Kalamkaval: The Venom Beneath is a 2025 Malayalam-language psychological crime thriller that marked a significant departure for megastar Mammootty, who took on a rare, purely antagonistic role. Directed by debutant Jithin K. Jose, the film is heavily inspired by the real-life case of serial killer Cyanide Mohan.
Feature
Information
Director
Jithin K. Jose
Main Cast
Mammootty (Stanley Das), Vinayakan (SI Jayakrishnan)
Supporting Cast
Rajisha Vijayan, Gayatri Arun, Shruti Ramachandran, Gibin Gopinath
Theatrical Release
December 5, 2025
OTT Platform
SonyLIV (Streaming since January 16, 2026)
Running Time
2 hours 24 minutes
The Beginning: A Hunter in Uniform (2005)
The story kicks off on November 13, 2005, in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu. Stanley Das, a Sub-Inspector, is at home with his wife and two kids, looking like the picture of a perfect family man. He gets a "work call" from a senior and rushes out, but the next scene reveals the truth: he’s actually meeting a woman he’s having an affair with. They’re planning a new life together once he "divorces" his wife.
They check into a hotel, where Stanley starts saying some truly bizarre things. He talks about how much he loves "hunting" and the high he gets from ending a life. The woman laughs it off as a dark joke until he wraps her own dupatta around her neck and strangles her. He calmly stuffs her body into a bag, drops the room key at the counter, and hides the body in his car trunk.
The Present Day: The "Eagle" Steps In (2012)
Fast forward to September 25, 2012. A communal riot has broken out in a village near Thiruvananthapuram after a girl went missing. To de-escalate the situation and find the girl, the police bring in a specialist named Nath. Everyone calls him "Nathu" (The Owl) or "The Eagle" because of his sharp, predatory instincts for catching criminals.
Nath quickly realizes the riot was sparked by a misunderstanding. The local suspect, a youth named Yusuf, is innocent. Digging deeper, Nath finds a lead: the missing girl was in touch with someone named Stephen. But Stephen has no clue who she is it turns out his sister, Selvi, was using his SIM card, and she has been missing for months too.
Nath starts connecting the dots and realizes this isn't a random disappearance. It’s a serial pattern spanning the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. He concludes they aren't looking for a gang; they're looking for one calculated, cold-blooded "lone wolf."
The Evolution of a Psychopath
Meanwhile, we see Stanley’s life. His brother, Bobby, accidentally kills a neighbor’s expensive dog with some chemicals he was using for jewelry work. Instead of being horrified, Stanley uses this as a "learning opportunity." He learns about the toxic chemical, buys it using a fake license, and even tests it on a homeless man to see if it works. It does.
Stanley then goes to a matchmaker, posing as a helpful brother looking for a bride for his "divorced sibling." He collects biodata and photos of vulnerable, divorced, or widowed women. He sets up a secret lair in a secluded forest house where he keeps a sketchbook filled with drawings of every woman he has targeted.
His "ritual" is consistent: he seduces them, sometimes even performing a fake marriage, takes them to a hotel, and then gives them a "contraceptive pill" that is actually laced with the poison. He watches them die in hotel restrooms and then draws their final moments in his book.
The Twist: The Killer is in the Room
The biggest shock comes when Nath asks for extra hands for the investigation. A Sub-Inspector who just finished a stint with the Special Branch joins the team. That officer is Stanley Das. The killer is now literally sitting in the briefings, watching Nath try to find him.
Stanley is clever. He realizes the walls are closing in, so he smashes his victims' phones. When Nath finds evidence a safety pin, a thread from a police uniform, and a page from a police-issue notebook he begins to suspect the killer is one of their own.
Stanley pivots quickly. He murders a fellow constable named Mani and plants the victims' phones in Mani’s room. He puts on a masterclass of acting, pretending to be shocked that his "friend" Mani could be a killer. Nath is momentarily led astray, and the media brands Mani as the prime suspect.
The Final Chess Move
Stanley thinks he's safe, but he can't stop. He even calls a retired forensic surgeon, posing as a filmmaker, to learn how to kill someone via a "heart attack" so it leaves no trace. He starts using a modified diabetes testing device to inject a toxin called Digitalis into his victims.
However, Nath’s instincts return. He realizes a simple constable like Mani wouldn't have this level of forensic knowledge. He tracks down a survivor named Divya. When Nath shows her Mani’s photo, she says, "That’s not him." Nath realizes the real monster is still standing right next to him.
Nath plays a high-stakes game. He pretends to have a bus conductor draw a sketch of the suspect. Stanley, terrified of being outed, rushes to the conductor's house with his service gun to "silence" him. But when he sees the sketch, it looks nothing like him. He relaxes. Little does he know, Nath ordered the conductor to draw a fake sketch to make Stanley feel overconfident while Nath gathered the real evidence.
The Showdown
Nath eventually finds Stanley’s forest hideout and discovers the sketchbook. The last page contains a sketch of Nath himself he was meant to be the next victim.
The finale happens at a hotel where Stanley has checked in with a new target. In a poetic twist, the hotel manager recognizes Stanley not as a cop, but as the man who disappeared with his daughter back in 2005 (Stanley's first victim). Nath arrives and hands Stanley the real sketch the one that looks exactly like him.
A brutal, desperate fight breaks out. Stanley is a powerhouse and nearly kills Nath, but the hotel manager intervenes, hitting Stanley with an iron pipe. Nath finishes the job, killing the predator.
The Ending
In a dark bit of irony, Nath and the manager pack Stanley’s body into a bag and toss it into the trunk of Stanley’s own car exactly how Stanley treated his victims. As Nath drives the car away into the unknown, the final shot shows the trunk lid slowly creaking open.
It’s an ambiguous ending. Is Stanley still alive? Or is it a metaphor that while this hunter is dead, the "spirit" of the hunt lives on in the shadows of society?
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