Indian Horror Cinema: (En)gendering the Monstrous [1 ed.] 1138693189, 9781138693180

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INDIAN HORROR CINEMA

This book studies the hitherto overlooked genre of horror cinema in India. It uncovers some unique and diverse themes that these films deal with, including the fear of the unknown, the supernatural, occult practices, communication with spirits of the deceased, ghosts, reincarnation, figures of vampires, zombies, witches and transmutations of human beings into non-human forms such as werewolves. It focusses on the construction of feminine and masculine subjectivities in select horror films across seven major languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi and Malayalam. The author shows that the alienation of the body and bodily functions through the medium of the horror film serves to deconstruct stereotypes of caste, class, gender and anthropocentrism. Some riveting insights emerge thus, such as the masculinist undertow of the possession narrative and how complex structures of resistance accompany the anxieties of culture via the dread of laughter. This original account of Indian cinematic history is accessible yet strongly analytical and includes an exhaustive filmography. The book will interest scholars and researchers in film studies, media and cultural studies, art, popular culture and performance, literature, gender, sociology, South Asian studies, practitioners, filmmakers as well as cinephiles. Mithuraaj Dhusiya teaches English literature in the Department of English at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, India.

INDIAN HORROR CINEMA (En)gendering the Monstrous

Mithuraaj Dhusiya

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 1001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Mithuraaj Dhusiya The right of Mithuraaj Dhusiya to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-69318-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14417-7 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsvi

Introduction: horror in Indian cinema: an afterthought?

1

1 The masculinist economy of possession narratives

35

2 Vampirism as structures of resistance

65

3 The ghastly gendered narrative of animal transformation92 4 Zombies and witches and the anxieties of culture

119

5 Do we fear laughter? The genre of horror-comedy

141

6 There are no ghosts, only ghostly tales: Indian horror and the ‘uncanny’

172



195

Epilogue: fear, are we there yet?

Appendix: annotated filmography of horror films in India209

Glossary269 Bibliography272 Filmography286 Index303

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book owes its genesis to the countless ghosts and spirits that have haunted the fictional world from time immemorial. They have been my primary source of interest and inspiration much before the thought of framing my ideas about the supernatural in a book crept into my mind. This book derives largely from my doctoral work. My supervisor Brinda Bose has been the warmest, kindest and helpful mentor I have ever known. I am also grateful to the late P.K. Nair, S. Theodore Baskaran, M.K. Raghavendra, Akella, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, S.V. Srinivas, C.S. Venkiteswaran, Shalini Usha Nair, Udaya Kumar, Moinak Biswas, Ranjani Mazumdar and Subhajit Chatterjee who have helped me to bring this book to where it stands now. I acknowledge with joy a grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research, which was a great assistance to me during my PhD work in facilitating the many journeys to the many places where films and filmmakers were to be found! I must mention here the enormous contribution of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Kerala Chalachithra Academy, Roja Muthiah Research Library, National Library of India and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library without whose archival material this book could not have been thought of. Equally, I am also indebted to countless shopkeepers selling VCDs and DVDs across the country who made special efforts to fish out several obscure films of the horror genre. I am grateful to my father, my mother and my younger brother for knocking into me, every now and then, that this book should be a timebound exercise. Words are inadequate to describe the unadulterated love that my fond canine companions – Pinchu, Tau and Kali – have given me ever since they adopted my family. Their playful distractions have kept me endlessly refreshed. This book will be incomplete if I do not apologise to my most loving and most timorous wife, Aneeta, for having introduced her to this subterranean world of vampires, zombies, monsters, dungeons and exorcism. Her ability to sleep may have been compromised forever. vi

A cknowledgements

I also wish to acknowledge and thank the publishers who brought out the earlier versions of some of the chapters in this book. Chapter 2 draws upon ‘The Ramsay Chronicles: Non-normative Sexualities in Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza’, which appeared in Vikrant Kishore, Amit Sarwal and Parichay Patra (eds), Bollywood and Its Other(s): Towards New Configurations, pp. 174–185 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Chapter 3 is partly based on ‘Bestiality, Compassion and Gender Emancipation: The Snake Woman in Hindi Horror Films’, which appeared in 2012, Cineforum 15: 105–134, and partly on ‘Shape Shifting Masculinities: Accounts of Maleness in Indian Man-to-Animal Transformation Horror Films’, which appeared in 2011, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 12(2): 61–73. Chapter 5 has developed partly from ‘The Horrific Laughter in Pachadlela: A Study of Marathi Horror-Comedy’, which appeared in 2013, Comedy Studies 4(2): 187–194, and partly from ‘Let the Ghost Speak: A Study of Contemporary Indian Horror Cinema’, which appeared in 2014, The Unseen Century: Indian Cinema 1913–2013, 5(1): 1–24, http://widescreenjournal.org.

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INTRODUCTION Horror in Indian cinema: an afterthought?

I might mention the case, let us say, of what are called ‘horror comics’ and the like. Well, I have read about them and recently I saw some of these things. In fact, a very mild – exceedingly mild – type happened to be sent as a birthday gift to my grandson. I was horrified looking at it that anyone, much less my grandson should have that kind of literature to read, and this is literature and not the comic part. The horror comics undoubtedly are something which I am absolutely clear in my mind should be supressed ruthlessly (applause). There is no question of freedom of the individual. That is something which is bad, hundred per cent bad – something which is causing, in some countries all kinds of developments of all kinds of sadistic impulses, murder – children just murdering for murder’s sake, to have the pleasure of seeing a person killed. All this is through this kind of horror comic business. Now, obviously, we cannot allow that kind of thing; no Government or society ought to allow that kind of thing to flourish. Therefore, it is clear that the Government must take action to prevent something which it considers and society considers evil from spreading too much. (Nehru 2009: 26)

Retrospectively, one can argue that Jawaharlal Nehru’s address to a seminar on Indian Film in 1955 paves the way for what would prove to be a bumpy ride for Indian horror films thereafter. Nehru was not alone in his criticism of ‘horror comics’. His apprehensions that ‘all kinds of sadistic impulses’ generated by these comics would bring about moral and cultural degradation of the society were shared by an influential section of American

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intelligentsia. Horror comics like Tales from the Crypt (1950–55), The Vault of Horror (1950–54) and The Haunt of Fear (1950–54) were rising steadily on popularity charts. By 1953, horror-based comics accounted for approximately a quarter of the total comics-industry output as more and more Americans were reading them than were reading Reader’s Digest or The Saturday Evening Post (Skal 1993: 230). To curb the growing popularity of these comics, the Comics Magazine Association of America introduced the ‘Comics Code Authority’ which banned their production and distribution. But while socio-cultural associations of horror began to be manifested through the enduring popularity of horror films in America, the Indian film industry for a very long time saw no such impact. Horror films had to battle the successive Indian governments’ negative attitude, perhaps best explained by Nehru’s own words: careful ‘to prevent something which it considers and society considers evil from spreading too much’ (Nehru 2009: 26). Whether society considered horror films evil or not is debatable going by the popular reception of foreign horror films, including those belonging to Hammer productions, in India. But the stepmotherly treatment meted out to Indian horror films by successive post-independence governments is evident from very intermittent productions of horror films in India and prolonged court cases that producers of films like Jaani Dushman (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1979) had to fight against government censorship. For the record, box-office reports show that Jaani Dushman with a gross of Rs 9,00,00,000 was the second highest grossing film of the year, getting the better of then-reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan starrers Mr. Natwarlal (dir. Rakesh Kumar, 1979), Kala Patthar (dir. Yash Chopra, 1979) and The Great Gambler (dir. Shakti Samanta, 1979). Faced with a hostile censor board and high costs for making horror films, most film producers were naturally discouraged and preferred other safer genres. However, as one explores the archival history of Indian horror films, one is elated to discover the rich, heterogeneously sourced aesthetic traditions that these films have managed to achieve despite encountering manifold obstacles. The Hindi film Mahal (dir. Kamal Amrohi, 1949), arguably the first post-independence Indian horror film, foreshadows some basic questions about thematic and formal elements of horror that would continue to haunt Indian horror films thereafter. Mahal narrates the story of a young and handsome lawyer Shankar (Ashok Kumar) who goes to an old palatial mansion Shabnam Mahal to claim his inheritance. He is surprised to observe that a portrait of the former owner closely resembles him. The housekeeper recounts the sad tale of the owner and his beloved who had to end their lives under tragic circumstances. He begins seeing a girl singing and swinging in the garden swing during nights. But whenever he tried to approach 2

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her, she would disappear. This pattern continued for some days before the girl finally disclosed to him that she was the spirit of the dead Kamini (Madhubala), the former owner’s beloved. She beckons him to either die or marry her incarnation, a servant’s daughter named Asha (Madhubala) living in the same palatial premises. Shankar becomes so obsessed with the ghostly apparition that his friend Srinath (Kanu Roy) deems it wise to forcibly marry him off to a lady named Ranjana (Vijayalaxmi). But he keeps on neglecting his wife, confining her to live in a vermin-infested shack. Unable to withstand torture, Ranjana commits suicide, accusing Ashok as she was dying. He is arrested and sent off to jail. Later Asha, now married to Srinath, confesses that she had been masquerading as Kamini to gain Ashok’s attention. Meanwhile, a suicide note left by Ranjana is recovered and as a result Ashok is acquitted of murder charge and released. The story ends with Ashok, still very obsessed with the apparition, on his way back to the Mahal. It has several motifs common to horror cinema: an ancient haunted palatial building, the bat, the snake, an ominous looking black cat and the suggestion of ‘uncanny’. The audio-visual impact created by the banging doors and a woman clad in white clothes carrying a lighted candle with her and singing at night, with frequent references to death, facilitate the creation of a brooding horrific setting. However, a section of modern critical studies refuses to see it as a horror film. Rachel Dwyer, for example, argues that the film should not be seen as belonging to the horror genre: Yet Mahal is not a horror film; nor it is a ghost film. It is mysterious, it is haunting, it is eerie but bar a few items . . . there is no ghost, there is little that is very disturbing apart from Ranjana’s suicide and the off-screen death of the tribal woman. Nevertheless the audience remembers it as a ghost film, as a film about a haunted house, and a dark and mysterious film. (Dwyer 2011: 150) While the film might to other historians be the ‘first’ Indian horror film, Dwyer’s placement of the film in other genres suggests she is using another set of generic and historical criteria to arrive at the determinations she does. This warrants a comparative exploration of the history of genre formation in both Western and Indian cinematic narratives.

The politics of genre formation Fissures riddle the map of Indian horror cinema. Unlike Hollywood cinema, which has a relatively well-defined horror genre, Indian cinema with its diverse production centres, not to mention linguistic varieties, poses a 3

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challenge to any homogeneous categorisation of horror cinema. How is one to categorise a genre that is as diverse as the Bengali new-wave Khudito Pashan (dir. Tapan Sinha, 1960), the Malayalam melodrama Bhargavi Nilayam (dir. A. Vincent, 1964) or the Marathi horror comic Pachadlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 2004) or the more conventionally horrific runof-the-mill Hindi Ramsay films? An exhumation of ‘genre’ itself presents several questions: Is genre a stable category? Where lies the origin of genre? Who defines genre industry, audience or the text itself? Why do some genres suddenly disappear? Is genre culture-specific? Is genre period-specific? What is the nature of relationship between literary and filmic genres? Can they coexist together? How does one take into account hybridity within genres? And perhaps, most important of all, how do we define genre? It is thus imperative to study the conceptualisation of genre in the history of film scholarship. To say that genres are vital to films would be an understatement, as more often than not they are a primary mode of initiation into the filmic world. In almost every video rental library or store throughout the world, VCDs and DVDs are arranged according to generic classifications: comedy, thriller, action, horror, science fiction, gangster films, musicals, blockbusters etc. Broadly speaking, genres can be defined as the structuring principles of expectation and convention, around which individual films mark repetitions and differences (Neale 2003: 161). It is widely considered that genre criticism began in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a response to auteurism. Though Andre Bazin and Robert Warshow could be seen as precursors of genre theory with their influential works on the Western and gangster films in the 1940s and 1950s, yet it was only in the late 1960s that proper studies on genre formation began to develop. The auteuristic model of cinematic authorship, while upholding classics as examples of auteur’s brilliance and charisma in portraying the unfamiliar, looked down upon genre films as manifestations of clichéd plots depicting the everyday familiar world. This prejudice can be traced back to the late eighteenth century: The modern prejudice against genre in art can be traced to the aesthetic theories of the Romantic period . . . Poetic ‘limitation’, the building of creativity on the achievements of the past, began to fade as the standard of personal vision became more important. . . . The English and German Romantic writers consolidated this trend by establishing originality not only as a criterion of art, but, in their crudest statements, the only criterion of art. Art could owe nothing to tradition or the past because that debt qualified the power and originality of the individual creator. (Braudy 2004: 664) 4

