Devil’s Double Next Level (2025)

Santhanam’s Devil’s Double Next Level (2025) is yet another ghost-in-a-bungalow story, this time set inside an abandoned cinema theatre. While I liked the previous installment, DD Returns (2023), this one fails to scare, amuse, or even mildly entertain. It felt like doom-scrolling through a set of reels—disconnected and repetitive. Mangoidiots rates it Rotten.

The premise was promising. Santhanam plays Kissa, a film critic notorious for slamming every film. Selvaraghavan appears as a former filmmaker-turned-ghost, out to exact revenge on reviewers who trash cinema. The two cross paths when Kissa and his family get locked inside an old theatre and are magically transported into the movie playing there. This setup had potential, but it quickly fizzled out. Once inside, the screenplay becomes erratic and tiring. Like the characters, we too just wait to exit the theatre.

Santhanam looks fit and lean, and a few of his jokes land initially. But soon, they lose flavour and become repetitive. Geethika Tiwary plays his romantic interest, but their chemistry is non-existent. The family is barely introduced, making it hard to care about what happens to any of them, and there are quite a few of them.

Mottai Rajendran has a decent amount of screen time and manages to make an impact. Others like Nizhalgal Ravi, Kasthuri Shankar, Yashika Aannand, Selvaraghavan, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Redin Kingsley, Lollu Sabha Maaran and more are just around, often without much consequence. Bizarrely, there is also a group of foreign actors playing man-eaters, adding to the confusion rather than the plot.

Overall, Devil’s Double Next Level was a disappointment. A clever concept was squandered with a weak script and forgettable execution.