Teenz

Starring13 teenagers
Radhakrishnan ParthibanCinematographyGavemic U. Ary
Jaya Krishna GummadiMusic byD. ImmanCountryIndiaLanguageTamil

Teenz is a 2024 Indian Tamil-language adventure thriller film directed by Radhakrishnan Parthiban. The film stars himself with 13 teenagers and is a centered around a spirited group of teenagers.

The soundtrack album and score were composed by D Imman.

A group of 12 teenagers, consisting of 7 boys and 5 girls, plan to skip school and visit Nakshatra's grandmother, Kanagavalli's village. Nakshatra shares a mysteriously haunted tale about a 500-year-old well in her grandmother's village, piquing their interest. Intrigued, the group decides to visit Kanagavalli's village to explore the paranormal claims and prove their bravery as young adults. On Monday, June 3, 2024, the group of teenagers ditch school and embark on an adventure. They are joined by their friend Ayyankali, an orphan and poor classmate who is often ridiculed by his peers. However, the group boards a bus which is halted due to a roadblock caused by a protest against honor killings. The teenagers disembark and begin walking. Along the way, they encounter an auto-rickshaw driver who refuses to give them a ride, consume toddy, and even one of them gets bit by a stray dog.

The school management soon realizes that the students have skipped school, prompting a search while the frantic parents arrive and police begin the investigation. Some of them mock Ayyankali, calling him unlucky. However, Sara stands up for him. The group continues their journey, playing a blindfold game, when they discover Shaun is missing. Apoorva breaks down, blaming herself for his disappearance. Near a graveyard, they meet Thanikachalam, a drunkard, and misunderstand him for a ghost. Tragedy strikes again as Nafil, one of the twins, goes missing. His brother, Afil, in a fit of anger, injures himself. The tree they had rested earlier is now gone. They discover water from the ground, but their joy is short-lived as Nainika proposes to Adityan and then vanishes, leaving him distraught. Nakshatra's grandmother contacts her son, expressing concern that her granddaughter and friends have not arrived at the village as planned. Now, the police head towards the village only to be interrupted by another police interrogation related to Deepa's honor killing incident.

As the students venture into the forest, they spot a python, causing Afil to faint. Adityan fearing the python has swallowed Nainika, with his friends' help, they cut open the python's belly, only to find a live goat inside. A massive herd of cattle surrounds them, with birds flying above. This leads astrophysicist Jana to set out to the location, suspecting radiation signals from the golden disc they sent in 1977 through Voyager 2 from NASA and the presence of aliens. As the group faces more terror, Nishant goes missing, and an unknown signal is injected into his body, causing him to shrink and become trapped by an unknown force. Sarvesh discovers a rover device emitting signals and destroys it. On the way, Thanikachalam informs Jana that 10-15 children initially gathered, but now only 9 remain, as 4 have vanished, including an elephant. Apoorva becomes the next target, attacked by the signal, which causes her to shrink, and get abducted in a rover in front of her friends' eyes. Dylan gets separated from the group.

Jana arrives just in time to join the remaining friends, and an alien spaceship appears before them, revealing the recent astronomical phenomenon and electromagnetic waves from Earth have converged, leading him to suspect disappearances at the focal point. He reveals the 153-year-old research and excitement at seeing the results. Jana notes that humans can't see the aliens, but they've established minimal communication through devices. The rovers collect updated Earth samples, including humans, trees, and animals, and transport them to the spaceship. Jana connects the spaceship's hologram with the DSS43 communication and explains that the spaceship's arrival is connected to the golden disc, which entered interstellar space in 2018 as the disc contained information about Earth. Jana decodes the message, revealing that only one sample from each species is required. Ayyankali volunteers to enter the spaceship to free his friends, and Jana inserts a chip into him before sending him into the spaceship.

A few days later, Ayyankali from the alien spaceship contacts the Earth through a video call, sharing his journey to the Alpha Centauri star system. The film concludes with Jana analyzing samples from the broken rover, which forms the shape of Ayyankali, but refuses that he is Ayyankali but just an alien and reveals that Jana has already seen an alien in his bare eyes: the alien spaceship itself.

The music is composed by D. Imman in his first directorial collaboration, along with his fourth overall collaboration, with Parthiban after Maaveeran Kittu (2016), Podhuvaga Emmanasu Thangam (2017), and Yutha Satham (2022). The original soundtrack with the full album was released on Apr 6, 2024.

A critic from Cinema Express wrote that "The biggest takeaway of Teenz, perhaps, is the 13 teenagers. They are sincere in their performance and manage to keep us hooked with their innocent charm".^[1] A critic from The Times of India rated the film two out of five stars and stated that " As a film with teenagers as protagonists, the film tries to mellow things down, but in an instant switches gears to go full throttle.".^[2] Ananda Vikatan wrote that new initiatives are to be appreciated, but it is a disappointment that this film, which is made up of teenage boys as an adventure trip, ends up being a boring trip.^[3]

• Teenz at IMDb