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Genres like the Western have often been read as ‘an art form for connoisseuers, where the spectator derives his pleasure from the appreciation of minor variations within the working out of a pre-established order’(Warshow 1979: 480). Contemporary film scholarship has devised a number of approaches to address Hollywood’s generic structures: First, the taxonomic view of genre, which attempts to map the boundaries between generic classes; second, the view of genre as an economic strategy for organising film production schedules; and third, the view of genre as cognition, as a contract between producers and consumers which renders films intelligible on some level. (Watson 2003: 154) The taxonomic approach, according to Paul Watson, could be either theoretical, historical or visual. One genre can be differentiated from the other through visual icons: Since we are dealing with a visual medium we ought surely to look for our defining criteria in what we actually see on the screen. It is immediately apparent that there before our eyes is a whole range of outer forms. (Buscombe 2003: 15) He delineates four outer forms: setting, appearance, tools and other miscellaneous physical objects that keep on recurring. While different forms of taxonomic approach to genre formation have been very useful for the reception of films, it is not without its share of problems: ‘if genre criticism were simply a matter of constructing taxonomies and allocating films to their places in the system, then the intellectual basis of the exercise would certainly be open to doubt’ (Ryall 1998: 336). For how would one categorise animation films? Or what is the role played by the film industry in generic representations which might be different from the more theoryoriented taxonomic approach? And what about generic hybridity? The same visual iconography might be present in more than one genre. Thus, one can see guns and gun-toting men in Westerns, crime thrillers and gangster films besides film noir. It becomes increasingly difficult to rely solely on taxonomic generification. Genre also serves an important role in safeguarding the economics of the film industry, as the site of ‘crystallization of a negotiated encounter between film-maker and audience, a way of recording the stability of an 5

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industry with the excitement of an evolving popular art’ (Stam 2000: 127). Filmmakers find it convenient to invest in secure genres which have a history of good box-office collections. It also helps them to advertise their products in a public-friendly manner, as genres necessitate pre-established expectations and pleasures in the audience. However, sometimes industrial definitions of genre – especially in cases of sequels, prequels or seriality – might be misleading: Seriality is akin to genre . . . and yet it is subtly different from it. The serial mode appears to operate and organise – in the first instance at any rate – at a more general or inclusive level than does genre, whilst at the same time being more precise and prescriptive in terms of the processes it defines. Lacking the more open (and involved) character of genre, it appears to be tied as much to the demarcation and regulation of forms and modes within material production processes as to the distinguishing of types or kinds (along with their aesthetic delineation) in aesthetic ones. It seems thereby, to be more intimately bound to the standardisation involved in commodification itself. (Darley 2002: 126) Apart from taxonomic and economic approaches to genre formation, Watson asserts that the cognitive assessment of genre has also been a very useful method in categorising films where genre is to be seen ‘not as a corpus of approximate films, but as provisional and malleable conceptual environments: a cognitive repository of images, sounds, characters, events, stories, scenarios, expectations and so on. Genre can thus be seen as part of a cognitive process which delimits the number of possible meanings of any individual film by activating certain conceptual constellations while leaving others dormant’ (Watson 2003: 160). However, it has also been pointed out as follows: If the genre texts of the 1960s are distinguished by their increasing self-reflexivity about their antecedents in the Golden Age of Hollywood, the genre texts of the late 1980s–early 1990s demonstrate even more sophisticated hyperconsciousness concerning not just narrative formulae, but the conditions of their own circulation and reception in the present, which has a massive impact on the nature of popular entertainment. (Collins 1993: 247–8) This intertextuality has led to the rise of hybrid genres addressing the target audience rather than the mass audience. 6

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One of the major contributors to the growing analyses of the Hollywood generic system has been semiotic film theory. Film theorists have applied the principles of semiotics to explore the fluidity and malleability of genres: ‘If we extend these ideas into genre studies, we might think of the film genre as a specific grammar or system of rules of expression and construction and the individual genre films as a manifestation of these rules’ (Schaltz 2009: 566). Thomas Schaltz argues that it is the transformative ability of film conventions that endows genres with both ‘static’ as well as ‘dynamic’ attributes. Another semiotician, Rick Altman, makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the growth of genres in films through his assertion that the formation of genre is essentially a product of the interplay of the semantic meaning and syntactic organisation of elements that contribute towards that meaning: ‘genres arise in one or two fundamental ways: either a relatively stable set of semantic givens is developed through syntactic experimentation into a coherent or durable syntax, or an already existing syntax adopts a new set of semantic elements’ (Altman 2003: 35). Genre in twenty-first-century Hollywood cinema attains viability by reinvesting in its metaphorical level as opposed to its more literal level. Instead of stagnating within the classical paradigm, genre delimits itself into a potent cultural expression of the time: For metaphors in themselves do not tell us anything, but rather draw attention to a relationship between things and prompt us to start looking for ways of making meaning. Indeed the basis of metaphor is a process of transference: the transference of aspects of one object to another object so that the second object has an implied resemblance to the first object, yet is an original expression. (Watson 2003: 162) This ‘transference-implied resemblance’ plays a pivotal role in building cognitive relationships with the audience as well as acknowledging the industrial aspects of cinematic conceptions. However, the nature of these relationships is quite different from what they were in the twentieth century: ‘the increasingly transgeneric tendency in twenty-first-century Hollywood film may represent not the breakdown of “classical” genre traditions, but the more visible enactment, in transformed institutional contexts, of those “post-classica” impulses that have always been present in the system of genres’ (Langford 2005: 278). In the context of Indian cinema, genre formation has adopted trajectories that are vastly different from its Western counterparts. Even when films made in this part of the world resonate models of Western generification, they are nevertheless deeply rooted within the socio-cultural diversities of 7

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India. Genre reformulations and their aesthetic practices irrespective of their origin are culture-specific: ‘genre terms seem best employed in the analysis of the relations between groups of films, the cultures in which they are made, and the cultures in which they are exhibited’ (Tudor 2003: 10). Thus, it is but natural that what was suggested by the generic label ‘horror’ in the West would be different from Indian horror cinema, and the same applies to most other genric productions in India. However, what sounds thus obvious unfortunately took a long time to permeate into public consciousness, both inside and outside India. Going by generic expectations from the audience, this process is far from complete. For example, the instinctive revulsion for most Indian horror films on the pretext of the superiority of their Western or even other South Asian counterparts fails to acknowledge the unique formulations of Indian horror. Admittedly, some horror films have been bad productions, not fit to stand the test of time. However, films like Mahal, Bhargavi Nilayam or Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003) are of cultural significance akin to The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973), not to mention that they are equally well made, if not better. The critical apparatus of Indian film scholarship for a long time, just like its other non-Hollywood counterparts, failed to evolve Indian cinema–specific genres: As a result, generic characteristics attached to specific Hollywood genres become normative, universalising and often prescriptive categories. It is evident that an application of genre criticism for the study of popular Indian cinema needs to re-define the frame of reference of such criticism within a specific national context. (Eleftheriotis 2006: 273) Film scholarship in the West tends to evaluate Indian cinema in terms of its otherness to Hollywood films, thereby limiting its multifaceted characteristics. Rather than appreciating the various hybridised film cultures that country’s many film industries produce, Western media and film circles have largely ignored the potential in Indian cinema, always presenting it as an also-ran amongst other cinematic traditions: However, this is a cinema which, in the Indian context, is an overridingly dominant, mainstream form, and is itself opposed by an ‘Other’: the ‘new’, ‘parallel’, ‘art’ (or often simply ‘other’) cinema which ranges from the works of Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal and various regional filmmakers, to Mani Kaul’s ‘avant-garde’ or Anand Patwardhan’s ‘agitational’ political practice. In these terms Indian popular cinema is neither alternative nor a minority form. (Thomas 2006: 280) 8

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Rosie Thomas also points towards the existence of certain genres specific to Indian cinema like social, family social, devotional, stunt and multi-starrer which would hardly make sense to the canonical Hollywood generic formulations. Generic categories can also reveal or encode sociological practices underlying them: Indian film genres show the propensity to depict mythological films as ‘Brahmin’ (priest/sage), historical films as ‘Kshatriyas’ (warrior/aristocrat) and action-packed stunt films as ‘Shudras’ (serf/ manual labour) (Kakar 1989: 25). Though such broad generalisations might be anaemic in comparison to more exhaustive analyses of films, yet the presence of such subtexts can hardly be ignored. Genre criticism in India took a new turn with Madhava Prasad’s sociopolitical readings of genre formation in Hindi films. He notes the differences between the industrial organisations of the Hollywood and the Bombay film industry. While a typical Hollywood film implies an integrated internal hierarchical set-up with primacy given to the tightly organised narrative among its constituent elements, Bombay films, he argues, have a relatively more autonomous existence with different constitutive elements like songs, dialogues and the star-image having independent standings. Thus, Hindi films act as sites of multiple representations of individual skills and collective socio-economic processes. However, Prasad links these production processes to the propagation of the state ideology: The evidence points to two conflicting answers: on the one hand, there is the perceived failure of the attempt to gain mastery over the production process, to make it serve a determinate ideological project; on the other hand, the very impediments placed in the way of such consolidation by the powerful financiers may be said to have contributed (with whatever degree of ‘intention’) to the perpetuation of a backward capitalism in production and precapitalist ideologies in which relationships based on loyalty, servitude, the honour of the khandaan (clan) and institutionalized Hindu religious practices form the core cultural content. Thus a state of affairs that appears to be the result of a series of ‘failures’ may well be the one that the particular state form obtaining in India makes it possible. (1998: 49) He attributes the dominance of ‘musical-social’ in the post-mythological Hindi film industry to such covert mechanisms of the state ideology: Its function, on the other hand, is to resist genre formation of any kind, particularly of the type constituted by the segmentation of 9

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the contemporary. This ideological function is imposed on it by the nature of political power in the modernizing state. The segmentation or the disaggregation of the ‘social’ is prevented by the very mode of combination of the aesthetic of the signifier (music, choreographed fights, parallel narrative tracks, etc) with that of the signified (or realism, which requires continuity, a serial track and subordination of music to a narrative function. (ibid.: 136) Prasad also brings to attention the genesis of three generic tendencies specific to Hindi cinema in the India Gandhi era, a very turbulent phase in Indian politics: the new cinema, the middle-class cinema and the reformed social. If Prasad sees articulations of socio-political ideologies behind the heterogeneous format of popular Hindi films, Ravi Vasudevan persuades us that this heterogeneity is a marker of the multiple discourses that films have to offer: The persistence of the disaggregated, heterogeneous dimensions of this narrative form, a heterogeneity defined not only by a loose assemblage of attractions – action, comedy, romance – but also by the sense that the world of the fiction is not singular and may be articulated through different sites, styles and discursive forms, ranging from the comedic to the socially pedagogic or allegorical. (2010: 39) Vasudevan is one of the first Indian film scholars to elaborate on the importance of melodrama in Indian films. Rather than focussing on the influence of extradiegetic elements in shaping the narrative, he instead explores the melodrama as a site of transgressive problematisation of socio-political issues not accessible to the realist genre of filmmaking in India: Undertake a narrative and performative operation which allows for forbidden, transgressives spaces to be opened. . . . Often very important to this operation of transgression and denial is the manipulation of knowledge within the narrative. . . . These gaps in knowledge in the fiction (misrecognition, misunderstanding in the relation between characters) effect vertiginious displacements in the narrative. Spaces are created – of misrecognition, of displacement of that of which would be if knowledge were full. It is these spaces that characters enter in order to work out their transgressive functions. (Vasudevan 1989: 39) 10

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This is generally achieved through acts of wish-fulfilment by the character/s concerned. Thus, while critics of melodrama see it as a loose, fragmented type of cinema, which more often than not serves as opium for unsuspecting masses, Vasudevan shows that it is a highly organised and intelligible genre that can sometimes challenge the hegemony of the heteronormative patriarchal institutions of the establishment. However, it is important to know that the melodrama produced in Indian cinema is vastly different from its Western counterparts: ‘Indian film melodramas deploy a creatively invigorating interplay among western form, classical Indian theatre, folk plays, and the more modern Parsi theatre . . . one has to understand the significance of such sedimentations’ (Dissanayake 1993: 5). Lalitha Gopalan locates two major interruptions unique to Indian melodrama – song and dance sequences within the narrative and the intermission during film screenings in cinema theatres – as sites of negotiations between the Eastern and the Western filmic traditions. Terming these interruptions as ‘constellations of interruptions’, she argues: Both song and dance sequences and the interval attune us to their structural function in popular Indian films, particularly their play on spatial and temporal disjunctions. Their articulation in specific texts highlights how films imbibe both global and local conventions: genre films adjust to song and dance sequences, and the interval doubles the structuring of anticipation and pleasure found in genre films. (Gopalan 2002: 20) Ashish Rajadhyaksha explores possibilities of synthesising the realist and the melodrama modes of cinematic productions in India: ‘for a great deal of narrative cinema, realism is the theory, melodrama the practice’ (2009: 41). Melodrama examines the existence of what he calls the ‘marginal data’ that lies on the periphery of realism but remains inaccessible to the critical conventions of realism. This marginal data records multiple histories of subalternity in society – whether this is of refugee narratives or non-heteronormative sexualities. According to him, ‘All of this collectively contextualizes celluloid technology’s self-nomination as a full-fledged apparatus for social organisation’ (ibid.: 43).

