Nene Naa review: Vennela Kishore’s humour garners praise in this crappy horror thriller

Regina Cassandra’s latest film horror thriller Nene Naa? released this week.

Let’s see how frightening this horror tale is.

Story 

A foreign tourist goes missing during a trek in the Telangana forest. The police have no information about his whereabouts except his footprints.

Archaeologist Divya (Regina Cassandra) is roped in by the police to help them in the case. During the investigation, Divya finds a skeleton — supposedly of a woman — at the crime scene.

Forensic experts find some shocking details when they study the skeletal remains of the woman, who appears to belong to a bygone era.

When they reconstruct the face from the skull, it resembles Divya. What’s the relation between Divya and this woman? Who is committing mystery murders in the forest? This forms the story of Nene Naa?

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Analysis 

Nena Naa? seems to be a lockdown story, supposed to be released in Telugu and Tamil in 2021, but the film got delayed due to some reasons and finally made it to theatres this weekend.

Nene Naa? sets up a good premise of a foreigner going missing. The police department taps Divya to assist them in the case because its officials are too lazy to step out.

With the assistance of Forest Range Officer Bobbili Raja (Vennela Kishore), Divya tries to gather as many clues as possible.

Meanwhile, Range Officer Raja flirts with Divya. Being a professional, she is unmindful of the things around her.

The murder scenes, where the DSP gets killed and his brother gets hacked to death, look amateurish.

Although director Caarthick Raju tries to develop some curiosity initially, the lack of pace in the story is substantiated by Vennela Kishore’s humour.

He carries the entire first half on his shoulders. He is so dumb that he isn’t eligible to be a range officer in the first place. Had it not been for Vennela Kishore, the lousy scenes and rotten screenplay would have caused more harm to the film.

The backstory kicks in during the second half. There appears to be zero effort in terms of making the story progress. Poor production values with not-so-impressive background score.

At one point, you may feel that Vennela Kishore should’ve been the protagonist in the film. Rather than making it a horror thriller, the makers should have made it into complete horror with an extra dose of comedy.

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Performances 

Vennela Kishore is the only saving grace in the first as leads the story as a protagonist. The humour that he created on the screen is amazing.

Regina Cassandra puts up a great performance as Divya and Damayanthi, but Vennela outperforms her in a few scenes.

After watching V Jayaprakash in decent roles these years, you can’t imagine him as an antagonist. The poor characterisation makes him puny.

Thagubothu Ramesh makes a cameo appearance but is funny in just a couple of scenes.

Akshara Gowda, who comes in the backstory of the second half, has nothing much to do.

Verdict 

Except for Vennela Kishore’s humour, this horror thriller is unbearable. The way the reincarnation theme is handled is not so convincing. The backstory of Damayanthi isn’t so exciting.

(Views expressed here are personal.)