Final Verdict
The show launches with an ambitious premise, weaving multiple plotlines that are meant to converge. In the opening episodes, the gamble pays off: the silences, the claustrophobic stillness of a middle‑class housing society, and the unspoken dread combine to create genuine unease. The world‑building succeeds as long as the mystery remains intact.
Around the midpoint, however, the narrative begins to unravel. By the final episode, the writing loses its discipline entirely.The result is an overstuffed jumble that makes it difficult to follow the story’s emotional or logical through‑line.
However, Andhera deserves credit for daring to reinvent horror within a distinctly urban, contemporary framework, and the craftsmanship of its early episodes is undeniable. While the concept—a horror rooted in the pursuit of immortality—is fresh for the genre, the script piles on so many layers that the story collapses under its own weight. What starts as a taut, unsettling experience in the city’s shadows ends in a messy crash landing. What lingers is not the fear it aimed to evoke, but a lingering sense of a squandered opportunity.
https://snooper-scope.in/supernatural-horror-series-andhera-to-debut-on-aug-14/