Brief overview of academic scholarship on horror films A good corpus of academic work on Western horror films generated by Western writers/theorists exists, and it offers many useful points of 11

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departure in this project. Studies have largely centred on psychoanalysis, cognitivism, postmodernism and queer schools of thought.

Psychoanalysis and horror films Psychoanalysis undoubtedly has been one of the most thriving modes of exploring horror films. Limiting herself to American horror films from 1970s to mid-1980s, Carol J. Clover produces exhaustive readings of how the low-budget and yet very popular genre of independent horror films permit feminist readings in the narrative. Her perspicacious hypothesis of the ‘final girl’ in most American slasher films of that period posits the figure of this ‘female victim-hero’ as boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine – not, in any case, feminine in the ways of her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from the other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself. (Clover 1992: 40) Clover argues that an average adolescent male viewer is, perhaps, able to identify with this character without feeling threatened off with regard to his own male competence and sexuality. This in turn leads him to emotionally identify, howsoever temporarily, with the ‘final girl’s’ fear, suffering and pain, and eventually with her relief in the end when she finally manages to kill the killer. Where Clover examines subcategories within the general rubric of horror, Barbara Creed looks for psychoanalytical explanations for the relevance of horror films to Western societies. Creed uses Julia Kristeva’s conceptualisation of the ‘abject’ to show why horror films can be seen as examples of ‘abjection’. Kristeva defines ‘abjection’ as something which does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules’, that which ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (Kristeva 1982: 4). Creed theorises the representation of the woman as monstrous in horror films as a modern defilement rite which ensues the purification of the abject for both the protagonists on-screen and the audience watching those films. She presents a detailed analysis of several horror films tracing the representation of monstrous femininity through five basic manifestations: the archaic mother, the monstrous womb, the witch, the vampire and the possessed woman. She argues that whenever women are represented as monstrous in horror films, it is almost always in relation to their maternal and reproductive functions (Creed 1993). 12

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The cognitivist approach to horror films The cognitivist school of thought furnishes another viable mode of exploring horror films. Noël Carroll, for example, argues that while people are afraid of natural horror, they are not averse to the ‘art-horror’ commonly produced in horror films. At least some people seem to experience profound joy in watching these films. He describes art-horror as the emotive response that works of the horror genre are designed to elicit from audiences. He argues that this emotional state consisting of physical and cognitive components is occurrent in nature rather than a dispositional one. He elaborates: Assume that ‘I-as-audience-member’ am in an analogous emotional state to that which fictional characters beset by monsters are described to be in, then: I am occurently art-horrified by some monster X, say Dracula, if and only, if 1) I am in some state of abnormal physically felt agitation (shuddering, tinkling, screaming, etc.) which 2) has been caused by a) the thought: that Dracula is a possible being; and by the evaluative thoughts: that b) said Dracula has the property of being physically (and perhaps morally and socially) threatening in the ways portrayed in the fiction and that c) said Dracula has the property of being impure, where 3) such thoughts are usually accompanied by the desire to avoid the touch of things like Dracula. (Carroll 1990: 27) Drawing on the work of anthropologist and cultural theorist Mary Douglas, who in her highly acclaimed book Purity and Danger shows that society terms those things interstitial that transgress cultural categorisation – thus a creature like a lobster would be considered impure since it crawls even though it resides in the sea, crawling being an attribute generally associated with earthbound creatures and so the lobster ‘others’ itself with its ability to crawl (Douglas 1966) – Carroll notes that most monsters in horror films like ghosts, zombies and vampires are also categorically impure because they are both living as well as dead. The horror film audience finds it thrilling to decode mysteries about these ‘impure’ or ‘interstitial’ monsters along with the other characters within the narrative: herein lies the source of the paradoxical pleasure of horror films. Torben Grodal expands Carroll’s prescribed cognitive approach to horror films from the ‘interstitial’ monster to human autonomy itself. Grodal argues that the paradoxical enjoyment in watching horror films arises out 13

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of certain situational insights where the characters within the narrative fight for their freedom in the face of invading evil forces. This fight mirrors the viewer’s own struggle to assert his autonomy in the outside world which might be challenged by repressive forces in different manifestations. Distinguishing the horror genre from its close cousin, the suspense genre, he observes: Often horror fiction also deals with cognitive control, but, whereas the motivation in detection fiction is primarily cognitive gratification, in horror fiction the effort to get cognitive control is mostly derived from a motivation to maintain personal body and mind autonomy, which is under severe attack from uncontrollable phenomena. (Grodal 1999: 236) This cognitive control is achieved in a high-stakes battle where several empirical knowledge-based models clash within the viewer’s mind. The battle is primarily between rationalist and non-rationalist forces. The intensity of the battle differs, depending on whether the film is a thriller or horror, leading to degrees of what Grodal calls as ‘cognitive dissonance’. Cynthia A. Freeland adapts the cognitivist approach to horror films to a feminist point of view. She reads horror films as an assemblage of various disturbing questions about patriarchal society and the manner in which it runs its gender hegemony in and through institutions such as religion, science, the law and the nuclear family. Sigmund Freud defines ‘uncanny’ as something familiar yet foreign at the same time: ‘for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression’ (Freud 1955: 240). Freeland relates this to the Kantian notion of the ‘sublime’, finding similarity in the intense inner psychological conflicts within both. Immanuel Kant describes the sublime as something so vast and infinite that compels our mental faculties to be divided, on one hand overwhelmed with awe, and at the same time exalted with the experience of such vastness: For the sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be contained in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason, which, although no adequate presentation of them is possible, may be excited and called into the mind by that very inadequacy itself which does not admit of sensuous presentation. (Kant 1957: 41) 14

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However, she points out the difference between the two: while the sublime exhilarates, the uncanny threatens. Freeland therefore likens the uncanny to what she calls the ‘anti-sublime’: By contrast, the forces of the uncanny dwarf us in a way that simply threatens a dissolution of the self, meaning and morality. The uncanny as an antisublime involves the opposite outcome of these paradoxes or a failure to disarm them: We cannot adequately conceptualize a representation, we lose our sense of self, we are frightened by something unexplained, and we feel the loss of morality or death of the self in the face of a very great evil. (Freeland 2000: 37) She thus explores horror films as sites of the crises (dissolution) of stereotyped masculinities.

Postmodernist cultural readings of horror films Horror films have also been explored in relation to contemporary sociopolitical and -cultural events, developments and crises in society. David J. Skal examines American horror films through the cultural history of America, locating, for example, the origin of 1950s horror films to the different crises that America was undergoing during that decade. Americans were still recuperating from the global hazards caused by the Second World War, including the threats attendant upon nuclear armament and bombings, besides anxieties related to UFOs. Skal argues that all of these led to the rise of not only horror films but also horror comics: Most Americans found it easier not to face invasion/annihilation anxieties directly; they found indirect expression in McCarthyism, UFO hysteria, and, perhaps most pointedly, in the popular medium of lurid and sensational comic books that had been growing steadily in circulation since the end of World War II. (Skal 1993: 230) Monsters of the 1950s, he adds, personified the gigantic monstrous nature of the atomic bomb as well as the Cold War. He also focusses on the role of television and media in that decade. According to him, the growth of the media, specifically television, had led to increase in mental trauma among those exposed to the first commercialised television screenings (in the early 1950s). Skal makes parallels between this trauma and the growing depiction of the bulging eyes and brains in the horror films of those times. 15

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Isabel Cristina Pinedo explores the contemporary horror film from a postmodernist perspective. The postmodern world for her is an unstable one in which traditional (dichotomous) categories break down, boundaries blur, institutions fall into question, Enlightenment narratives collapse, the inevitability of progress crumbles, and the master status of the universal (read male, white, moneyed, heterosexual) subject deteriorates. Consensus in the possibility of mastery is lost, universalizing grand theory is discredited, and the stable, unified, coherent self acquires the status of a fiction. (Pinedo 1997: 11) She attempts to locate horror films within the social universe of this contemporary world. Asking why these films are popular, Pinedo wonders how, if as correctly pointed out by several critics that horror films are full of violence, this genre has such a huge fan base. She likens the experience of watching horror films to that of a roller-coaster ride where the riders are assured of a safe exit and this permits them to have a simulated experience of the thrills associated with danger. This according to her is a form of ‘recreational terror’ which provides the framework that allows viewers to pleasurably submit to the tension and fear provoked by the highly conventionalized spectacle of violence . . . fans derive pleasure from the genre’s rehearsal of the fear of injury and death in a world where safety is, in every sense of the term, a fiction. (ibid.: 134) This recreational terror works through the dialectic of ‘showing’ and ‘not showing’, ‘seeing’ and ‘not seeing’. For example, the audience has a choice of seeing or not seeing a dreadful scene. Similarly, through the solitary reaction shot and the unclaimed point-of-view shot, when the scene concentrates on the victim’s terrified reactions, the terror in the form of the monster/ supernatural is not shown. Instances like these give ample opportunity to the viewer to claw back into the protection zone of simulated action.

Horror films and the critique of heteronormativity An important, yet often neglected area of scholastic exploration is queer readings of horror films. Robin Wood was one of the first film scholars to study horror films as examples of aesthetic presentation of ‘othered’, often ‘repressed’ sexualities, including LGBT ones. Horror films present 16

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an alternative to the tightly knit patriarchal ideologue of heterosexuality through their depiction of variant sexualities. Talking about bisexuality, Wood observes: Bisexuality represents the most obvious and direct affront to the principal of monogamy and its supportive romantic myth of ‘one right person’; the homosexual impulse in both men and women represents the most obvious threat to the norm of sexuality as reproductive and restricted by the ideal of family. (Wood 2002: 26) He locates repressed homosexuality overtones behind the construction of monsters in old horror films and interprets them as potent critiques of the bourgeois-capitalist ideology of masculinities and femininities based on the biological sexual differentiation. Bonnie Zimmerman articulates the first proper analysis of the theme of lesbianism in vampire films. She constructs a brief filmography of lesbian vampire films since the release of Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932). She argues that most of these films project stereotypes about lesbians: ‘lesbianism is sterile and morbid; lesbians are rich, decadent women who seduce the young and powerless’ (Zimmerman 1996: 381). In fact, so strong has been the cultural policing that Dreyer’s Vampyr – based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (2000), a novella which recounts the story of the countess Milarca Karnstein living eternally by vampirising young girls – has no traces of lesbianism left in the film’s narrative. Then, some films, which do explore lesbianism, do so more from the class perspective rather than in terms of sexual inclination. The post-1970s female vampire film, Zimmerman argues, moved beyond the standard treatment of the lesbian theme: while some stereotypes were still present, newer thematic developments were streaming out too. She notes that the post-1970s vampire films too had their share of problems. For example, most of these films, in their own way, manifest stereotypical notions of lesbians as narcissists captivated in love with their own image. She also locates a disturbing trend of linking violence with sex in most lesbian vampire films after the 1970s. Harry M. Benshoff argues that the horror film is the most fertile territory for the development of non-normative queer sexualities. He notes that there is a tendency to read those films as gay or lesbian that are either written, produced or directed by gay or lesbian personalities even though there might not be any overt queer plot in the film. This approach, though not without its limitations, cannot be underrated as cinematic authorship forms an integral part of film appreciation. The films of James Whale and Ed Wood gain importance in this regard. He further points out that ‘a 17

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variation in the homo-horror auteur approach is that in which a gay or lesbian film star (whether “actually” homosexual or culturally perceived as such) brings his/her persona to a horror film’ (Benshoff 1997: 14). Thus, actors like Eric Blore, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Walker, George Sander, Judith Anderson and Greta Garbo have often been regarded as cultural icons of queer sexualities. He also points out that different films over the ages have portrayed queer sexualities at the subtextual or connotative level. This has been the most popular presentation of marginalised sexualities in almost all film genres starting from film noir to action films. The horror film is no exception. At one level, one can argue that such presentations help in institutionalising heteronormative hierarchy over subaltern sexualities. But on the other hand, it becomes the most viable mode of giving voice to the queer community without inviting state hostility. Benshoff describes it as the most important exploration of horror films from the LGBT perspective. This approach moves beyond the canonical straight readings of the horror film to elicit multiple sites of queerness located within them.

