The 2022 film Odela Railway Station, directed by Ashok Teja and featuring Vasishta Simha and Hebah Patel, was a rural thriller focusing on sexual crimes in a quiet Telangana village. The narrative followed a woman’s chilling revenge after discovering that her husband was the perpetrator. With its use of graphic visuals and a voyeuristic lens on violence, the film, despite its disturbing tone, garnered significant viewership on OTT (Aha Telugu). Ashok Teja and writer Sampath Nandi reunite for its sequel, Odela 2, led by Tamanaah Bhatia, reimagining the story as a supernatural thriller.

After meeting with a horrific end at the hands of his wife, Tirupathi (Vasishta N Simha) returns as a vengeful spirit, undeterred and more dangerous. His spirit manipulates a new set of men, reigniting a similar pattern of crimes in the village. As chaos escalates, the stage is set for the arrival of Bhairavi (Tamannaah), a mythical force destined to restore order. A conventional good-versus-evil showdown ensues.

Director: Ashok Teja

Cast: Tamannaah Bhatia, Hebah Patel, Vasishta N Simha

Run time: 150 minutes

Storyline: A woman returns to save her hometown from a ghost.

The premise echoes numerous devotional dramas and horror dramas of the 1990s and 2000s — from Ammoru to Arundhati — where divine intervention becomes imperative to redeem a cursed family or region. Probably buoyed by the success of recent Telugu films such as Virupaksha and Maa Oori Polimera, the setting is so primitive that Odela is portrayed as a village that believes in superstitions, sorcerers and fakirs than cops. Only three kinds of people seem to exist in the village — saints, demons and victims.