Ghoul is an Indian horror miniseries distributed through Netflix, the second after Sacred Games.
In a near future dystopia, the new government suppresses various nationalist and religious movements. Nida Rahim, a young graduate from a military academy, joins a secret torture unit which has just received a new prisoner: the notorious jihadist leader Ali Saeed. However, it soon becomes apparent that Saeed may not be human after all...
Examples:
- Betrayal by Offspring: Nida reported her own father to the authorities for his subversive activities, which she feels a great deal of guilt about. She later learns that he used to be imprisoned in the interrogation facility she has joined and was also executed there.
- Black Eyes of Evil: The eponymous monster, which takes on the form of whatever person it last ate, adopts black eyes every time it shows its true form.
- Book Ends: The first episode shows a man in a prison cell, who is later revealed to be Nida's father, cutting himself with a razor blade to use his blood to write the ghoul-summoning symbol. The end of the third episode shows Nida doing the very the same thing.
- Classical Tongue: The ghoul starts mumbling a Madness Mantra in Aramaic at one point.Finish The Task, Reveal Their Guilt, Eat Their Flesh...
- Day of the Jackboot: Somewhere in the near future, India has turned into a totalitarian state.
- Downer Ending: Nida manages to survive along with Ahmed, one of the prisoners, until reinforcement arrives, but she was arrested and sentenced to prison after shooting Colonel Dacunha (who may or may not be the ghoul) in the head with a shotgun. Disillusioned and hateful towards the government responsible for her father's death, she begins the ghoul-summoning ritual in her cell.
- The Dreaded: Faulad Singh is this, a notorious and ruthless interrogator who is called in for help when Ali Saeed's interrogation was going nowhere. Too bad the captive he's dealing with is out of his league, which he finds out the hard way.
- Gratuitous English: Actually, that's how a lot of Indians talk, since it's a multilingual country. Characters will often speak a local language with a lot of loanwords or full-on English sentences peppered in.
- No One Could Survive That!: Nida assumes Colonel Dacunha is the ghoul because she finds it highly unlikely he survived a grenade going off in his hand. When he denies it, boasting that his Patriotic Fervor let him prevail she shoots him anyway, believing the man to be just as much a monster.
- No True Scotsman: Nida is questioned about serving in the unit, as a Muslim, when many of the prisoners they torture are also Muslims. She states they're not really Muslims in her view, since their acts of terrorism go against Islamic principles, therefore she's got no compunction (initially) with their work.
- One-Word Title
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The ghoul is an ancient Middle Eastern shapeshifting demon which eats, then assumes the identity of a notorious Muslim terrorist leader, who is then captured and interrogated by a black ops military unit. It can be summoned by carving its symbol in blood, while it haunts its victims with their past sins before killing them.
- Taking You with Me: Trapped with the ghoul about to eat him, Colonel Dacunha pulls out a grenade and decides to take it out with him. When he shows up alive, claiming to have gotten clear of the blast, Nida kills him.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Not played for laughs at all. There's a good reason why the captive is able to withstand any and all torture and is easily capable of turning the tables on its interrogators: it's Not Even Human.
- Torture Technician: Nida and the rest of her unit are part of a black ops torture outfit used to interrogate political dissidents.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: At first, Nida is quite supportive of the oppressive government and believes they are doing what they can to keep the populace safe from dissidents, even when she and her father witness a man getting pushed inside a van in front of his wife and son. Her naivete ended up biting her after she discovered her father was executed in the very same interrogation facility she works at, not released as she was told, and was the one who summoned the ghoul.
- You Are Who You Eat: The ghoul takes on the form of its last victim. Initially, it looks like Ali Saeed, but later starts impersonating other people, causing no small amount of paranoia among the Dwindling Party. It also doesn't need to kill someone off to impersonate them, as shown when it becomes Nida after taking a small bite out of her leg.