The Indian context Horror has long been one of the most obscure genres of Indian cinema in terms of scholarly studies. But happily, this situation is now changing, and there is a growing body of serious scholarship on horror cinema from India. And yet, most of these academic works is largely limited to the study of Hindi horror films. In one of the very early mentions of Indian horror films in global scholarship, Peter Tombs explores the lack of critical recognition of Indian horror film: The problem in many ways lies with the term ‘horror’ itself. In India the word carries so much baggage. To bring up the subject in film circles is almost the same as announcing that you are a half-wit. It just isn’t taken seriously. It conjures up images of bad acting, lumpy faced monsters, wind machines, and the producer’s girlfriend in a bikini. It is the equivalent of the term ‘Z movie,’ and carries all the same negative connotations. (Tombs 2003: 253–4) Most of the early scholarship on Indian horror revolved primarily around Ramsay horror films. Attempts have been made to relate these films to the existing socio-economic conditions: ‘The political turmoil and the economic changes at the end of the 1980s created a specific platform for fears and anxieties that were articulated through the deformed monsters of the western gothic tradition’ (Valanciunas 2011: 47). It has also been shown how 18

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these horror films can be read as historical material – as a moment of Indian history when the vacuum left open by the collapse of the ground upon which the Congress as the ideological core of modern, secular India had built its legitimacy was being filled by the certainties of regressive and religious ideologies. The Ramsay’s films took off, and borrowed unashamedly from these discourses, as they did from a range of other sources. (Vitali 2011: 96) Fighting against the big banner productions throughout the 1970s and 1980s, ‘the Ramsay Brothers were seen as holding out against the industry’s march to cultural legitimacy, the profane icons of an imagined attack from below on abstract ideas of white-collar respectability, aesthetic accomplishment, and economic transparency’ (K. Nair 2012: 139). My own research on Ramsay films explores ‘how these low-budget, intellectually discredited films depict marginalised and forbidden issues of non-normative sexualities such as necrophilia and incest’ (Dhusiya 2014b: 175). Interesting research has emerged with respect to ‘Bollywood’s recent romance with the horror genre especially in terms of the figuration of nuclear families, children and teenagers’ (Sen 2011: 197). It has been argued that the ‘centrality of the couple to the emergence of New Bollywood cinema is perhaps most sharply illustrated by the way horror films were reinvented at the beginning of the nineties’ (Gopal 2012: 91). It has also been demonstrated that the Hindi horror genre ‘reveals three major strands with varying forms of narration and style: the secular conscious, the traditional-cultural, and the Hindutva ideologic, each corresponding to the way the nation has been imagined at various times’ (Mubarki 2016: 44). But while they have offered very interesting and persuasive accounts of various facets of Hindi horror films, a serious comparative study of the horror film produced in various Indian languages has yet to emerge. Indian horror films, with the many unsuspected transgressive and subversive potentials they carry, however, deserve fulllength study, and this book proposes to take up this task in a concerted way.

Indian horror films However, for the purposes of my book, I would like to limit myself to those Indian films which depict exclusively, at length, the fear of unknown, supernatural elements, occult elements, communication with the spirits of the deceased, reincarnation, figures of vampires and zombies and other similar transmutations of human beings into non-human forms like werewolves. That is rather than pursue elements of horror in general within films, I concentrate on those Indian films that make it their 19

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primary business to generate horripilation in their audiences. This would also include such films which portray, to borrow a term from Tzevetan Todorov, the ‘uncanny’. While elucidating the ‘fantastic’ in some works of literary fiction, Todorov calls those moments fantastic when character/s and, thus, the reader are genuinely puzzled about the occurrence of some events in the narrative that belie the laws of the familiar world, bordering instead on the supernatural. He describes all such narratives which end with the acceptance of the supernatural as ‘fantastic-marvellous’. He uses the term ‘uncanny’ to explain all such narratives which do not end with the supernatural as a resolution. [Instead,] events are related which may be readily accounted for by the laws of reason, but which are, in one way or the another, incredible, extraordinary, shocking, singular, disturbing or unexpected, and which thereby provoke in the character and in the reader a reaction similar to that which works of the fantastic have made familiar. (Todorov 1975: 46) Thus, in some narratives, we see such characters in the end realise that either they had gone mad or they have just woken up from sleep. Such occurrences are also applicable to some of the film narratives which are promoted as ‘thriller’ or ‘mystery-suspense’ films by the industry. Though Todorov describes the generic formulations for literary work, yet some of his conceptualisations are also significant for some film narratives which I seek to employ for a detailed study of such films. The existing body of critical work both in the Western and the Indian film scholarship would find resonance in my book. Besides, I of course further my analysis of these primary texts with any other theoretical or creative output that is relevant or pertinent. This research balances theoretical generalisations with close readings of films and discussion of figures associated with the horror genre. I focus on the narrative, point of view, plot construction, setting and other technical and formal features such as editing, lighting, sound and costumes that play an instrumental role in shaping and defining gender within the film. By Indian cinema, I focus in the main upon films in Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, in most of which a significant corpus worthy of closer analysis exists. The Oxford English Dictionary defines horror as ‘an intense feeling of fear, shock or disgust’. Etymologically, the word ‘horror’ can be traced back to the Middle English horrour or the Latin horrere or the twelfth-century French word horreur. In Latin, the word horrere means to ‘bristle; shudder; dread; shrink from’. The French word horreur signifies ‘awful; loathing’. In Sanskrit, the word harsate meaning ‘bristles’ bears a close resemblance to 20

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horror, while bhibatsa more generally signified the horrific; while in Hindi, the corresponding words are darr and vibhishika, in Malayalam bhayankarathwam, in Telugu bhayamu and in Bangla atankajanita kampan. The term ‘monstrous’ in the title of this book, The Indian Horror Cinema: (En)gendering the Monstrous, carries with it a host of associations including evil, ugliness, viciousness, wickedness, hate, the horrible, the dreadful, the brutal and the cruel, besides dislike, apprehension or even abnormality. The phrase ‘engendering the monstrous’, seen in this light, would signify the creation of the horrific effects of the monstrous within the horror film. However, I tap another meaning that engendering suggests by my use of parenthesis: (en)gendering can work as a mode of interrogation to examine the grammar of the sexual and gendered politics that the evocation and production of the monstrous in Indian horror films is underwritten by. The engendering, that is the production, of the monstrous in the horror film can be interrogated to better study the potent agential role that (en)gendering, that is the normalisation or routinisation of gendered identities, has to impart and impose a set of values that creates and conditions our perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards the target object/s the monstrosities of the films signify. I propose that in Indian horror films, this normalisation of gender emerges as a major force to reckon with as the plot gains impetus from the focalisation of this agency through a monster (actual or psychological). This book explores how different constitutive processes operating within a community – social, political, economic, religious, psychological and cultural – act through this agential monstrosity, so that it manifests itself finally in the construction of ‘normal’ femininities and masculinities. These hegemonic femininities and masculinities, in turn, resist the growth of alternative gender and sexuality discourses. In this sense, the adjective monstrous is not passive but active. It actively genders the sensibilities of the characters within the film, the production cast and crew as well as the intended audience.

The Indian horror film industries Hindi horror The late 1940s–1960s, often considered as the golden period of Hindi cinematic history, saw the release of some unforgettable horror films like Mahal, Bees Saal Baad (dir. Biren Nag, 1962) and Gumnaam (dir. Raja Nawathe, 1965). While Bees Saal Baad portrays the uncanny, Gumnaam was the first instance of slasher films in Indian cinema. The next wave of Hindi horror films surfaced in the mid-1970s with Rajkumar Kohli’s Nagin (1976) and Jaani Dushman based on human-to-animal transformation themes. This decade, along with the next, records a prolific number 21

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of horror films produced in Hindi. This was the time when foreign horror films started circulating in the Indian market. Films like Jadu Tona (dir. Ravikant Nagaich, 1977) and Gehrayee (dir. Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje, 1980) were heavily inspired from The Exorcist and other possession films. It was also the time of the Ramsay Brothers productions which so strongly dominated Hindi horror industry that most people even today identify Indian horror films through Ramsay films. They defined the Bollywood B movie genre with films like Sannata (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1981), Purana Mandir (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1984) and Veerana (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1988). A typical Ramsay film would be a low-budget, mediocre star-cast vampire/monster fare drawing heavily upon Hollywood and other European horror film conventions, with the rural hinterland of India as its target audience. Due to relatively low cost of productions, these films would not only be able to recover their expenditure quickly, but also make profit at the same time. They were never a part of mainstream Hindi cinema, with their focus primarily on the B-category audience. Mohan Bhakri and Kanti Shah directed C-grade horror films also flooded the market during the 1980s and 1990s. These films dished out a mix of horror and soft-core porn films. The 1990s witnessed efforts made by the film industry to make horror a part of mainstream Hindi cinema. Ram Gopal Varma’s Raat (1992) and Mahesh Bhatt’s Junoon (1992) point towards this direction. While Raat was a possession film, Junoon belonged to the category of werewolf films. Unfortunately, horror films could not make sufficient inroads in the decade that was dominated by family-centric romantic films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. . . ! (dir. Sooraj R. Barjatya, 1994) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (dir. Aditya Chopra, 1995) in the early half and gangster films like Satya (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1998) in the later half. The 2000s brought joy to horror film lovers, as many films like Raaz (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2002), Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003), Darna Mana Hai (dir. Prawaal Raman, 2003) and Darna Zaroori Hai (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, Sajid Khan, Prawaal Raman, Jiji Philip, Manish Gupta and J.D. Chakravarthy, 2006) made good profits in the mainstream Hindi film market. Of late, with films like Go Goa Gone (dir. Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., 2013), Ragini MMS 2 (dir. Bhushan Patel, 2014) and 1920 London (dir. Tinu Suresh Desai, 2016), Hindi horror films are perhaps enjoying their best phase with a prolific number flooding the market each year.

Malayalam horror The Malayalam film industry is the second largest horror film producing market in India after the Hindi film industry. Ranging from moderate 22

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to big productions, Malayalam horror films have managed to attract big names like Prem Nazir, Madhu, Kamal Hassan, Mohanlal, Mammootty, Suresh Gopi and Jayaram over the years. Bhargavi Nilayam is generally regarded as the first Malayalam horror film. The film starred Prem Nazir and Madhu, two all-time big stars of Malayalam cinema. It was also the debut film of A. Vincent, who was to become one of the most popular cinematographers and directors of both Malayalam and Hindi films. Literature played a major role in the evolution of Malayalam cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Bhargavi Nilayam was adapted from a collage of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer’s writings, primarily his short story ‘Neela Velicham’. The film depicts a compassionate relationship between a talented novelist and the spirit of a beautiful lady who had been murdered. The novelist is writing the story of this lady, into whose house he has moved in as tenant. The film mirrors in a meta-cinematic fashion the close and often symbiotic relationships between Malayalam filmmakers and writers in depicting a writer at work, collaborating with an intangible agency in the form of the eponymous Bhargavi. The late 1970s saw the rise of horror films like Lisa (dir. Baby, 1978), Vayanadan Thampan (dir. A. Vincent, 1978) and Kalliyankattu Neeli (dir. M. Krishnan Nair, 1979), which were based on ancient myths and folklores of Kerala. The decade of the 1970s is considered to be the decade of modernity in Malayalam cinema with the division between the ‘art’ (kala) and the ‘popular’ (kachavada) cinema, conveniently the binary of ‘high’ and ‘low’ films, becoming explicit in market terms. Horror films like Vayanadan Thampan and Kalliyankattu Neeli cut across these different categorisations as they utilise the vast richness of Malayali folklores and myths to interpret the workings of the modern mind. Taking several contemporary European and American treatments of the horror genre as precedent, these films combine horror and melodrama to explore the subterranean desires of human psyche. In the 1980s, Malayalam horror films began exploring the occult and tantric practices of Kerala. Thus, Mohanlal in Sreekrishna Parunthu (dir. A. Vincent, 1984) and Mammootty in Adharvam (dir. Dennis Joseph, 1989) lent their superstar charm to cinematic explorations of these mystic tantric rituals. The focus of these films would inevitably be the male protagonist. But this was nothing new in the history of Malayalam films as P.K. Nair rightly questions the paucity of women-oriented films in Malayalam cinema: ‘Where are the women’s films?’ (Nair 2010: 36). It has been pointed out that Femininity is also marked by its isolation from its own gender, especially in the last three decades of Malayalam cinema, which has seen a gradual diminishment in the roles given to female 23

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protagonists, a diminishment that may be said to have begun in the 1970s. Through the last three decades in particular, Malayalam cinema has proved to be stringently conservative in its representations of femininity, belying its reputation for radicalism among regional cinemas. (Rajendran 2015: 23) Jenny Rowena observes that these films are very much steeped in normative enough masculinities in their denial of space for the representation of femininities: The non-hegemonic male grouping avoided the path to real and radical change, choosing instead to create a cinema to play out their own masculinities – to become kings without crowns. Thus was born a cinema saturated with aggressive masculine values, inspiring non-hegemonic male locations to obsessively seek the same male identities that culture denied them. (2010: 148) In contrast, horror films of the 1990s like Manichitrathazhu (dir. Fazil, 1993) and Ennu Swantham Janakikutty (dir. T. Hariharan, 1998) provide ample scope for wider representations of feminine subjectivities. These films depict a sensitive portrayal of feminine protagonists – a trend that continues even in the 2000s with the exploration of female adolescence in films like Kana Kanmani (dir. Akku Akbar, 2009) and Winter (dir. Deepu Karunakaran, 2009). ‘Horror narratives can expose the patriarchal male hegemonic discourse of demonising female sexuality’ (Nair 2013). Recent horror film made in Malayalam has tended to experiment with its form – the portmanteau film in Kerala Cafe (dir. Lal Jose, 2009), comedy in In Ghost House Inn (dir. Lal, 2010) or the 3D digital technology in Dracula 3D (dir. Vinayan, 2012) – hitherto unseen in the history of Malayalam horror cinema.

