Bhaagamathie

The film starts with a scene depicting many people being killed mysteriously. The film then cuts to Eashwar Prasad (Jayaram), a politician who vows to resign from his post if the government fails to recover idols which were stolen over a period of six months. This wins the hearts of the masses. It also troubles his political rivals, who forge a plan to destroy his credibility with the help of CBI joint director Vaishnavi Natarajan (Asha Sarath) and Assistant Commissioner of Police Sampath (Murali Sharma).

The two of them plan to interrogate IAS Chanchala (Anushka Shetty), a close confidante of Eashwar who is in jail for murdering her fiancé Shakthi (Unni Mukundan), who is Sampath's brother. To not arouse suspicion, they decide to shift her to Bhaagamathie Bungalow for the interrogation. Suddenly, a street lamp explodes, and junior policeman Lingamurthy (Dhanraj) screams. The locals are afraid of the bungalow and claim that it is haunted.

Chanchala was Secretary to Eashwar when he was Minister, and she was involved in the implementation of some irrigation projects in a village and this was when she and her now-dead fiancé Shakthi, who was a social worker there, had met and fallen in love and got formally engaged. The CBI tries to question Chanchala to get some clues against Eashwar but she repeats that he is a good man, and that they are doubting his and her integrity without any basis.

As Chanchala is left alone in the haunted bungalow, she walks into one eerie room after another, peering through dust-laden windows, rickety staircases, and shows no fear of having to be in this strange place. Spirits take control of Chanchala, and she transforms into an unrecognizable person. The spirit is turned out to be Bhaagamathie, an royal Queen of Nizam. Bhaagamathie was said to be living in ancient times and killed all evildoers. Finally, the evildoers, united and killed locked Bhaagamathie in the palace. When the two security guards hears the screams of Chanchala, they rushes into the bungalow. There, they realise that Chanchala is possessed by Bhaagamathie and Bhaagamathie murmuring Arabic language in meanwhile.

When the CBI hires the psychiatrist, the psychiatrist comes to know that she is Bhaagamathie and was cheated by Chandrasenan, who was the chief soldier of desire to become the king. She supported Chandrasenan because he acted as a noble person, but he cheated her and locked her in the palace. But the psychiatrist says that she mentally gets depressed due to losing of beloved one's. Even though, Sampath believes that she was playing the game to escape from them.

Later the team tries to investigate the case in traditional manner. So Sampath hires the Swami, who tells him that if a red ball kept near Statue turns black and if a sandal liquid gives a bad smell, then that means there is ghost in the bungalow. After the third investigation, Sampath comes to know that the red ball becomes black and turn into ashes. And when he tries to inhales the smell of sandal liquid, he get emetic. Sampath sees that Chanchala hammered her left hand onto a wall with a nail. Later Sampath get attacked by Bhaagamathie, who possess Chancala.This makes Sampath take Chanchala to a mental hospital.

Eashwar comes to visit her in the mental asylum and tells that her acting as Bhaagamathie was awesome. It is revealed that Eashwer was a fraud and traitor who stolen the idols which was stolen over the six months. He then thanks her for saving him from the CBI, and he offers her 300 crores from an 1800 crore profit for a business deal which he got as commission from a corporate by evacuating many villages in a locality. Eashwar is asked by other members to putting the full amount in Chanchala's bank account. He says that it is a risk because Chanchala can find out real things and create problems once released from jail once Shakthi's murder case is closed with no evidence. Eashwar then tells his team members he will get Chanchala to sign the papers to avoid any difficult situation. He then gets a signature from Chanchala. Eashwar, on opening the paper, finds it signed as Bhaagamathie. Eashwar now threatens Chanchala, and tells her that she killed Shakthi at close by forgetting the village deal for the business.

The scene changes, and a flashback of villagers shifting from their village is shown. When a sack of money trips off from one man's bag showing cash coming out, Shakthi interferes and tells that nobody shall shift until a clear deal is made. As money given by the government comes as demand draft or cheque, Shakthi beats one government-ranked officer and calls Chanchala for finding out where this money has come from and why this type of early shifting is asked for and why eight extra villages have been added to the list when they are not going to get drowned under a dam project. Chanchala gets out of Eashwar's office to where Shakthi is. Here, furious, Shakthi is shown continuously beating the officer. Chanchala tells him to stop. By this time, Eashwar arrives and shows a video of his goons attacking and killing village people. He then tells Chanchala that in order to stop the attack, she has to shoot Shakthi, as Eashwar feels he will be a threat to his plans. Chanchala is unable to shoot Shakthi. Shakthi, in order to save the villagers, grief-struck, pulls the trigger from Chanchala's hand and kills himself. With this, the flashback ends.

In the meantime, Vaishnavi, by suddenly getting a clue from a story narrated by her little daughter, pieces together all answers Chanchala gave during investigation and realises Chanchala was trying to convey the truth of Eashwar's cruel deeds using a story of Queen Bhaagamathie, which she came across in various writings and artefacts she discovered in the bungalow while she was imprisoned in it. Vaishnavi runs to the asylum to find Eashwar trying to kill Chanchala, but Sampath encounters him. It is revealed that, on the previous night before Chanchala was admitted to the asylum, she had revealed all the truth to Sampath, and together they had forged the plan to confront Eashwar.

