From the mind of the man who brought you Virgin, comes the story of the Manglik, an Indian demon who curses beings with the wrong horoscope. In My Scary Indian Wedding, Asha must perform a ritual to rid herself of the Manglik, lest her future relationships — and her life — are doomed forever.
If you have never been to an Indian wedding, they are a sight to be seen. Lavish place settings and decor, gorgeous gowns and jewelry, food spreads as far as the eye can see. My Scary Indian Wedding shows another side of those weddings. There is a heavy influence of the supernatural in Southeast Asia, and judging from shows like Indian Matchmaking, an even heavier influence of love and horoscopes in Indian culture. That said, combining those three elements makes for a scary situation indeed.
In My Scary Indian Wedding, Asha is the forever bridesmaid to non-Indian Mila. Mila supposes this is because of the Manglik, and after taking a quick test on a phone app, Asha’s curse is set in stone. She flees from the Manglik (who is very frightening, by the way), as she hastily tries to perform the series of rituals: lighting a candle, using a doll as a blockade, making a human sacrifice, and finally asking Mila’s husband-to-be to marry her instead. Meanwhile, the Manglik — in all her dark, ghostly horror — gets closer and closer to ending their lives.
My Scary Indian Wedding has all of the pomp and circumstance of a real Indian wedding, but adds a modern level of fright. There were plenty of meaningful jumpscares and a level of tension that worked really well, continuing the flow of the movie with non-stop action. What I especially loved was the use of an app as a way to not only check your horoscope, but to give the viewer come context into what was happening; as Asha is cowering on screen and begging the groom to be hers, an unseen voice from the app counts down the seconds until the Manglik arrives to take their souls.
Ramone Menon’s My Scary Indian Wedding is yet another home run in his line of horror shorts. With a storyline that doesn’t let up and an intrigue that comes with new (to Westerners) kinds of supernatural entities, My Scary Indian Wedding is as exciting as the real thing, yet adds a spicy spookiness as a nice surprise. It doesn’t fail to capture the mystique of the Manglik, yet stays true to the normal “cursed” tropes. What I wouldn’t do to be a fly on the wall for those nuptuals!
For more from Ramone Menon, follow him on Instagram. Check out his other works on IMDB.