Bangla horror Horror films have never been a very popular genre with the Bengali film industry. But what makes the exploration of these films such a rewarding experience is the fact that some of the best brains behind the rise of the modern Bengali literature and films like Premendra Mitra, Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha were involved in the making of these films. Mitra wrote and directed Hanabari (1952), Ray directed Teen Kanya (1961; a collection of three short films, one of which, Monihara, has elements of horror) and 24

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Sinha directed Khudito Pashan (1960). It is significant to note however that none of these films were promoted as horror films. Yet, it would be very unfair not to read these films as examples of the horror genre as they incorporate legibly the components of a typical horror film. Then Bengali horror films also help in identifying certain key phases that define the metahistory of Bengali cinema. One such phase is the time when Kankal (dir. Naresh Mitra, 1950) was released. It was the first horror film released in the Bengali language. It was also the first time in the history of Indian cinema that one saw the skeleton of a dead woman in a non-mythological setting coming to life and killing a human protagonist. This was a difficult period for the Bengali film industry. The advent of talkie cinema had proved to be more of a bane than boon for Bengali films as they started losing out on the pan-Indian audience. For some years, the industry kept churning out films in both Bengali and Hindi, and sometimes also in Tamil and Telugu. But the 1940s proved to be a very turbulent phase with mass exodus of skilled artists and technicians to the more lucrative offers of the rapidly prospering Bombay. In fact, this trend started in the 1930s itself: Thus in this race of business superiority, Bombay may maintain its lead over Bengal for some time to come, unless Bengal is up and doing to keep its best artists and talented technicians from off the grip of the Bombay producers . . . Bombay studios know the marketing of the films all over India, much better than the Calcutta studios. Excepting the New Theatres, whose publicity organisation is much more perfect than any other studio of India, all the other Calcutta studios suffer very seriously from improper publicity organisation and the exploitation side of the films is practically at nil compared to the Bombay studios. (Ghose 1993: 41) Kankal was the product of experimentation with the contemporary form of the film by an industry that was eager to come out of this troubled phase. This film moves beyond the rigid generic classifications as it combines melodrama with horror. Another film which reflects this experimentation is Mitra’s Hanabari. Originally written as a crime-suspense detective thriller, the film can arguably be seen as the precursor of the werewolf-themed horror film in India. The period stretching from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s is generally considered to be the golden period in the history of Bengali cinema. Suchitra Sen and Uttam Kumar were undoubtedly one of the most successful leading couples in the history of Indian cinema. In film after film, this iconic film duo took Bengali melodrama to newer heights altogether. In 25

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fact, they ceased to be mere on-screen performers and instead became cultural icons of the Bengali society: In its historical context, the romantic mystery of the SuchitraUttam starrers presented a fictional resolution to the crisis of the Bengali striving to be a middle class, i.e., trying to survive in an urban context with a rural past still alive in memory and in a network of social relations. (Nag 1998: 780) This was also the time when people like Ray and Sinha established newer paradigms for Bengali as well as pan-Indian cinema aesthetics. This rural– urban interconnection that Dulali Nag talks about is also explored through the realist non-melodrama modes of Ray and Sinha films. For example, Sinha’s Khudito Pashan depicts the story of a city-bred tax collector who is shifted to a rural area where he encounters the ghost of a beautiful lady in a haunted mansion. Horror in this case becomes the focal point of interaction between rural and urban discourses of habitation. Ray’s Teen Kanya examines the gender equations of those times in a way that is very different from the mainstream portrayal of love in Suchitra–Uttam starrers. Horror becomes the centre of attention as Monihara oscillates between assertion of feminine independence and crises of masculinities. Tarun Majumdar’s Kuheli (1971) foregrounds the role of the female protagonist who uncovers the murder mystery in the film through the presentation of the uncanny. Bengali films in the 1980s and 1990s, with few exceptions here and there, plunged into an all-time low with considerable degradation of cinematic aesthetics. Most of the big stars and performers of yesteryear had either died or retired from active participation in the industry. The new upcoming stars were no match for their illustrious predecessors. Some very able film personalities like Goutam Ghosh, Rituparno Ghosh and Aparna Sen were making meaningful cinema but had to contend with the deluge of Bengali films modelling themselves on the styles of Bombay films. (Biswas 2013) In fact, so fierce was the competition from Bombay that Bengali cinema had to find newer territories: With Calcutta’s middle-class favouring hindi films, or turning away from the film theatres to television, the industry was beginning to 26

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look at other audiences for its primary viewership. In this period, therefore, the industry reached out to the lesser sectors of the film market, and aggressively targeted the rural hinterland. (Gooptu 2010: 265) Horror films like Karoti (dir. Ajoy Banerjee, 1988) and Nishi Trishna (dir. Parimal Bhattacharya, 1989) produced during these turbulent types were overtly sexualised in their depiction of horrific themes and styles. Nishi Trishna, for example, introduces the figure of Dracula to Bengali cinema. One can see Bengali horror films now beginning to be heavily influenced with Hindi and foreign horror productions – a trend that continues even in the 2000s. Films like Raat Barota Paanch (dir. Saran Dutta, 2005) continue with this aesthetic commoditisation of sex and horror. Of late, Bengali theatres have seen some aesthetically pleasing and commercially successful horror films like Bhooter Bhabishyat (dir. Anik Dutta, 2012) and Goynar Baksho (dir. Aparna Sen, 2013).

Marathi horror Marathi cinema had pioneered the art of filmmaking and film production in the pre-independent India. However, the Marathi film industry arguably took a beating with the emergence of films produced in Hindi/Urdu dialects post-independence. This resulted into many filmmakers leaving Marathi films to make Hindi films. Marathi film industry never recovered after that. Further, in the 1960s, the Maharashtra government exempted stage plays from entertainment tax: ‘With the tax-exemptions on stage shows, the Marathi films lost the patronage of the educated middle class, which thronged to see new plays while the urban mass audience preferred Eastmancolor Hindi films to black and white Marathi films’ (Sathe 1985: 432). Erosion in the numbers of films produced in Marathi had a direct adverse impact in the development of Marathi horror. The producers, actors and everybody else associated with Marathi filmmaking did not want to take undue risk with the horror genre. Instead, they kept on churning films in the tried-and-tested formulae of the social and the mythological. Thus, it is no surprise that when we explore the early years of Marathi cinematic history after the independence, only two horror films come to mind: Vahininchya Bangdya (dir. Shantaram Athavle, 1953) and Pathlag (dir. Raja Paranjpe, 1964). Rural Maharashtra emerged as the primary target audience of the post-independence Marathi cinema (P. Nair 2012). The films began to idealise rural life and focussed on the recreational aspects of the villagers. One of the offshoots of such a phenomenon was the development of the sub-genre of horror-comedy. Horror films like Ha Khel Savalyancha (dir. 27

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Vasant Joglekar, 1976) are deeply rooted in the village life of Maharashtra. As a result of the development of the new-wave cinema, one sees Mani Kaul experimenting with horror in Duvidha (1973), which later inspired Amol Palekar with his Hindi production Paheli (2005). A series of horror films in 1980s onwards like Ek Daav Bhutacha (dir. Ravi Namade, 1982) and Bhutacha Bhau (dir. Sachin, 1989) articulate their socio-political critique of contemporary Maharashtrian life through comedy sometimes bordering on the slapstick. Most of these films replicate on-screen the dramatic conventions of tamasha theatre with the compulsory lavani songs providing the erotic component. Lavani is a traditional folk dance and song performed by women to the enchanting beats of a dholak. It originated in Maharashtra and southern Madhya Pradesh in the mid-sixteenth century. The erotic element in lavani besides being a socio-political critique is also meant to empower voices of femininity as G.M. Pawar observes: The main subject matter of the Lavani is the love between man and woman in various forms. Married wife’s menstruation, sexual union between husband and wife, their love, soldier’s amorous exploits, the wife’s bidding farewell to the husband who is going to join the war, pangs of separation, adulterous love – the intensity of adulterous passion, childbirth: these are all different themes of the Lavani (sic). The Lavani poet out-steps the limits of social decency and control when it comes to the depiction of sexual passion. (1997: 375) Films like Pachadlela facilitate new dimensions to lavani singers who are given prominent space in the narratives. Soundarya Jawalkar (Megha Ghatge), the main actress in the tamasha troupe in the film, plays the love interest of Bharat (Bharat Jadhav), one of the chief protagonists, who is prone to being possessed.

Tamil horror As with some film cultures in India, horror films are not self-evident categories in Tamil cinema. While Hindi, Malayalam and Marathi film industries have at least engaged with horror at some level in the early post-independence period, Tamil cinema does not have a long history of producing horror films. Though early folkloric films like Vedala Ulagam (dir. A.V. Meiyappan, 1948) can be considered to be precursors of the genre of horror, there were hardly any films till the late 1980s that could be classified as straight horror cinema. A few odd exceptions like Nenjam 28

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Marappathillai (dir. Sridhar, 1963) dealt with the theme of reincarnation, while films like Neeya (dir. Durai, 1979) were Tamil remakes of the Hindi films like Nagin. Several reasons could be attributed to this lack of horror production. According to Theodore Baskaran (2012), the horror genre works best when fear, the dominant emotion in most horror films, is maintained till the very end without the digression into the song-and-dance tropes that so strongly characterise Tamil cinema right from its inception. This is one reason why the Tamil film fraternity has generally been sceptical of this genre and avoided it. The Tamil film industry, unlike others, had always witnessed a heavy influx of direct participation of political ideas, political parties and political stars: ‘This melding of capital, artistry, ideology, technical expertise, and ethnic identity produced a powerful political product, one more specific and personal than its Bombay Hindi language counterpart could have afforded to make’ (Jacob 2010: 91). Since horror has always been an unpredictable genre in terms of popularity and commercial success, the Tamil film producers had traditionally been averse to make such risky ventures. More often than not, film stars who also had simultaneously flourishing political careers would also decline acting in horror films. A very crucial element in most Tamil films is the emphasis on the depiction of a particular type of masculinity: As for demonstrations of physical strength, the cinema permits and extols the strong. The powerful hero, single-handedly defeating numerous people, is again not an uncommon sequence to behold in Tamil cinema. . . . Physical prowess is intrinsically lined with masculinity. (Kalyanaraman 2010: 101) Further, this type of masculinity becomes a natural ally of the inexhaustible patriarchal dominion and patronage of the female characters in the narrative: ‘these stars cannot indulge in romance without maintaining, as a supplementary feature of their subjectivity, a paternal function which extends to all characters in the film, including the heroine’ (Prasad 2004: 108). Horror films, as this book shows, deconstruct the normative masculinity and in the process generates spaces for female autonomy, though not completely non-negotiated. Thus, most big male film stars, conscious of their appeal, would largely avoid doing horror films. However, things changed in the late 1980s–2000s when certain films like My Dear Lisa (dir. Baby, 1987), Uruvam (dir. G.M. Kumar, 1991), Sivi (dir. K.R. Senthil Nathan, 2007) and Eeram (dir. Arivazhagan Venkatachalam, 2009), more faithful to the genre, began addressing B-movie audiences. This seems to be very much a post-globalisation phenomenon: ‘Since the 1990s, with the 29

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liberalisation of the Indian economy and the rise of an Indian middle class, Tamil cinema has shifted its orientation towards tapping into the sensibilities and taste cultures of this new film audience’ (Velayutham 2008: 4). This explains to a large extent emergence and success of films like Yavarum Nalam (dir. Vikram Kumar, 2009). Some films were commercially very successful, while others sank without a trace.

Telugu horror Like Tamil cinema, Telugu cinema too does not boast of a long history of horror films though filmmakers like B. Vittalacharya and Yandamuri Veerendranath were dedicated to making fantasy, folkloric, mystical and horror films. Telugu cinema also has been dominated by political parties and political stars. As discussed above in the context of Tamil cinema, political stars would seldom take the risk of alienating public appeal and thus would largely steer away from horror films. In the 1960s and 1970s, Vittalacharya made films like Lakshmi Kataksham (1970) and Jaganmohini (1978) which were very popular especially with B-movie audiences, inaugurating a new trend in the Telugu film industry which up to that point had consistently churned out socials (Kanala 1986). In the 1980s and 1990s, Veerendranath wrote films like Kashmora (1986) as well as directed films such as Tulasi Dalam (1995) that revolved around the occult and the supernatural. These again were a hit with B-movie audiences: ‘Veerendranath was a prolific suspense and horror novel writer and had a mass following. This popularity and mass following readily translated into commercial success when films based on his writings were released’ (Akella 2012). But it will be useful to note over here that the big Telugu film stars still shied away from horror. The situation changed, not only for horror but also for the entire Telugu film industry, with the arrival of Ram Gopal Varma and Mani Rathnam. ‘Post-Varma and Mani Rathnam, we notice a more or less complete transition into genre films, even if these films display interesting degrees of difference from their equivalents in non-Indian Industries’ (Srinivas 2009: 191). Horror films benefitted greatly from this trend. The twenty-first century saw a flurry of commercially successful horror films like A Film by Aravind (dir. Shekhar Suri, 2005), Mantra (dir. Osho Tulasi Ram, 2007) and Arundhati (dir. Kodi Ramakrishnan, 2009). Telugu cinema can now boast of some serious production of films based on horror and suspense.

