Arun Ajikumar, Dies Irae, Gibin Gopinath, horror, India, Madan Babu K, Manohari Joy, movies, Pranav Mohanlal, Rahul Sadasivan, reviews, Sreedhanya, Sudha Sukumari, Sushmita Bhat
November 2, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Rahul Sadasivan
Malayalam with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in India, the horror film “Diés Iraé” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A wealthy heir to an architecture fortune believes he is being haunted by a vengeful spirit because of the suicide of a woman whom he briefly dated and callously dumped.
Culture Audience: “Diés Iraé” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and supernatural horror movies that have some unexpected twists and turns.
“Diés Iraé” is a horror movie that is more hit than miss in this story about a man who’s being haunted by a mysterious ghost. This suspenseful film has excellent sound design, good acting and a few plot twists that overcome the occasional dull pacing. The ending of the movie might get mixed reactions from viewers, but it’s an example of how the movie refuses to be too predictable.
Written and directed by Rahul Sadasivan, “Diés Iraé” (“Day of Wrath” in Latin) begins not by showing the protagonist but by showing someone who ends up helping the protagonist in the paranormal investigation that is in most of the movie, which takes place in an unnamed city in India. Madhusudanan “Madhu” Potti (played by Gibin Gopinath) is construction contractor who also happens to be a Brahmin whose specialty is in the occult and paranormal activities. Madhusudanan, who is in his 40s, is also a descendant of Kodumon Potti, a character in Sadasivan’s 2024 movie “Bramayugam.”
Madhusudanan, who lives with his unnamed mother (played by Manohari Joy) is at a construction site of a high-rise building when he gets a phone call to come back to his home because something is going on at a house near where he lives. When Madhusudanan arrives, he sees a small crowd has gathered to watch a dead woman’s body being lifted out of a well. It’s a gruesome sight because her body is already starting to decompose.
It’s soon revealed that the woman was named Kani (played by Sushmita Bhat), was a bachelorette in her early 30s. The cause of death is quickly determined to be suicide. Kani’s immediate family—her brother Kiran (played by Arun Ajikumar), her unnamed father (played by Madan Babu K.), her unnamed mother (played by Sreedhanya) and Kani’s grandmother (played by Sudha Sukumari)—are all devastated by this tragic death. Why did Kani commit suicide?
Rohan Shankar (played by Pranav Mohanlal), a wealthy bachelor in his early-to-mid-30s, thinks he knows why. As he confesses later to Madhusudanan, Rohan and Kani briefly and casually dated soon after seeing each other at a college reunion. Kani had stronger feelings for Rohan than he had for her. She wanted the relationship to become more serious. However, Rohan “ghosted” (cut of communication with no explanation) Kani. She reportedly took this breakup very hard.
Out of guilt over her death, Rohan goes to Kani’s house when no one is there and walks around to see if there are any clues over why she committed suicide. When he gets to her bedroom, he takes a hair clip (as a memento) from her bedroom. Rohan, who divides his time between living in India and in the United States, lives alone in an upscale house built by his architect mogul father.
Rohan has been living the life of a carefree, hard-partying, spoiled heir, but things change almost immediately after Kani’s death. He begins to have nightmares where he sees her dead body. And then, when he’s awake, he’s certain that he’s being haunted by a ghost. Strange things start happening, such as Rohan getting dragged on a floor by an unseen entity, or Rohan losing control of his limbs in a way that indicate something else has taken over his body.
Rohan has four employees who are at his house on a regular basis: a maid named Elsamma (played by Jaya Krupp), an unnamed maid (played by Priya Sreejith) and an unnamed cook (played by Nidhinya Pattavil) and an unnamed security guard (played by Manoj Moorthy), who only works at night at the house. None of these employees has seen or heard anything unusual. Desperate to get answers, Rohan hears about Madhusudanan and Madhusudanan’s psychic abilities, so he asks Madhusudanan for help and tells him
Rohan tells Madhusudanan about why he thinks Kani is the ghost who’s haunting him. Madhusudanan agrees to help Rohan. And so begins their paranormal investigation. One of the first people they interview is Elsamma, who lives next door to where Kani used to live.
Before they interview Elsamma, something very disturbing happens in Rohan’s home. Kani’s brother Kiran, who is a good friend of Rohan’s is visiting, when a mysterious, unseen force picks up Kiran and throws him off of the balcony. Kiran nearly dies and end up in critical condition in a hospital.
If this vengeful ghost is Kani, then why would she want to harm her own brother? More clues are uncovered until the truth is eventually revealed. “Diés Iraé” keeps this ghost mystery fairly simple and doesn’t overstuff the movie with too many characters or too many subplots. The attack on Kiran is probably the most gruesome part of the film, which has more terror in what is unseen rather than any gore that’s seen.
Mohanlal and Gopinath really carry the movie with their performances, because so much of the story is about Rohan and Madhusudanan teaming up for this investigation. The acting is solid, while the movie’s sound, Shehnad Jalal’s effective cinematography and Christo Xavier’s haunting music score are all assets to “Diés Iraé.” The movie’s visual effects are convincing but not spectacular.
The movie’s biggest flaw is a showdown scene where certain people stay in a burning building for too long when they could have and should have exited the burning building a lot sooner. However, this scene doesn’t ruin the movie. “Diés Iraé” is not a groundbreaking film, but it is a worthwhile option for anyone looking for a horror movie that isn’t too gory and is a gripping supernatural thriller.
Home Screen Entertainment released “Diés Iraé” on October 31, 2025.