Pambattam

Pambattam (transl. Snake dance) is a 2024 Indian Tamil-language horror thriller film^[1] directed by V. C. Vadivudaiyan and starring himself, Jeevan, Mallika Sherawat, Rittika Sen, and Saipriya Deva. The film was released after a four-year delay to highly negative reviews. The film was dubbed in Hindi as Naagmati, which had a direct-to-television release on 21 September 2023 on Zee Cinema prior to the theatrical release of the Tamil version.^[2]

Pambattam
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	V. C. Vadivudaiyan
Written by	V. C. Vadivudaiyan
Produced by	V. Palanivel
Starring	Jeevan Mallika Sherawat Rittika Sen Saipriya Deva V. C. Vadivudaiyan
Cinematography	Iniyan J Haris
Edited by	Suresh Urs
Music by	Amresh Ganesh
Production company	Vaithiyanathan Film Garden
Release date	23 February 2024 (2024-02-23)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Cast

• Jeevan as R. Boominathan / Saravanan
• Mallika Sherawat as Mangamma Devi
• Suman as Police Officer
• Rittika Sen as Radhika
• Saipriya Deva as Nagamati
• V. C. Vadivudaiyan as K. Kali
• Salil Ankola
• Saravanan
• Rikin
• Livingston as Thief
• Ramesh Khanna as Police Officer
• Saravana Sakthi as Police Officer
• Karate Raja as Police Officer
• Niyamat Khan
• Andrea Kurunathan

Production

The film began production in January 2020 and Jeevan accepted to star after listening to three of V. C. Vadivudaiyan's scripts.^[1] This film marked his comeback to films after a five-year gap.^[3] The film was planned as a multilingual film with the Hindi version titled as Naagmati.^[4] Mallika Sherawat plays a queen in the film, which marks her return to Tamil cinema after a twelve-year gap.^[5][6] Sherawat joined the sets in February 2021 during the second schedule and shot some of her dialogues in Hindi.^[7] A dungeon set was made at Binny Mills in Chennai. The stunts were choreographed by Super Subbarayan. Jeevan sustained several injuries including burns from torches falling in a narrow passage and a hairline muscle tear from falling through gaps between beds while rolling sideways on the ground.^[8] At the film's trailer launch, Saipriya Deva said that she signed the film as a heroine but lamented about how her name was disregarded from promotional material.^[9]

Reception

A critic from The Times of India rated the film 1+1⁄2 out of 5 and wrote that "The overall vibe of Pambattam is jaded and even comical. The scenes that are supposed to be pretty serious, like a marriage by abduction and even the death of one of the important characters, just don't make you feel any kind of emotion".^[10] A critic from Dinakaran wrote that the director delivered the film in the old formula of telling a historical story and then combining it with a social story.^[11] A critic from Zee Tamil wrote that since it is a small budget film, they did not spend much on CG scenes, and it would have turned out to be a better film if only a little attention had been paid to it.^[12]