Kannada horror Kannada cinematic history has even more limited productions of horror films. The surviving records show that Kannada horror films can best be 30

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described as one-popular-film-each-decade phenomenon. If Naa Ninna Bidalaare (dir. Vijay, 1979) captured popular imagination at the very fag end of the 1970s, Tulasi Dala (dir. Vemagal Jagannath Rao, 1985) became the talk of the town in the mid-1980s. The Upendra Rao directed Shhh! (1993) was critically acclaimed in the 1990s and it started the trend of the suspense-thriller films in Kannada. The 2000s saw productions of horror films like Apthamitra (dir. P. Vasu, 2004) and Aptharakshaka (dir. P. Vasu, 2010) that won several Filmfare awards at the national level. M.K. Raghavendra (2011: 155–156) argues that most horror films in Kannada cinema focalise horror around issues of marriage and region. Thus, Naa Ninna Bidalaare depicts ‘threat to endogamy from the cosmopolitan city’. In Apthamitra, he continues, ‘there is an attempt to turn Telugu into an exotic yet threatening cultural object’. There have been more prolific productions of horror films in Kannada language in the 2010s as is evident with the release of films like Yaaradu? (dir. Srinivas Kaushik, 2012), Charulatha (dir. Pon Kumaran, 2012), 12 AM Madhyarathri (dir. Karthik, 2013) and 6–5=2 (dir. K.S. Ashoka and Swarna Latha, 2013). Though the number of horror films produced annually are few, it is to be seen relatively as Kannada film industry itself is quite small compared to the Hindi, Malayalam or Tamil film industries.

Typologies for Indian horror films This book classifies horror films in India into the following sub-genres: Possession/occult films: I use this term to include those horror films that depict the possession of protagonist/s by malevolent supernatural beings. Under their spell, the victim gains superhuman strength while showing distortions of facial structure and drastic changes in vocal intonation. The victim loses control over his/herself and starts wreaking havoc on people around. The victim is finally cured through elaborate rites of exorcism. Films like the Hindi Gehrayee and the Malayalam Veendum Lisa (dir. Baby, 1987) exemplify these characteristics. Sometimes, the supernatural being might not be malevolent at all, but merely uses the human body as a medium to extract revenge from its rapists/killers. Such films can also be regarded as rape-revenge horror films. Films like the Marathi Akalpit (dir. Sanjay Surkar, 2004) typify such a category. Then in some films like the Malayalam Tanthra (dir. K.J. Bose, 2006), different occult-related ritual practices and tantric mysteries are explored. The conflict between ‘white’ and ‘black’ magic becomes the focal point of such films. In Chapter 1, I argue that possession/occult horror 31

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films reveal how narratives of the exploitation of the body are fundamentally linked to the socio-political and -cultural structures of exploitation. In my exploration of the Hindi Gehrayee and Bhoot, the Malayalam Chemistry (dir. Viji Thampi, 2009), the Tamil Pillai Nila (dir. Manobala, 1985) and the Telugu Arundhati, I show how the masculinist economy of possession narratives violate the autonomy of both the female and ‘less’ normative masculinities. Vampire films: By ‘vampire films’, I mean those Indian films that borrow heavily from Western discourses of vampires, such as those embedded in the ‘Dracula’ story. Typically, the story in such films begins in an ancient mansion which is shown to be haunted by a vampire. As is usual with all vampire narratives, the vampire is asleep during the day and wakes up only at night. Basically, it is portrayed as a blood-thirsty monster that craves for the blood of young nubile girls and kills any male figures that try to pose obstacles. Films like the Bengali Nishi Trishna and the Hindi Purani Haveli (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1989) fit this category. It is important to note that although heavily influenced by Western vampire films, such films are nevertheless suitably wedded to Indian culture. In Chapter 2, I discuss the development of this sub-genre and study the Hindi Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1990), the Malayalam Vayanadan Thampan and Dracula 3D, and the Bangla Nishi Trishna. In the chapter, I show how the figure of the vampire can be read as signifiers of sociological and non-normative sexual anxieties. Animal transformation horror films: Unlike Western werewolf horror films which limit themselves to humans transforming into wolves and vice versa, Indian werewolf films incorporate transformation of human beings into other animal forms. Thus, Jaani Dushman shows the human protagonist getting transformed into a Godzilla-like figure. In the Telugu film Punnami Naagu (dir. Rajasekhar, 1980), Naagalu (Chiranjeevi) gets transformed into a snake every Punnami (i.e. full moon night). Mahesh Bhatt directed Junoon (1992) depicts the transformation of a human being into a tiger. This category of horror films draws its source from Indian folktales and folklores quite apart from the Western werewolf conventions. I organise the constituents of this sub-genre in Chapter 3 where I have made detailed discussion on Nagin, Nagina (dir. Harmesh Malhotra, 1986), Hisss (dir. Jennifer Lynch, 2010), Punnami Naagu, Jaani Dushman and Junoon. In the chapter, I have shown how human-to-animal transformation films can be categorised into man-to-animal and womanto-animal transformation films. I argue that while woman-to-animal 32

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transformation horror films articulate narratives of reciprocal gender negotiations, man-to-animal transformation horror films express crises of masculinities. Zombies and witches horror films: As the title suggests, this category belongs exclusively to witches and zombies. Of late, some Hindi films like Kaalo (dir. Wilson Louis, 2010) and Ragini MMS 2 have been portraying witches as supernatural agencies disrupting the normal existence of human beings. Though witches in minor roles have always been present in Indian horror films, their metamorphosis into central characters is something very new. Zombies too, hitherto unknown to Indian cinemas, play a major part in films like the Telugu Deyyam (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1996) and Go Goa Gone. In Chapter 4, I discuss the evolution of this sub-genre as I examine the Hindi Ragini MMS 2, Rise of the Zombie (dir. Luke Kenny and Devaki Singh, 2013), Go Goa Gone and Kaalo. In the chapter, I have shown how zombies and witches articulate the ‘excesses’ of the globalised modernity and these films very consciously critique the gendered stereotypes associated with these archetypal horror figures. Horror-comedy: This sub-genre of horror films belongs primarily to the Marathi film industry. Since the 1980s, Marathi cinema has been churning out this unique combination of comedy and horror. Films like Bhutacha Bhau and Pachadlela portray a good ghost trying to save a naive and honest protagonist from the clutches of worldly tyrants. Zapatlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 1993) inspired by the Hollywood ‘Chucky’ series shows the spirit of a notorious smuggler entering into a doll and causing mayhem around. Of late, Malayalam cinema has also produced its version of horror-comedy in the form of In Ghost House Inn. Chapter 5 elaborates on the development of this sub-genre through a discussion of Pachadlela, Zapatlela, the Tamil Kanchana: Muni 2 (dir. Raghava Lawrence, 2011), the Bangla Bhooter Bhabishyat and the Hindi Chamatkar (dir. Rajiv Mehra, 1992). The chapter establishes how horror and comedy align together to produce narratives of dissidence at the level of the individual and the society. Psychological/uncanny/slasher films: Borrowing from Todorov’s definition of ‘uncanny’, I have included in this category certain films which in the beginning arouses the ‘fantastic’ within the viewer’s mind only to negate the existence of any horror component towards the end of the film. Thus, the Malayalam Manichitrathazhu first shows a woman who is supposedly possessed by a spirit but in the end she is diagnosed with a psychological illness. Similarly, Biren Nag’s Hindi film Bees Saal Baad (1962) shows the male protagonist being 33

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haunted by an apparition for a major part of the film only to resolve as murder-intrigue in the end. This category of films would also include slasher films like Sssshhh . . . (dir. Pawan Kaul, 2003) showing a murderer on a killing spree. In all these films, the plot gains impetus from the supposed existence of supernatural elements. Take away these elements and the film does not exist. The last sub-genre is examined in Chapter 6 through a detailed exploration of Manichitrathazhu, Akam (dir. Shalini Usha Nair, 2013), Woh Kaun Thi? (dir. Raj Khosla, 1964) and Hanabari. The use of the ‘uncanny’, I argue, creates spaces for articulating masculine anxieties and unfulfilled female desires.

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1 THE MASCULINIST ECONOMY OF POSSESSION NARRATIVES

When one comes across any mention of horror cinema, a series of images usually cluster in the mind – ghost, young female, possession, exorcist, occult rituals, eerie sounds like the creaking door and banging window panes, dark images like dark stormy nights and dead girl’s spirit in the mirror. Contextualising horror in Indian cinema, perhaps the most daunting as well as enduring horror image, is that of the central protagonist, usually a young girl, possessed by an evil spirit. While horror films produced in India exhibit several sub-genres, the focus of this chapter is the ‘possession/ occult’ films which undoubtedly are the most popular and in some quarters considered to be the more ‘authentic’ horror cinema. I use the term ‘possession/occult’ to include those horror films that depict the possession of central protagonist/s by supernatural beings. Such films typically depict the victim, under the spell of possession, gaining superhuman strength and undergoing distortions of facial structure and drastic changes in vocal intonation. The victim loses control over his/herself and starts wreaking havoc on people around. Finally, the victim is cured through the elaborate rites of occult exorcism. Sometimes, the supernatural being might not be malevolent at all, but merely uses the human body as a medium to extract revenge from its rapists/killers. Then in some films, the site of possession is not the human body but a puppet/doll. In most of these films, different occult-related ritual practices and tantric mysteries are explored. The conflict between ‘white’ and ‘black’ magic becomes the focal point of such films. There has been prolific production of possession/occult horror films in Indian film industries. Hindi films like Jadu Tona (dir. Ravikant Nagaich, 1977), Gehrayee (dir. Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje, 1980), Mangalsutra (dir. Vijay B., 1981), Raat (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1992), Papi Gudia (dir. Lawrence D’Souza, 1996), Aks (dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, 2001), Raaz (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2002), Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003), 1920 (dir. Vikram Bhatt, 2008), Phoonk (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2008) and Raaz: The Mystery Continues (dir. Mohit Suri, 2009) have dominated 35

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the landscape of Hindi horror cinema. This sub-genre is equally popular in Malayalam cinema with productions like Lisa (dir. Baby, 1978), Veendum Lisa (dir. Baby, 1987), Akash Ganga (dir. Vinayan, 1999), Vellinnakshatram (dir. Vinayan, 2004), Moonnamathoral (dir. V.K. Prakash, 2006), Kana Kanmani (dir. Akku Akbar, 2009), Chemistry (dir. Viji Thampi, 2009) and Manthrikan (dir. Anil, 2012). Possession/occult horror films are also produced in other film industries like the Bangla Putuler Protishodh (dir. Rabi Kinagi, 1998) and Mantra (dir. Rabiranjan Maitra, 2005), Kannada Naa Ninna Bidalaare (dir. Vijay, 1979) and Yaaradu? (dir. Srinivasa Kaushik, 2009), Telugu Kashmora (dir. S.B. Chakravarthy, 1986) and Aa Intlo (dir. Chinna, 2009) and the Marathi Akalpit (dir. Sanjay Surkar, 2004). This chapter focusses mainly on Gehrayee, Bhoot, Chemistry, Pillai Nila (dir. Manobala, 1985) and Yaaradu?. Possession/occult horror films are a very distinctive category amongst several sub-genres of Indian horror cinema. Unlike the ‘vampire’ sub-genre, the spirits occupying the human/inanimate object are not eternally undead who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. The spirits in these films are here for a limited duration and for a specific purpose. Either they want to extract revenge from their killer/s or they are sent by an evil exorcist to cause mayhem in the lives of their intended target/s. Usually, vampires are evil entities by themselves who do not need to possess any target body. Unlike vampires who sleep during the day and wake up only at night to terrorise their human counterparts, the spirits in the possession/occult horror films can operate at any point of the day and as such are not afraid of the sunlight. Spirit/occult possession horror films are also very different from the werewolf or any such animal transformation films for the obvious reason that there is no animal–human or human–animal transformation in these films. Therianthropy via shape-shifting is a different phenomenon when compared to the act of possession. Shape-shifting involves a sense of deception as the observer is hardly aware of the personality of the experiencer till the physiological or psychological mask falls off. But in the act of possession, there is a real, if temporary, change in the identity and the personality of the experiencer, which is immediately revealed to the observer (Smith 2009: 199). In most animal transformation films, if not all, the setting is either rural or forest landscape. However, the setting in possession/occult horror films can be rural, urban, forest or all the three too. Most possession/occult horror films also differ greatly from the ones centring on non-vampire monsters, ghosts, demons, witches and zombies. Non-vampire monsters, ghosts, demons, witches and zombies do not require a host body to inhabit unlike the spirits in possession/occult horror films. These monsters, ghosts, demons and witches are not always immortal like the vampires, but nevertheless essentially qualify as negative categories. Spirits in possession/occult 36

