Set against the brooding nightscapes of Telangana, Cheekatilo positions itself at the uneasy intersection of journalism, voyeuristic crime coverage, and the long shadow cast by unresolved violence.
Headlined by Sobhita Dhulipala, the film is as much about a woman reclaiming her professional conscience as it is about hunting a predator who has slipped through the cracks of time.
Sobhita plays Sandhya, a television journalist suffocating inside the TRP-chasing machinery of prime-time news.
Her channel thrives on sensational crime stories, shrill debates, looping visuals, moral outrage packaged for easy consumption, but Sandhya is deeply uncomfortable with the way tragedy is mined for spectacle. The disconnect between what journalism should stand for and what it has become weighs heavily on her, and Cheekatilo allows this conflict to simmer rather than explode into instant rebellion.
Sandhya’s turning point comes when she decides to step away from studio lights and launch her own true-crime podcast, choosing long-form storytelling over sound bites. What begins as an attempt to reclaim narrative depth soon pulls her into a chilling pattern of murders that have haunted the region for decades.
At the centre of the narrative is a serial killer who operates under the cover of darkness, raping and murdering his victims with ritualistic precision.
Each crime scene carries a disturbing signature: jasmine flowers placed near female victims, cowbells left near male victims, especially in cases involving couples. The symbolism is unsettling, rooted in both intimacy and rural familiarity, and the film uses these motifs to create a sense of creeping dread rather than shock-driven horror.
This is not a killer in a hurry. He has been active for years, possibly decades, an uncomfortable reminder of how systems fail when crimes target the marginal. As Sandhya digs deeper, driven by instinct and anger rather than official sanction, especially triggered by the gruesome murder of her friend Bobby and her boyfriend, Cheekatilo becomes a cat-and-mouse game between a woman determined to listen to buried stories and a man who has survived by staying invisible.
Sobhita’s Sandhya is fearless but not reckless; she is curious, stubborn, and quietly defiant. Her investigation is less about heroism and more about accountability: Who gets to tell these stories? Who benefits from fear? And why do some crimes remain conveniently unsolved, spoken of only in whispers after dark?
Cheekatilo unfolds slowly, allowing its silences to speak, its nights to stretch, and its questions to linger, pulling Sandhya, and the viewer, deeper into the darkness she is determined to illuminate.
Several of the women Sandhya tracks down are not just grieving relatives but survivors, women the killer raped and left for dead, assuming they would not live to tell the tale. They did. Cheekatilo treats their survival with restraint, avoiding melodrama while underlining the courage it takes for them to speak up in a society that still places the burden of shame squarely on the woman. Two such survivors eventually agree to come forward as key witnesses, a crucial turning point in the investigation and a reminder that justice often moves forward only when the silenced decide to reclaim their voices.
It is through these testimonies that Sandhya truly facilitates the investigation, doing the groundwork the police either could not or would not do for years. The film subtly critiques institutional apathy, showing how crimes against women slip into cold files until someone refuses to let them remain there.
Sandhya’s role is not that of a conventional crime-solving hero; she is persistent, vulnerable, and driven by a sense of moral urgency rather than bravado.
To give away the suspense would do the film a disservice, and Cheekatilo largely succeeds in maintaining tension. From its opening stretch, the film is gripping and deeply absorbing, pulling the viewer into its nocturnal world of fear, patterns, and unanswered questions. The setting, the recurring symbols of jasmine flowers and cowbells, and the quiet dread of the killer’s presence lend the narrative an unsettling texture.
However, where Cheekatilo falters is in its final act. After investing carefully in mood, character, and investigation, the film suddenly begins to feel rushed and uneven, as though the makers realised too late that they were running out of time.
Threads that deserved space are hurriedly tied up; revelations arrive without the emotional or narrative weight they warrant.
The climax, in particular, feels lame and unoriginal, diluting the impact of what had otherwise been a promising, layered thriller.
That disappointment stings because much of what precedes it works. Sobhita Dhulipala delivers a controlled, credible performance, anchoring the film with quiet intensity. Her Sandhya is not loud, not flashy but resolute. The film’s critique of media sensationalism, social conservatism, and gendered violence is timely and mostly effective.
Despite its flaws, Cheekatilo is not a bad watch. It may stumble at the finish line, but it is worth engaging with, especially for viewers interested in crime narratives that attempt to look beyond shock value and ask harder questions about silence, survival, and who gets heard after dark.
