Tick Tick Tick (1981)

This suspenseful thriller opens with Sarika, a model who returns to Chennai after a modeling stint abroad. She is received by the modeling agency and is soon drugged and operated upon. Her dead body is soon found.

Dileep (Kamal Haasan) is a photographer working for a newspaper run by Thengai Srinivasan. He is a photographer in a beauty pageant run by a rich industrialist, Oberoi, which was won by Sharadha, Swapna and Radha (Madhavi, Radha and Swapna). He becomes professionally involved with Radha and Swapna while romantically involved with Sharadha.

Soon Swapna’s deadbody turns up and he becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation and is on the run from police. As his face is plastered in wanted ads all over the city and police watching Sharadha’s house, he goes to meet Radha.

Radha, who always considered Kamal as her brother as he was always nice to her, helps him and lets him stay in her apartment. The next morning, when Kamal wakes up and turn on the tap, the water is bloody red and he hears screaming coming from the apartment water tank. He goes to investigate when a group of people are gathered around the tank and is shocked to find Radha’s bloody body inside the tank. Soon people recognize him from the wanted ad and mistakenly think that he murdered Radha. He is once again on the run from police for the murders.

He starts to investigate the murders and deduce that the only thing the two girls had in common, apart from him, was the modeling agency. When he secretively meets up with Sharadha, he finds a small incision on her body. Remembering that the other two girls had the same incision, he questions her. Although she doesn’t remember how she got it, she remembers that she didn’t have one before she left on a photo shoot abroad for the agency. She also finds it strange that she was unconscious for a few hours during the shoot but cannot remember what happened.

They eventually find out that Oberoi, has a nefarious business through his modeling agency. He drugs the models during the photo shoot abroad, operates them and smuggles diamonds into India using their bodies. When the models return to India, they again drug the model and take it out and kill the girl.

Kamal gets captured by Oberoi’s goons but with the help of his editor and his girlfriend, he has already got the truth out. Before Oberoi can kill Kamal, they hear the police siren coming towards him. Oberoi, an obsessive diamond collector, rather than get caught and go to prison, eats his own diamonds and commits suicide.