I’ve driven past those village bends where the road suddenly tightens, the air cools, and everyone falls a little quiet. Sumathi Valavu builds an entire movie out of that feeling. Set in 1990s Kerala, the film takes its name from a notorious curve on a rural road and the tragedy locals won’t stop talking about. Director Vishnu Sasi Shankar builds from script by Abhilash Pillai. He skips tech tricks. Ghost tech and old myths fail to pull him. He watches a small town keep a tale alive, and he hunts what tale hides. The film opened in theatres on August 1, 2025; ZEE5 streams it September 26, 2025, with Malayalam audio and dubs in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada.
The plot
Once upon a bend: decades ago, a young woman named Sumathi died on that curve. Accidents kept piling up. Shrines appeared. So did rules—don’t ride alone at night, don’t whistle, don’t look back if you hear your name. The movie drops us into this routine where fear has become a sort of civic habit. We’re mostly with Appu (played with open curiosity by Arjun Ashokan), the kind of guy who insists he doesn’t believe in ghosts but walks a little faster near the bad spot anyway. A handful of regulars orbit him—shopkeepers who pretend to be bored, a cop who’s seen too much, friends who tease until the teasing dries up. Strange things begin to cluster again around the bend. The pattern looks familiar; the reasons don’t. And the closer Appu gets, the more the town’s “official” legend starts to wobble.
This is not a body-count movie. The scares arrive in quick jabs: a headlight blink you swear wasn’t there, a sudden hush in the trees, a figure half-glimpsed and then gone. Because we’re in the pre-smartphone 90s, solutions aren’t a Google search away. People go to elders, to priests, to each other. The film’s best trick is how it treats rumor like a character—alive, mobile, and a touch malicious.
People you’ll remember
Arjun Ashokan’s Appu is the anchor: restless, practical, and just sentimental enough to fall for a story. Malavika Manoj gives Bhama a steadying presence—she’s the one who asks real questions when the boys start braying. Gokul Suresh (Mahesh) and Balu Varghese (Ambadi) supply local color without reducing everything to comic skits; the jokes serve the tension rather than smother it. Saiju Kurup’s Hari carries that weary small-town authority—never fully honest, never fully cruel. Sshivada, Siddharth Bharathan, Gopika Anil, and Jasnya Jayadeesh round out the ensemble, with Jayadeesh’s Sumathi felt in presence even when she isn’t on screen. Behind the camera, Ranjin Raj keeps the score earthy and unintrusive, P. V. Shankar’s frames make good use of lamplight and mist, and Shafique Mohamed Ali cuts the night sequences with just enough air to let nerves fray.
Why this legend lands
The title isn’t a gimmick. There really are places in Kerala nicknamed after tragedies, where a bend or a culvert inherits a person’s name, and a route becomes a warning. The film leans into that texture: the scratched tin boards, the damp yellow bulbs, bike horns that sound braver than the riders feel. You can smell the wet rubber and the fried banana chips at the tea stall. And that 90s period choice isn’t nostalgia bait. It denies the story modern shortcuts and pushes everyone toward analogue fixes: a lamp here, a thread there, an old prayer you only half remember.
Underneath the jolts, the movie keeps chewing on three ideas. One: how rumor hardens into ritual. Two: how communities use laughter to manage fear—the comic beats aren’t undercutting the horror; they’re a survival tool. Three: how legends protect power. A story that warns you not to ask questions can be very convenient for some people. When the third act arrives, the film resists cosmic answers and reaches for the human ones. Not everyone will love that choice. I did.
What it does well
The geography is tight—one bend, a few houses, a tea shop, a small police outpost—and the film squeezes plenty from that constraint. The night work looks right: damp roads, fog that’s thin enough to be real, not stage smoke. The jump scares aren’t elaborate, but they’re placed shrewdly, and the punchlines don’t overstay their welcome. Performances stay within the world; nobody is acting “for the meme.”
It does, however, loop once too often in the middle: setup-scare-wisecrack, repeat. You feel the wheel turning. A little pruning there and a slightly tougher finale beat would have lifted the film a notch. Still, when the reveal reframes the town’s long-held truth, the point lands: sometimes the ghost story is the neatest way to avoid a messier history.
How folks have taken it
Theatrical chatter called it “solid mood, safe scares.” People liked the rural vibe, the everydayness of the cast, and the fact that the movie doesn’t sneer at believers. Hardcore horror fans wanted sharper teeth; family audiences appreciated that it didn’t go for the jugular. That usually means a healthier OTT run, where the pause button and the living-room lamp take the edge off and word of mouth has time to ferment.
Little craft notes, I loved
Sound of distance. Motorbikes approach, then recede, leaving the bend oddly louder in the silence that follows.
Streetlight choreography. Flickers aren’t random; they herd your eye toward exactly where the frame will misbehave next.
Tea-stall staging. Gossip is blocked like a relay race; lines pass between mouths the way rumors pass between lives.
No sainting of Sumathi. The film lets her remain a person—wronged, yes, but not a symbol vacuumed of detail.
Practical watch info
India Theatrical: August 1, 2025.
OTT: ZEE5 from September 26, 2025.
Languages: Malayalam (orig), dubs in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada.
Who it’s for: Viewers who like folklore-driven horror with a smile, period texture, and more unease than gore. If you require gnarlier set pieces, this may feel mild; if you enjoy a campfire vibe with a bite, you’re set.
Final word
Sumathi Valavu won’t rewrite the rulebook, but it remembers a rule many flashier films forget: fear travels fastest by word of mouth. The movie trusts the road, the bend, the hush. It gives you a community that feels lived in, then asks what that community refuses to say out loud. Watch it for the humid nights, the nervous jokes, and the way a town tries to keep itself safe with a story. And when the credits roll, tell me—would you still slow down at that bend if no one was watching?
Streaming starts September 26, 2025 on ZEE5.
Bio of Author: Gayatri Tiwari is an experienced digital strategist and entertainment writer, bringing 20+ years of content expertise to one of India’s largest OTT platforms. She blends industry insight with a passion for cinema to deliver engaging, trustworthy perspectives on movies, TV shows and web series.
