Horror fails to make it big

Rahul Deo Bharadwaj

Horror movies are something that most of us do not follow or wait for. The most glaring example of this fact is the latest big release in horror from Bollywood — Raaz Reboot. This one had an A-lister studio backing. Despite that, this reboot was booted out no sooner than it came on the screens. Yet horror movies are the ones which pull a lot many of us to the theatre though not many of us prefer getting scared for entertainment. Horror as a genre in Bollywood is yet to find its due place.

The first notable horror movie attempt came in as early as in 1949 with Mahal. A handsome young man Hari Shankar (Ashok Kumar) purchases a new palace to live in only to discover this one is haunted by the spirit of Kamini (Madhubala). Directed by Kamal Amrohi, it was a boxoffice smasher.

Years later, a similar plot was attempted in Bees Saal Baad, starring Waheeda Rehman and Biswajit Chatterjee. In the film, heirs to a haveli are killed one by one near a pit outside the deserted haveli. It is said the audience would be screaming in cinemas at the sight of a hand which appears on the screen with long nails and blood oozing out of it.

Then by and large this genre was forgotten till the Ramsay brothers totally trivialised it with mask-wearing ghosts and actors who could not act before a class of nursery kids. Though they did make that one notable effort Purana Mandir. For a long time that one movie was termed as the horror movie’s Sholay in terms of boxoffice success.

There were other notable efforts like Woh Kaun Thi? but the one which really made producers think of the horror genre was the 1979 superhit called Jaani Dushman, this one had A-lister actors and did spook people. Horror genre got its biggest lift in India through Ramgopal Varma belting out classics. He single handedly took upon himself to revive this genre and delivered the trilogy of his best horror movie efforts. Raat, Bhoot and Phoonk.

The only other director who briefly came close to challenging the supremacy and superiority of what RGV was delivering in horror genre was Vikram Bhatt. Like RGV, Vikram Bhatt’s trilogy had films like Raaz, 1920 and Haunted. Haunted is India’s first 3D horror movie.

The most notable efforts in the recent years post-Bhoot were Raagini MMS and 13B. The latter, however, failed to click at the boxoffice.

But by and large, horror movies have fallen off the target at boxoffice in India. Despite the fact that our makers have used better CGI graphics today. Filmmakers like Vikram Bhatt have used some good technology in films like Creature. They are no longer dependent on fog to create horror. If in an era of 100 crore plus clubs, the biggest horror hit is Raaz 3 with Rs 70 crore total earnings then you understand the genre has not made its mark. In a list of top 10 biggest horror movie hits, the distance between Raaz 3 and Raaz 2 is even bigger, Raaz 2 clocked only Rs 31 crore. Movies in other genres make that much money in a weekend.

It might be difficult to pinpoint a reason though Hollywood horror movies create a huge buzz on social media with Indian audiences — Conjuring is an example.

The reason why Bollywood horror has created more horror for its makers because one large sections of audiences do not prefer horror as a genre and second repeat boring plots of haveli and wronged women add to the boring predictability. A sad fact because horror as a genre has immense potential.