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films can be non-malevolent powers that occupy a host body to extract revenge for their killings. But the very nomenclature of monsters, demons and witches assumes that these supernatural powers are malefic by nature. Zombies by definition, within the limited productions in the Indian horror cinema arena thus far, have been either animated corpses risen by magical means such as witchcraft, or might be the remains of science or pleasure gone wrong. The possession/occult horror category is also clearly distinct from the horror-comedy sub-genre. Unlike possession/occult horror films, horror-comedy films are never showcased as full-fledged horror material. The horrific elements in horror-comedy stand muted as monstrosity and supernatural violence are considerably toned down. The nature of possession in horror-comedy films also varies from the possession/occult horror films. Usually, the ghosts in horror-comedies are very friendly and always shown as playing pranks and mischief on their human counterparts. Last but not the least, the possession/occult horror sub-genre is completely different from the ‘psychological/uncanny/slasher’ category of horror cinema. The actual presence of supernatural entities is the basic premise on which the possession/occult film operates. But in the uncanny category, though the film arouses suspicion of the supernatural initially, it completely negates any such experience in the climax. The academic scholarship on possession studies has largely been geared towards cross-cultural anthropological analyses of possession. It has been argued that the category of possession studies as an autonomous subject of inquiry needs to be dismantled. It has been shown that the act and the manifestations of possession are closely linked to the notion of self-hood and identity at the micro-level and universal social, political, economic and cultural articulations at the macro-level (Boddy 1994: 427). Examining spirit possession through cognitive psychology, Emma Cohen delineates two major forms of possession: ‘executive’ and ‘pathogenic’. While the executive possession involves a complete transformation of identity, the pathogenic possession envisages possessing spirits as agents of illness or misfortune (Cohen 2008: 1). Frederick Smith persuasively summarises five major perspectives from which possession is usually explored: religious, medically defined psychological states, psychological conditions to achieve socio-political ascendancy, shamanism and existentialism (2009: 39). Mary Keller (2002) has emphasised the feminist discourse on possession and the need to deconstruct the very Western anthropocentric approach to possession. There remains a contrary view also which, on the other hand, refuses to limit any examination of spirit possession to empowerment of women: it explores spirit possession from the phenomenological tradition and attributes this phenomenon to the process of ‘attunement’ (Ram 2013: 256). The cinematic space in possession/occult films, I argue in this chapter, 37

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generates negotiable spaces of autonomy for the woman within the male– female dialectics. Though not totally unqualified, female agency in this subgenre articulates voices of resistance against the patriarchal socio-cultural institutions both at the micro- as well as the macro-level. The vengeful female spirit in Indian horror cinema becomes the iconic symbol of feminist resistance of visible and invisible male authoritarian manifestations. This sets the category of the possession/occult horror films in contrast with the more general mainstream Indian cinema that largely whets its appetite on the normativisation of heterosexual familial set-ups anchored by the heroic valour of male-dom. The vengeful female spirit in Indian horror cinema is a very unique creation which is unparalleled in the global dynamics of horror cinema aesthetics. For example, possession in Hollywood horror films is primarily based upon the archetypal struggle between the devil and Christ. Of course, there are variations within their presentation ranging from different Church denominations to almost heretic organisations to notable disciples of Satan. But the crux of the struggle remains the same: Christ versus Devil. The other equally popular horror themes revolve around vampires, werewolves, zombies and psychologically deranged killer-on-the-loose tropes. When one looks at the great heritage of Italian horror cinema, one generally comes across two major tropes: the supernatural biblical Christ versus Satan and the giallo tradition of crime, mystery and psychological horror. The fantastic world of the Scandinavian horror comprising Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish films thrive on the zombie thrillers, holocaust narratives, psychological horror and cabin-in-the-woods mass murderer stories. If one turns to Turkish horror cinema, one is immersed into the Arabic world of spiritual creatures: the djinn. According to Islamic and Arabic folklore, these creatures can be benefic or malefic. Horror films revolving around the djinn usually present a malefic spirit possessing a human body and bringing misfortune, if not death, to the host and its family. South African and Nigerian horror films focus on voodoo rituals, witchcraft, shapeshifting entities, vampires and the usual blaxploitation horror films. Turning eastward, one notices more similarities between Indian possession/occult horror films and Asian horror cinema, particularly Japanese, Korean and Thai ones. These film industries too depict a vengeful female ghost out to take revenge on its killers. But as in most Japanese horror films, the noroi or the curse is inflicted at whosoever accidently stumbles upon it or actively pursues its origin out of curiosity. The killing spree of the affected ghost moves beyond local revenge to universal misanthropy. What makes possession in Indian horror films so different and distinctive is the fact that not all types of possession are considered to be harmful. In fact, on some occasions, possession is celebrated especially when it is an act of voluntary, good possession by a deity (Fuller 1992: 231; Smith 2009: 14; Ram 2013: 2). 38

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Gehrayee Shorn of big Hindi film star cast and comprising mainly Marathi cinema artists, Gehrayee leaves an indelible mark on the history of the evolution of pre-globalisation Indian horror cinema. It is one of the very few Hindi horror films that did not belong to the more dominant Ramsay productions of its times. As such, sustained critical explorations of Gehrayee give valuable alternatives to the Ramsay modes of horror productions of the 1970s and 1980s. The film also generates insightful socio-cultural experiences through the class, caste and gender matrix located in its narrative. Gehrayee is the story of one middle-aged Chennabasappa (Shriram Lagoo) who is the manager of a successful business firm in Bangalore. He sells off his ancestral village property including several acres of plantations to a soap company as he wanted money to build a bungalow in Bangalore. Soon after this business transaction, his teenage daughter Uma (Padmini Kolhapure) starts experiencing frequent possession episodes. The family consults several exorcists and at the end, it is revealed that Baswa, the caretaker of Chennabasappa’s plantations, had commissioned a village tantrik to set an evil spirit to occupy Uma’s body. Baswa had been looking after Chennabasappa’s estate throughout his life and he now feels cheated that his master had suddenly decided to sell off what Baswa considered his ‘mother’land. Uma’s ordeal ends as she is finally exorcised off the evil spirit. But the film ends with the suggestion that Uma’s brother Nandish (Anant Nag), another significant character in the narrative, is now possessed with the spirit of the dead Baswa. The film crucially raises a number of issues that remain relevant to this date. It depicts as much the increasing deforestation and industrialisation of rural India as it portrays the class warfare generated through such developments. The film dabbles in the debates between science and spirituality, rationalism and superstition. This study explores these issues through the ecofeminism perspectives and shows how the treatment meted out to women within the narrative is deeply rooted to the privileged masculinist commodification of woman and nature. It examines how the genre of horror – in theme and imagery – lies at the very core of these issues. Gehrayee provides a very vivid articulation of class warfare within a largely agro-based rural economy as the urban industrialisation gradually spread its tentacles in the 1970s and 1980s India. Unlike a typical Ramsay horror film that would be bound to the more conventional heterosexual coupling, Gehrayee puts on the centre stage the trials and tribulations that a nuclear family headed by a patriarch undergoes. There is no hero, heroine or villain here, only ordinary protagonists etched in shades of grey. On the one hand, there is Chennabasappa (Shriram Lagoo) who wants to keep on climbing 39

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the socio-economic ladder and securing the future of his family. He actively promotes the intrusion of the capitalist urban economy into the rural world to serve his own needs. He has no deep attachment to his ancestral plantations and thus finds it very easy and convenient to sell it to the upcoming soap factory owners. On the other hand is Baswa, Chennabasappa’s loyal old servant whose idea of socio-economic prosperity is infinitely attached to his fondness, passion and devotion to the vast tracts of his master’s forest plantations. Pitted against the abundance and the bounty of natural beauty that his master’s plantations possess, established aptly by the sequence of the film’s opening shots, Chennabasappa’s promise of alternate employment opportunities in Bangalore or the upcoming soap factory holds no interest for Baswa. The master–slave class divide is narrated through the rationalist–spiritual debate. Chennabasappa is a rationalist who does not, except till the very end, believe that there could be such a thing as ghost or evil spirit or that his daughter could be possessed. Baswa is a religious person who keeps fast for goddess Yellamma and believes that snakes roaming around the forest should not be killed as they protect the land. The film articulates this unequal relationship further through the point-of-view (POV) and low-angle shots employed in the scene where Chennabasappa and Baswa converse after dinner at Baswa’s home. Chennabasappa is shown sitting on a chair and informing Baswa seated on the floor about the sale of the plot. The camera emphasises on the socio-political exploitation of Baswa by positioning him lower to his master through the low-angle shots and then aligning his gaze with that of the audience in a POV shot as he listens to his nonchalant master. Baswa is left totally shattered and as the next scene shows, he cannot even sleep at night, feeling totally betrayed. Horror in the mental landscape of Baswa is turned into an actual horror in the narrative that rips apart the Chennabasappa family. Though the film does not explicitly talk about the ecofeminism cause and issues, horror theme and imagery in the film necessitate an examination of how the exploitation of nature is intricately linked to the victimisation of women. Though ecofeminism was introduced (D’Eaubonne 1980) and developed (King 1983) primarily in the West, its conceptual expansion and applicability to India was largely initiated by Vandana Shiva. Citing example of the Chipko movement, she elaborates how the ‘annihilation of this diversity [of living resources in the forest, natural or in an agro-ecosystem] has destroyed women’s control over conditions of producing sustenance’ (Shiva 1989: 95). According to her, modern science, unlike the more traditional indigenous practices, perpetuates Western patriarchy which results in the marginalisation of women, especially those belonging to the Third World. Movements like the Chipko depict how Third World women have the power to resist ecological exploitation. Shiva’s vilification of the Western 40

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science and her vision for Third World women’s movement are not without their limitations. In pre-supposing the Third World women narrative, she ignores the heterogeneity of the ‘Third World women’ category driven by factors like class and caste (Dietrich 1992; Nanda 1991). Then, within the patriarchal structure of the family itself in a Third World country like India, the powers are usually unequally divided between the two genders (Aggarwal 1998). It is also often observed that though women play a major role in resisting the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, such movements are never seen as women’s movements (Rao 2012: 135–6). I read Gehrayee through the ecofeminist lens and try to show that even though this film does not portray women resisting against the exploitation of nature, it is nevertheless linked to the basic premise of ecofeminism aesthetics: exploitation of nature leads to the patriarchal repression of women. Baswa considered his master’s land as his own mother and he felt that his master’s decision to sell off his land was akin to the rape of his mother. This mother/land and rape/sale-of-land analogies connect femininity with nature and the principle of creation. Within the narrative, this conceptualisation of mother as nature is fraught with patriarchal politics aimed at violating the female space. The film manifests a very overt presentation of class crises, but each crisis results in the victimisation of women. Baswa’s revenge against his master is a classic case of class struggle, but it is Uma who suffers the brunt of his revenge. The film was one of the first of its kind in India to depict graphic episodes of possession. It shows seven possession episodes, including three ritual exorcisms centred on Uma. These possession episodes centre on the usurpation of Uma’s body. Even before her first visible possession, Uma complains of heaviness in head and watery eyes. Most horror films depict violation of female body through the entrance of foreign entities. As a prelude to actual horror depiction in the film, the narrative prepares for the violation of female body through the attack on Uma’s head and eyes – two important sites of mental faculty. In what could be considered as the first instance of Uma’s diabolical behaviour under possession, she is seen abruptly disrupting a basketball match which she had been playing with her batchmates. She forcibly snatches the ball by pushing one of her teammates and refuses to let go of the ball. Such erratic behaviour appears very alien to Uma’s otherwise genial temperament depicted in the film. Basketball is a team game and Uma’s attempt to disrupt this all girls match can be interpreted as an attempt to create fissures within female homosociality. The spirit possessing Uma is a male one and since it has complete control over Uma’s body and mind, this attempt to create disturbance can be read as the handiwork of patriarchal forces trying to rupture spaces of female bonding. In another episode, Uma feels that she is being pursued by some 41