The evacuated villagers who were kept in secret by Eashwar were released, and the culprits were arrested. When Sampath and Vaishnavi questioned Chanchala upon why she had not answered their questions directly, she told them that nowadays, people trust spirits more than people. She also said she told things indirectly as she couldn't know if there were Eashwar's men amongst the questioning team.

Some time later, Chanchala is seen running a charity organisation in the memory of Shakthi, and Sampath and Vaishnavi visit her. Seeing the photographs at her home, where Chanchala reveals that she replaces the red ball and sandal liquid. They tell her that they thought they knew everything about her but never knew that she was a great magician in her childhood and that she knew Arabic. Chanchala replies by saying that she does not know Arabic, which shocks them. The movie ends showing that the insects are coming due to bad smell from the real sandal liquid which was given by the Swami representing the existence of ghosts.

G. Ashok, who had previously worked on Pilla Zamindar (2011) and Sukumarudu (2013), readied the Bhaagamathie script in 2012 and had written it keeping Anushka Shetty in mind. In late 2012, the team approached Anushka and the actress liked the script but was not able to immediately commit to the film, as she had pending projects such as Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and Rudhramadevi (2015), where she also played warrior princesses. The film was later delayed when Anushka chose to star in Lingaa (2014), attempt an ambitious size-shifting role in Size Zero (2015) and complete her portions for Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017). Ashok subsequently chose to wait for her, rather than cast a new actress and refined the script during the waiting period. Early media reports claimed that the film would be based on the Hindi queen Bhagmati, but the makers denied this and revealed that the film would be a "social drama".[6][7] The film's title is derived from the Bagmati river that flows through Nepal, while Ashok also stated that the titled was also inspired by the fact that Hyderabad was formed in the name of Bhagamathi or Bhagi Nagara.[8] Once she began working on the film in 2016, she shed 20 kilograms through a rigorous diet plan to portray her character of an IAS Officer.[9][10] Produced by UV Creations in Telugu and Studio Green in Tamil, the film was primarily shot in Telugu, with some scenes reshot for Tamil audiences. A dubbed Malayalam version of the film was also prepared to have a simultaneous release with the other two versions.[11]

The film received positive reviews and Anushka Shetty's performance was praised. It was the first South Indian female-oriented film to gross one million dollars in the USA. And 70 crores at the box office. It was the first female-oriented movie to gross 50 crore club and had successful runs in Telagana and Andhra Pradeh and an Decent run in TamilNadu. The Telugu version was sold to Star Maa and the satellite rights of the film's Tamil version were sold to Zee Tamil.[12] The Malayalam version was sold to Asianet. The dubbed Hindi version was sold to Zee Cinema.

The film's music was composed by S. Thaman.

The song "Mandaara" was released as single from the album of Bhaagamathie on 17 February 2018 on the YouTube page of Mango Music, UV Creations. The song was sung by Shreya Ghoshal. The music video of the track features Anushka Shetty and Unni Mukundan. On the same day of release, it was made available for online streaming at Saavn,[13] Gaana.[14] and iTunes.[15] The Tamil version of the song, lyrics by Vivek and sung by Jyotsna Radhakrishnan, was released at a function held by Studio Green in Chennai, which marked four significant events for the producers — the audio launch of Bhaagamathie, a single launch of Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuththu (2018), a single launch of Ghajinikanth (2018) and the success meet for Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (2018).[16][17]

Telugu

Tamil

Firstpost rated the film 3.5/5, stating "Bhaagamathie is an impressive outing for the whole cast and crew, and it's also a reminder for us that there are plenty of ways to narrate a story despite having a dilapidated house, a ghost, a hapless young woman, and a gut-wrenching backstory. A big thumbs up for the film."[18] Bollywood Life also rated it 3.5/5 and stated "This is definitely worth a watch. For Anushka Shetty. For the story. and for the two combined."[19] 123Telugu rated it 3.25/5, writing "On the whole, Bhaagamathie is an engaging thriller with good horror and interesting twists at regular intervals. Anushka leads from the front and will surely pull the crowds with her standout performance. The film is made on a lavish scale and because of this, the thrills look quite good on screen. But the story is familiar and the first half gets a bit slow. If you ignore these aspects, Bhaagamathie ends up a pretty decent watch this weekend. Go for it."[20] Idlebrain.com rated it 3/5, writing "Bhaagamathie is a kind of film that’s difficult make and difficult to position in Telugu market. Director and production house have packaged the film in such a way that it partly satisfies the people who look for horror elements and the audiences who seek thrill. Despite having a complicated screenplay, Bhaagamathie tries to give something for everybody. Plus points of the film are Anushka, screenplay and background music. On the flipside, the narration should have been true to its genre. On a whole, Bhaagamathie is a well-packaged thriller."[21] Hindustan Times also rated it 3/5 and wrote "The film draws inspiration from history and adds a dash of supernatural to serve us a crime thriller. After the trailer, many believed that this could be a redux of Anushka’s claim to fame, Arundhati. Instead, G Ashok turns it into a riveting thriller that works wonders despite its flaws. You are on the edge of your seat through most of the film, trying to understand if Chanchala is possessed or not."[22]

The film collected close to ₹50 crore (US$7.0 million) at the worldwide box office. It collected ₹36 crore (US$5.0 million) in the first weekend and ₹15.50 crore (US$2.2 million) on the weekdays at the worldwide box office. The film collected ₹51.50 crore (US$7.2 million) at first week.[23]

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