Blooders Chapter 1 (2025) Movie Review: A Mildly Engaging Indian Slasher

In a horror space populated by Vikram Bhatt’s otherworldly misfires and the recent obsession of Bollywood with magic and occultist twists, Shivam Kohli’s “Blooders Chapter 1” feels like a refreshing take on a genre that was once single-handedly shaped by the gripping haunted house tales of Ram Gopal Varma. But sadly, this feeling doesn’t hold on for long as the real inspiration behind “Blooders Chapter 1” (2025) reveals itself sooner than the unfolding of its sequences.

For viewers who have watched Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion thriller, “Strangers,” which also bears a striking resemblance to Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” (1997), the familiarity of the plot is more uncanny than the actual contextualization of its milieu. In a much similar way, Kohli’s “Blooders Chapter 1” narrates the tale of a couple trapped alone in a remote farmhouse as masked killers try to break in.

Much like “Strangers” (2008), “Blooders Chapter 1” acknowledges its roots in a true story but stops short of offering any further context. However, where “Strangers” takes time to establish an emotional baseline — allowing the couple’s desire for intimacy and escape to shape the tension — “Blooders Chapter 1” launches straight into its premise. This urgency has a double effect. On the one hand, it wastes no time and plunges the viewer directly into the unfolding danger. On the other hand, it denies us a meaningful window into the lives of its central characters, Rahul and Sanya, taking away the audience’s ability to fully invest in or empathize with their ordeal.

As Rahul and Sanya try to defend themselves and survive the threat to their lives, the film, like any other slasher, plays along with the psychological trauma of the threatened characters as they are pursued by a masked and hooded killer. The facelessness of the killer lends itself a mysterious and unsettling inanimateness who kill anyone ‘for fun’ in a seemingly random way.

With an introduction that hints at escalating criminal violence and human blood and organ trafficking, the story offers no other explanation, no justification — just the absurdity of a horrific, inescapable situation. Moreover, the appearance of the killer and the follow-up reactions to its behaviour place the plot within the typical suspense routine of comings and goings, appearances and disappearances, knockouts and deaths, etc.

However, the violence here is toned down, which will frustrate anyone looking for a decent amount of gore and some nerve-wracking suspense. But even at two hours, “Blooders Chapter 1” fails to effectively provide both. After a certain point in the film, scenes just start to go on for long and float with a repetitive rigour as the cat and mouse chase continues without any order or resolution in sight.

Moreover, while the film initially tries to tell the story from the point of view of Rahul, it later shifts to Sanya. This shift undoubtedly turns Sanya into an undecorated final girl, but it would have left an even better aftertaste had the entire story been reflected from this young woman’s point of view. In comparison, “Strangers” (2008) worked because, although it focused on the experiences of the two main characters, it had a greater emphasis on the female lead. Hence, a little tightening of the narrative and a point of focus in this regard was required in “Blooders Chapter 1” to maintain the audience’s interest and the forward-seeking momentum of the plot.

In terms of its mood and setting, the film successfully creates an unsettling nighttime atmosphere, but the vast spaciousness of the farmhouse, in which the action takes place, inhibits the process of creating a truly claustrophobic experience. It definitely contributes to a sense of isolation and vulnerability. On the contrary, the pitch dark blackness of the depth of field in the external shots, along with the eerie sound design, is pertinently effective as it acts like a black hole from which unspeakable terror can emerge.

In short, “Blooders Chapter 1” is watchable, but it is also very uneventful. Apart from the arrival of a police inspector at the scene of the crime, which is followed up by his suggestive, gruesome death, there is no other narrative intervention to sustain the thrill. Even in the various ways the killer plots to kill the couple lacks newness and creativity.

In the roles of Rahul and Sanya, the performances of Rahul Kumar and Gurpreet, respectively, are good enough, but nothing noteworthy or special to be mentioned in particular. Much of their acting comes across as amateurish, as both Rahul and Gurpreet are trapped in an emotionless role that Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler played in “Strangers” (2008) with a mixture of despair and madness.

This largely stems from the film’s reluctance to generate chaos through performance. The characters rarely overreact, panic, or spiral into the kind of breathless hysteria that slashers thrive on — the rushed, irrational decision-making that fuels tension, mistakes, and hard-earned survival, while simultaneously pumping adrenaline into the audience. Compounding this is the filmmaker’s failure to establish an emotional bond with the protagonists, which ultimately works against the actors themselves; without that connection, it becomes difficult to feel any genuine sympathy for their fate.

Meanwhile, Gaurav Kohli severely disappoints as the killer once the mask comes off. He neither appeared intimidating nor psychotic, a characteristic attribute of such killers in the midst of such killings. This is primarily because of the character being written in an uninteresting way, which doesn’t allow much scope for the performance to be.

“Blooders Chapter 1” successfully joins the list of unsuccessful Hindi films like “Sssshhh…” (2003) and “Kucch To Hai” (2003), which were inspired by popular Hollywood films with great repute among horror aficionados. For the uninitiated, “Sssshhh…” (2003) was a remake of “Scream” (1996), and “Kucch To Hai” (2003) was a remake of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (1997).

Read More: The 20 Best Indian Movies of 2025

“Blooders Chapter 1” played at the Jagran Film Festival 2025, Gorakhpur.

Blooders Chapter 1 (2025) Movie Link: IMDb