Reviews

Witch & Popcorn The Sequel

 

Review of Stree

 

 

Bright Blessings Film Lovers!

 

If you have read many of my reviews, you know how much I love horrors! I simply can’t get enough of them. I find horror to be the most imaginative genre, and to have the most fun and surprises.

I was pleasantly surprised by an amazing horror comedy from India , spoken in Hindi, of course, called Stree. Stree means Woman in Hindi, and it centers around the antics of Vicky, a tailor who works magic on clothes for women, and his bone brained friends, and how they find a way to end hauntings by the Stree.

Here is a trailer to see what you are missing.

 

 

There is great music, amazing acting, fabulous humor, makeup affects, and great Bollywood dancing.

While Vicky is busy mending and altering saris and lahengas, he’s dreaming of greater things than simply doing clothes. His father is pulling his hair out trying to get Vicki to focus on what could be a good paying career as a tailor, which Vicky is VERY good at, and Vicky of course thinks he knows best.

Vicky’s whole life is turned upside down when the beautiful woman who quite mysterious approaches him, asks for his tailoring on a dress she needs for the festivities for the goddess Durga. He stammers incoherently, so dazzled by her, and finally agrees to do the dress.

What follows is admission from the filmmakers about how backwards and ignorant some beliefs are in modern day India. What has been happening is every year at this festival, men are kidnapped by a spirit, called Stree, and they hold her off somewhat by writing on their homes in bat blood “Oh Stree, come tomorrow.” Bat blood? Yuck.

Vicky’s friends somehow convince him this beautiful woman is the Stree, and she is about to kidnap him…making matters worse, one of the friends is a self-proclaimed expert on folklore and swears up and down he knows all that is needed to defeat the Stree.

To make a long story short, in the end, it turned out Stree was not so bad after all, and just wanted the respect she was due in her life, and that she never even got in her death.

The Stree’s story is one that is all to familiar to women in some parts of the world: social propriety kept her from being with the man she loved, and upon her death, she came back not for revenge, but until she was respected. Interestingly, Stree is not unlike Vicky’s mother in a surprising way.

Vicky half knew what was going on. It was revealed in a rare moment of insight by his “expert” friend, Vicky was destined to protect the town. The way he does so, however, comes as a great surprise, and reminds viewers of great magical truths.

  1. The dead are not evil. They are still people, just people without bodies. They deserve to be loved and treated with the same respect and dignity that everybody else does.
  2. Don’t be guided by your fears. We are thinking creatures, not just governed by the fight or flight impulse. We need to act like it, most especially when we are the afraid.
  3. Don’t listen to idiots. That is all.
  4. Don’t assume that just because somebody is different, that they are up to no good, or are less worthy of happiness.
  5. Sometimes tradition is a good thing, one that can be improved with each generation, like Vicky becoming a better tailor than his dad was. Some traditions, like mistreating Stree, need to be scrapped. Traditions gain strength with each generation who participates in them, and sometimes the traditions become so strong, we fail to see how they harm instead of help.
  6. What you do will come back to you. In the film, many people dealt with the bad decisions of one group of terrible people. Remember that karma does not just affect YOU. It affects everybody else around you. Your decisions, good or bad, affect us all.
  7. Thinking outside the box is perhaps the most magical thing of all, and the very best way to move energy. More simply said “If you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got!” Vicky knew that to get things to change, he had to do something different.
  8. Listen to your gut instinct. Vicky spent so much time taking bad advice from his friends, as did everybody else in dealings with the Stree. The solution was simple, and could have been arrived at years prior if people had stopped and really thought about things.
  9. Don’t look down on people and ruin their lives. Everybody deserves to be happy , and to be with the people they love. Stree was robbed of her happiness by bitter, holier than thou people. She was not a bad person, and she was not unclean. The things done to her should never, ever be done to anybody.

The ending was so beautiful, it made me cry. I know Stree cried harder than I did. Vicky found a way to improve everything for everybody- living and dead in this amazing film. The lessons were dropped in through the whole film, but the very last minute of the film sends the messages home.

A must see!

Happy Viewing, and Blessed Be!!!

***

About the Author:

Saoirse is a practicing witch, and initiated Wiccan of an Eclectic Tradition.

A recovered Catholic, she was raised to believe in heaven and hell, that there is only one god, and only one way to believe. As she approached her late 20’s, little things started to show her this was all wrong. She was most inspired by the saying “God is too big to fit into one religion” and after a heated exchange with the then associate pastor of the last Xtian church she attended, she finally realized she was in no way Xtian, and decided to move on to see where she could find her spiritual home.

Her homecoming to her Path was after many years of being called to The Old Ways and the Goddess, and happened in Phoenix, Arizona. She really did rise from her own ashes!

Upon returning to Ohio, she thought Chaos Magic was the answer, and soon discovered it was actually Wicca. She was blessed with a marvelous mentor, Lord Shadow, and started a Magical Discussion Group at local Metaphysical Shop Fly By Night. The group was later dubbed A Gathering of Paths. For a few years, this group met, discussed, did rituals, fellowship, and volunteering together, and even marched as a Pagan group with members of other groups at the local gay Pride Parade for eight years.

All the while, she continued studying with her mentor, and is still studying for Third Degree, making it to Second Degree thus far.

She is a gifted tarot reader, spellworker, teacher, and was even a resident Witch at a Westerville place dubbed The Parlor for a time.

Aside from her magical practice, she is a crocheter, beader, painter, and a good cook. She has been a clown and children’s entertainer, a Nursing Home Activities Professional, a Cavern Tour Guide, a Retail Cashier, and a reader in local shops. Her college degree is a BA in English Writing. She tried her hand at both singing and playing bagpipes, and…well…let’s just say her gifts lie elsewhere! She loves gardening, reading, antiques, time with friends and soul kin, and lots and lots of glorious color bedecking her small home!

On the encouragement of a loved one several years back, she searched for a publication to write for, and is right at home at PaganPagesOrg.

She is currently residing in Central Ohio with her husband, and furbabies.

Saoirse can be contacted at [email protected].