That trailer didn't just drop, it walked in wearing sunnies indoors and demanded everyone stop talking about anything else. Sajin Gopu, Nikhila Vimal, a wedding night that will NOT end and somewhere in Kerala, a group chat full of Mollywood loyalists is currently on fire.

Let's actually talk about what's going on here, because there's a plot twist before the plot even starts.

The premise is this or not?

Newlywed couple, wedding night, stuck on repeat. Wedding, first night, wedding, first night, forever, apparently, because Sajin Gopu's character straight up tells us in the trailer that everything is happening to him ‘again and again.’ The man cannot catch a break or consummate a marriage in peace.

Now, before you get too swept up, someone has to say it, so it might as well be me. This premise? A groom, a wedding night, an inescapable time loop? That is ‘Bhool Chuk Maaf.’

Rajkummar Rao already lived this exact nightmare on screen. Reddit noticed immediately (they always do, bless them), with half the thread going "yeah this gives the SAME vibe, feels southified" and the other half going "no no it's just the bones, wait for the actual film." Both sides are a little bit right and that's the tea, not the scandal.

Also Read: India's new heroes don't wear loafers, this is how Telugu cinema beat Bollywood

Because here's what nobody's saying loud enough, the wedding-loop thing was never ‘Bhool Chuk Maaf's idea to begin with. It's been recycled since ‘Groundhog Day’, dressed up again for ‘Palm Springs’, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, ‘Happy Death Day’, ‘Russian Doll’ and the loop trope has been everywhere, done by everyone, for decades. It's basically the little black dress of screenwriting and nobody owns it. Everybody borrows it.

So the real question isn't "did they copy it." It's-

What did they DO with it once they had it?

And this is where ‘Dhoomakethu’ gets interesting, because it takes that overused skeleton and drags it somewhere none of its inspirations dared go, underwater.

Masked figures with a genuine sci-fi-horror undertone sitting right next to wedding comedy. That's not a costume change on a borrowed plot. That's a completely different organism wearing familiar bones.

Also Read: ‘It’s A Medical Miracle' movie review: Sangeeth Prathap, Sharafudheen turn sound into suspense

Which, if you zoom out, is basically the whole Mollywood thesis right now. This industry has stopped being polite about genre. ‘Bramayugam’ turned period drama into folklore horror. ‘Manjummel Boys’ turned a survival story into something that gutted an entire country emotionally. ‘Aavesham’ let a mainstream comedy go completely, gloriously feral. And now ‘Dhoomakethu’ is taking the most tired trope in the loop-movie playbook and asking "yes, but what if it was also underwater and slightly terrifying."

The cast isn't doing the heavy lifting alone but it's not hurting either, Sajin Gopu, post-’Aavesham’, post-’Churuli’, is the actor you cast when you need someone comfortable being funny and unsettling in the same scene. Nikhila Vimal leads opposite, Shine Tom Chacko and Ganapathi are there being reliably excellent chaos agents as usual.

So, remake dressed up in a new outfit, or Mollywood doing what it does best, taking something worn-out and making it wear THEM for once? You'll know the second the underwater mystery kicks in and ‘Bhool Chuk Maaf’ never comes close to catching up.

‘Dhoomakethu’ is out worldwide September 25. Go find out if the loop has anything new to say.