A woman walks into a forbidden forest looking for answers and finds something considerably worse waiting underground – that’s the basic nightmare behind Agadha, the Telugu horror mystery from writer-director M.S. Raju, which arrived in Indian cinemas on August 14, 2026.
The film puts spiritually gifted protagonist Mahadevi, played by Kamakshi Bhaskarla, at the centre of a mystery involving unexplained deaths, her cousin’s apparent suicide and a terrifying supernatural presence hidden inside a forest cave – the film runs for 137 minutes and has been released in Telugu, with IMDb also listing Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi among its languages.
The Trailer
M.S. Raju Takes a Turn Into Horror
M.S. Raju directs and writes Agadha, with Chaitanya Vege receiving an additional screenplay credit, and Raju isn’t a newcomer to Telugu cinema, as his career includes producing and directing films across the Telugu industry, although Agadha represents a particularly strong move into supernatural horror and mystery territory.
The film’s production team includes Kasi Visalakshi Balusu as producer and NVN Subbaraju as executive producer, where it was made under Sri Adi Varaha Productions, with Haashtag Media involved in digital marketing, while nehind the camera, Nani Chamidisetty handled cinematography, Junaid Siddiqui edited the film, Rakesh Venkatapuram composed the music and Rajeev Nair handled the art direction/production design.
The main cast includes – Kamakshi Bhaskarla, Shravan Reddy, Ulka Gupta, Jovika Vijayakumar, Roshan Basheer, Bhanu Chander, Shiju, Vanitha Vijayakumar, Shreya Rani Reddy, Viva Raghava, Robert Master, Aarna Muler and Kanakavva.
There Is Some Proper Mythology Underneath This
The twelve-handed idol is probably the most immediately striking piece of Agadha’s imagery, but the film isn’t presenting it simply as a generic monster it seems, as the marketing repeatedly frames the movie around spirituality, supernatural forces and a mysterious cave, while the official descriptions avoid spelling out exactly what Agadha is, which does make the film feel closer to a mythological mystery wrapped in horror than a straight creature feature.
Agadha opened in India on August 14, 2026, with theatrical listings identifying it as a Telugu-language, A-rated film, while there was also a wave of paid premiere screenings on August 13, ahead of the worldwide theatrical release on August 14, and the reception has been rather more mixed.
The Times of India gave the film 2/5, describing it as a decent one-time watch for horror fans but criticising what it regarded as a predictable storyline, while audience ratings on BookMyShow have been considerably more enthusiastic, although those numbers are audience voting rather than professional criticism and can obviously move around as more people see the film.
The film seems interesting enough to me, so I will watch it at some point when I can!
Check out some more Indian horror movies.
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