Of all the horror-comedy films in Tamil cinema so far, Annabelle Sethupathi redeems itself by being tolerable. As Yogi Babu’s character points out in the film, there is nothing new it is offering. Debutant director Deepak Sundarrajan has subverted the overused tropes of Tamil cinema’s horror-comedy genre, sans noise and cringe dialogues.
The film opens in the 1940s. We meet Jagapathi Babu, an aristocrat, falling in love with a palace built by his equal Veera Sethupathi (played by Vijay Sethupathi). Sethupathi constructed the palace as an expression of his love for his wife Annabelle (Taapsee Pannu), a Brit. Jagapathi’s character is a megalomaniac and he desires to own the architectural wonder. Sethupathi refuses kindly and you can already guess what might have happened next.