Story
Nilam (Sangitha) is a single mother and a school teacher who stays with her daughter Nazia (Bandhavi Sridhar). Gopi (Thiruveer) stays in the same apartment complex and helps them out with petty jobs. They notice that Nizia behaves scarily and they suspect that she might be possessed by an evil force. As a last resort, they approach a peer baba Rizwan (Subhalekha Sudhakar). Rest of the story is about what possessed Nizia and the backstory of it.

Artists Performance

Thiruveer looks believable in the role of a good-hearted youngster who goes out of his way to help neighbors without expecting anything in return. His theater background helped him to give a freshness to his character. He is perfect in the role. Sangeetha adds a bit of familiarity to the film as most of the principal characters are donned by unfamiliar actors. She is very good. Subhalekha Sudhakar’s character is designed differently and his body language is excellent. For a change, Satyam Rajesh is given a non-comical character and he is decent. Surabhi Prabhavathi is highly authentic in a key role and excels as the woman who unveils the mystery of Masooda. Bandhavi Sridhar is good as a girl possessed. Kavya Kalyanram is fine as the hero’s love interest. Krishna Teja provides some comic relief as a friend of the hero. Most of the actors are fresh and they add freshness to the film.

Technical departments

Story - screenplay - direction: Masooda film basically has two threads. As an evil force possesses a girl, the neighbor starts investigating the root cause with the help of others (mainly by baba Rizwan). The best thing about the film is that the debutant director Sai Kiran chose to be true to the genre. They didn't add any unnecessary commercial elements for payoffs. The director has taken a lot of time to establish the characters and slowly leads to an interesting interval block. Unlike other horror films, the team has gone with muslim characters and muslim backdrop (without hurting any sentiments), which offered some variety. Another notable aspect is that we don’t get to see the face of Masooda. The unit has been so brave that they went ahead with stabbings and gory blood in some scenes of the film (which resulted in A certificate). A few scenes in the film are really spooky. The choice of writing a normal looking character for baba (Subhalekha Sudhakar) is good. The narration is pretty slow. Screenplay of the film should have been more interesting. The ghost fighting with two sets of people at the same time during the climax appears unrealistic (though we shouldn’t talk about logic in horror films). It appeals to real fans of the horror genre.

Other departments: Music by Prasanth R Vihari is very good. The background music is apt and he succeeded in getting the horror scenes elevated with his music. However, the romantic song is unnecessary to the film. Cinematography by Nagesh Banell is basic and rustic in the film (may be intentional) except for a few horror/gory scenes. Production design by Kranthi Priyam is genuine. Stunts by Ram Kishan and Stunt Joshua are decent. Editing by Jesvin Prabhu is fine. A few scenes should have been chopped off to pace the narration better. Production values by Swadharm Entertainments banner are decent.

Analysis: Masooda is a genuine attempt to create a true-blue horror film. The story of the film is written organically without bothering for all-round appeal. Plus points of the film are authenticity, scary moments towards climax, background music and artists performance. On the flipside, the length of the movie and slow-paced narration works against the film. On the whole, Masooda is for true-blue horror fans.