Horror Obsessive
Wellness culture has been begging for a horror movie to turn on it, and Namaslay finally hands the knife to masala cinema instead of the usual American slasher playbook. The genre-bending horror satire does not spoof yoga studios from a safe distance. It reclaims a tradition of maximalist Indian filmmaking, song and dance excess, tonal whiplash, moral reckoning delivered at full volume, and points all of it directly at the commercialization and appropriation of yoga in the West.
That premise is sharper than most horror riffs on self-improvement culture manage. Films like Midsommar and Get Out found dread in institutions that smile while they consume you. Namaslay borrows that same DNA, then runs it through a genre built on spectacle rather than restraint. According to the film’s synopsis, the story “reclaims the spirit of masala cinema while skewering the commercialization and appropriation of yoga in the West,” and that framing matters: this is not a movie embarrassed by its own maximalism.
A Studio Built to Take Swings
Namaslay is written by Rish and Kanish, the filmmaking names of Rish Arhant-Sudhir and Kanish Arhant-Sudhir, and it marks the first feature from their own production company, Junghal Studios, which the directing duo founded in 2019. The studio’s stated goal is to build a slate of masala event films drawing on artistic traditions from around the world, with Namaslay positioned as the opening chapter rather than a one-off experiment. Masala films rose to prominence in the ’70s by blending genres that had no business sharing a runtime, often folding in musical numbers along the way. Betting a debut feature on that tradition, rather than a more marketable single genre, is a real risk for a new studio.
The plot follows Gayatri, who arrives in Los Angeles and accepts an invitation from her friend Judy to try an upscale yoga studio. When the owner, Reyna, offers her a spot in an instructor training program, Gayatri looks past what the synopsis calls “obvious eccentricities” and takes the job, reconnecting along the way with a practice she first learned from her grandmother. That personal thread is doing real work: it sets up the betrayal to come as a corruption of something Gayatri already loved before the studio got its hands on it.
The Poster Already Tells You Where This Goes
“Reclaims the spirit of masala cinema while skewering the commercialization and appropriation of yoga in the West.”
In the teaser poster, a many-armed goddess figure dressed in green and crowned in red stands against a rising sun, her lower body dissolving into a mass of serpentine tendrils. At the bottom of that tangle stands a row of yoga practitioners locked in tree pose, silhouetted in gold. The centermost figure faces away from the camera, positioned exactly where the goddess’s own body would continue downward. The image is already making the argument the film intends to make: the retreat has replaced the deity with a body double, and nobody in line seems to have noticed.
Gayatri is eventually invited to the instructor program’s prestigious retreat, where she discovers the real reason she was recruited. Horror Obsessive readers who track how indie genre filmmaking absorbs cultural specificity instead of flattening it should have this one on the calendar. Namaslay opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters on August 6 before expanding nationwide on August 13, and if Junghal Studios means what it says about building a whole slate around this aesthetic, this teaser is the first real test of whether masala horror has an audience beyond the festivals that already know the tradition.
Quick Takes
- Namaslay opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters on August 6 before expanding nationwide on August 13.
- The film follows Gayatri, who joins an upscale Los Angeles yoga studio’s instructor training program and later uncovers the sinister purpose behind its prestigious retreat.
- The cast includes Kirunthuja Srikanth-Talim, Angela Sant’Albano, Alicia Mitchell-Mangual, Usha Krishnan, and Christina Moore.
- Namaslay is written by Rish and Kanish (Rish Arhant-Sudhir and Kanish Arhant-Sudhir) and is the first feature from their studio, Junghal Studios, founded in 2019.
- Junghal Studios frames Namaslay as the first chapter in a planned slate of masala-inspired event films.