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strange supernatural force on her way back from school. Mortally afraid, she starts running through empty fields and parks. This can be read as the phantasmagorical representation of the fear of public space for the female. Historically, public spaces in India have been defined and thus dominated by men. Women have been either restricted within the domesticity of home or largely marginalised in the ambit of public sphere. Women have often been the subject of physical and psychological male violence in the public realm. Uma’s fear and anxiety in the light of the pursuit by male spirit can thus be read as an instance of male intrusion in the female autonomy in the public space. The very fact that she is not aware of the exact nature and identity of the terrorising force symbolically suggests the myriad covert ways in which the authoritative powers of patriarchy manifests. A series of ritual exorcisms of Uma, both fake and real, depicted in the film further continue the violation of female body. In her first exorcism, she is subjected to severe slapping by the fake exorcist. The camera then pans up and down showing male hands moving up and down her body from a distance. The next few shots show a tortured Uma in a semi-conscious state coping with the beatings of the exorcist. The physical exploitation of female body becomes more evident in her second exorcism. The villainous exorcist Puttachary (Amrish Puri) lustily censures her body throughout his interactions with Uma, finally leading to his kidnapping her. In a night scene in the forest, the camera zooms into a fully naked back of Uma hypnotised by the semi-naked Puttachary performing exorcism rituals. The images of these two people are captured within the same frame in a dark eerie atmosphere of the forest. A cutaway shot of burning fire is given prominence in the mise en scène as the camera pans over the other ritual items. The image of a pagan deity is vividly captured in a close-up shot. The camera in a mid-close-up shot then captures Puttachary continuing with his ritual prayers. The ominousness of the scene is intensified with his loud chanting of tantric prayers. The fully clothed Nandish and the servant are juxtaposed with the naked top half body of Uma as she remains hypnotised. The camera zooms in again on the fully naked back of Uma with the evil exorcist sitting by her side. The camera remains stationary for a bit before Nandish covers her naked body with his shawl. The sound mix of the booming tantra recital (diegetic) by the evil exorcist and the non-diegetic drum beating in the background raises the graphic of horror in the scene. Throughout this scene, Puttachary’s half naked hypermasculine body is juxtaposed with that of the vulnerable adolescent female body. The power play between the two becomes evident with Puttachary the victor and Uma the victim. This series of exploitative renditions of female body within the narrative has its causal roots to the commercial exploitation of nature brought into play by Chennabasappa’s act of selling of his ancestral property. This linkage of 42

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ecological disaster with patriarchal oppression of women forms the core of the film’s ecofeminist aesthetics. Women and nature get enmeshed within the class warfare. Chennabasappa exploits his superior socio-economic position to commit adultery with Baswa’s wife. Baswa’s revenge symbolises the backlash from the subaltern sections of the society. But in the process, Baswa’s revenge ends up victimising Uma. Towards the climax of the film, Nandish makes a local Muslim exorcist force possession of Baswa’s daughter Chenni in order to communicate with the dead Baswa’s spirit. Nandish wanted to know why Baswa made his sister Uma suffer so much for their father’s crime. But here again, in making Chenni forcibly get possessed, Nandish too ends up victimising women. Nandish might have been striving for truth, but he uses his privileged socio-economic power to facilitate Chenni’s possession. In this regard, he is no different from Chennabasappa and Baswa as he also victimises women to fulfil his desires. The film communicates this message subtly as it ends with the suggestion that Nandish might have now been possessed by Baswa’s spirit. Thus, the tradition of wilful exploitation of women continues. The use of horror in Gehrayee implicates Uma as the chief wrecker of the normative patriarchal structure of family. The fear of supernatural thus becomes synonymous with the fear of the destabilisation of the conventional family structure. It is through Uma the possessing spirit reveals to the family Chennabasappa’s illicit affair with Baswa’s wife that led to her committing suicide. Then on one occasion when Uma is possessed, she clings lustfully on to the body of her brother Nandish in front of everyone. In fact, on another occasion of Uma’s possession, as revealed later by Nandish’s girlfriend Neela, Uma verbally insults and abuses Neela in private. This can be interpreted as the jealousy of the spirit on seeing both Nandish and Neela together. These suggestions of incest threaten to disrupt the normative structure of the patriarchal Chennabasappa family. The film thus portrays the figure of the female as the disruptive force: a female who has lost her sense of control and obedience to the familial patriarchal structure. This chain of events is intricately linked to the ecological exploitation that Chennabasappa’s selling of land sets in motion. Gehrayee can be seen from the perspective of Shiva who postulated that innovations in modern science have ironically resulted in the oppression of the Third World women. The doctor who was supervising Uma’s medical condition refuses to believe in ghosts and spirits and instead prescribes electric shock, a treatment borne out of Western medical research of the time, to cure her. This further leads to the deterioration of Uma’s health. He also violates her sense of privacy when he inquires about her love life and whether she has boyfriends in private. Uma is clearly shown to be upset with the doctor’s questions and refuses to go to him again. Innovations in 43

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modern science have led to the intrusion in an individual’s private life, and in the context of the film, in a Third World female subject’s life. Gehrayee affords an opportunity to explore how modern science detrimentally affects not only rural women, as Shiva would like us to believe, but also women belonging to other sections of the society including those belonging to the more affluent class. Chennabasappa’s decision to sell off his ancestral plantations motors the tragic predicaments of female characters like Uma and Chenni. Though the film does not directly talk about the ecofeminist issues, yet as this study has shown, it generates scope at several points within the narrative for the examination of the correlation of man-made ecological disaster and repression of women. Horror is the nodal entry point for such analyses as it inscribes the narrative with universal horror tropes like possession, spirits, exorcists, ghost voice-over and some very indigenous tropes like exorcist rituals and totem depiction. Unlike most of Ramsay horror films that place the horror narrative either within a very fantastic location and time period or in a much stylised make-believe palatial ruins, Gehrayee situates its narrative well within the discourse of everyday normal reality. While Ramsay narratives appear predominantly like a cluster of common horror tropes around which the story is built, fear in Gehrayee stems from the depiction of how a normal ordinary life course meanders into horror.

Bhoot If Gehrayee situates its narrative primarily in the rural locale of 1980s India, Bhoot addresses the newly emerging high-rise living urban landscape of the early-twenty-first-century India. Bhoot depicts the story of a successful stock analyst Vishal (Ajay Devgan) and his wife Swati (Urmila Matondkar) who buy a high-rise apartment at a very low price in Mumbai. Things turn awry for the happy couple when Swati starts getting haunted by the ghosts of a young woman and a child. The services of an exorcist Sarita (Rekha) are hired, who reveals that the previous resident of the apartment Manjeet (Barkha Madan) – a widow with an adolescent son – was molested and then accidently killed by the landlord’s son Sanjay (Fardeen Khan). Since Manjeet’s son had also seen Sanjay’s heinous act, Sanjay gets him murdered by the guard of the building. Manjeet’s spirit had now come back and possessed Swati to extract revenge from Sanjay. Unable to cope with the spirit’s torment, Sanjay confesses his crime to the police, upon which he is jailed. The film ends with Sanjay agonisingly pleading for forgiveness from Manjeet’s spirit in a dark prison cell. Bhoot is one of the few Hindi horror films, apart from the usual Ramsay ones, that has attracted some academic scholarship. And practically all of it acknowledges the globalised idiom that this film represents. It has been argued that there is a strong 44

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undercurrent of Hollywood (read The Exorcist) horror cinematic influence in the film (Rampal 2005). There also has been a noticeable influence of Roman Polanski films in Bhoot (Moreland and Pervez 2013: 81). On the other hand, it has also been opined that the film draws its inspiration less from Hollywood and more from Japanese horror cinema (Vasudevan 2010: 389). Irrespective of the generic global influence that the film displays, the main thrust, as this study shows, lies on the exploration of the limited female autonomy in the highly privatised world of the urban skyscrapers. If Gehraaye articulated exploitation of women across class barriers ranging from extremely poor to the largely urban elites, Bhoot explores myriad forms of domestic violence on women in the new upper middle class. And just like in Gehrayee, horror becomes the setting and the focal point of unequal gender transactions in Bhoot. In an interesting summary of research on the influences of high-rise buildings on their occupants, it has been pointed out that two of the major fears associated with the high-rise apartments are fear of fall from a high window and invasion of privacy from strangers occupying semi-public areas within the building (Gifford 2013: 2). Though Robert Gifford’s summary is largely based on Western empirical data, the study nevertheless becomes useful in exploring Bhoot. These two types of fear form the backbone of the film’s horror tropes. The fear of fall from tall buildings gets manifested in Manjeet’s murder episode. Sanjay tries to rape Manjeet and in the ensuing scuffle, she falls off the balcony of her apartment. This becomes the central premise of horror in the film as Manjeet’s spirit starts possessing Swati to extract revenge from Sanjay. Bhoot is replete with instances when Swati feels that her sense of privacy is being constantly invaded in their apartment. The guard seated at the entrance to their building exhibits weird mannerisms as he keeps staring at Swati whenever she enters/leaves the building alone. On one occasion, he even barged inside her apartment, when she was alone, on the pretext of providing some trivial information. Subjected to the assault of the male roving eye, Swati lives in the fear of constant scrutiny of her sexuality. Her personal security and independence also get severely compromised when she begins to be haunted by Manjeet’s spirit. This haunting by Manjeet’s spirit can be metaphorically considered as the proxy male violence directed towards Swati since it was Sanjay’s act of rape that initiated the ordeal for Manjeet. Had Sanjay not committed the act, there would have been no Manjeet’s spirit and no ensuing struggle for Swati. Thus, the invasion of Swati’s privacy can be seen/read as another instance of male scrutiny of the female. This scrutiny takes place at times when she is aware that somebody is watching her and also on occasions when she is completely unaware of any such proactive pursuit of her. Bhoot displays certain predominantly characteristic tropes of horror cinema 45

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to show obtrusive surveillance of Swati. At least on two occasions, she is oblivious of the fact that all her actions are being constantly monitored by ghosts. In what could be regarded as the first explicit sign of supernatural presence in the film, the audience sees a female ghost suddenly appearing out of nowhere and keeping a close watch on Swati when she goes to fetch water downstairs late at night in her apartment. The second such sign of supernatural presence appears in the form of the spirit of a male toddler who keeps a close watch on Swati in the kitchen. This male toddler is later revealed to be the spirit of Manjeet’s dead son. Swati’s privacy gets directly intruded upon when she becomes aware of a malevolent force pursuing her in both private as well as public spaces. Horror becomes the medium of Swati’s mental disintegration as she sees the image of the ghost woman for the first time in a mirror. The emergence of an unknown, seemingly malevolent, figure in the intensely private space of the mirror erodes the mental confidence of Swati. The claustrophobic fear of the unknown shatters her mental equilibrium as she dreams – an archetypal Ram Gopal imagery, also seen in Raat – of being trapped in an empty cinema theatre and being pursued by the spirits of the woman, child and old people. Horror moves from the confined space of the cinema hall to the open space of beachfront as Swati visualises the haunting dead woman in the Mumbai Chowpatty too. The gradual shrinkage of her autonomy culminates in total disintegration when the spirit of the dead woman possesses her body. The film thus plays upon the fear of fall from high-rise buildings and invasion of privacy in the semi-public spaces in apartments to inflict male domestic violence on Manjeet and Swati – the two female signifiers of modernity. Both of them are products of urbane middle-class suave culture and the erosion of their privacy marks the possession trope in the narrative. Bhoot’s narrative delineates two major perceptions about ghosts and possession based on gender. While significant female characters readily believe in the existence of ghosts and for that matter that people could be possessed, the male characters remain firmly entrenched within the rational disbelief of ghosts till the moment they actually encounter the supernatural. Swati, of course, is the possessed victim who has had reservations about renting the apartment once she was aware of Manjeet’s death. Sarita being an exorcist is naturally a firm believer in the supernatural. Swati’s maid has no hesitation in acknowledging the existence of evil spirits and is in fact instrumental in Vishal beginning to believe in ghosts. Manjeet’s mother too recognises her dead daughter coming back to life through the body of Swati. The male protagonists initially consider ghosts as mere figment of Swati’s imagination and are mostly indifferent to her ghost sightings. They focussed more on the medical angle to her weird behaviour. For example, Inspector Liyaqat Qureshi (Nana Patekar) suspects that Swati murdered 46

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the guard under the influence of multiple disorder syndromes. Dr Rajan (Victor Banerjee) apprehends that Swati’s multiple disorder syndromes root from extreme depression and fear of ghosts. Both of them are left stupefied towards the climax of the film when Manjeet’s spirit through Swati’s body finally extracts revenge from Sanjay. Vishal too, in the beginning, was unwilling to believe in the supernatural torture afflicted on his wife. Rationalist to the core, he did not hesitate in renting the apartment even though he was told that the former tenant died there. Faced with the supernatural onslaught on his wife, Vishal gradually starts accepting the world of ghosts and spirits. In one sense thus, Bhoot also fashions the male subjectivity. Carol J. Clover writing in the context of the American horror films has documented how the possession horror films are as much about the female victim as are of the psychological explorations of the ‘bystander’ male characters within the narrative (Clover 1992: 85). It has been argued that Clover’s ‘dual focus narrative’ strategy can also be applied to Bhoot where the male characters leave their rational bent of thinking and accept the world of ghosts, spirits and the supernatural (Moreland and Pervez 2013: 82–3). Yet, in this ensuing battle of sexes to understand the supernatural, there is an unequal transaction of sufferings involved. While the male characters get away incurring only a relatively nominal cost of mental anguish in the process of accepting the supernatural, it is the solitary female victim who bears the brunt of the supernatural torture. The woman victim undergoes a monstrous calibrated exploitation of her body and her mind. The film might show women readily accepting the existence of ghosts, but nevertheless it is no relief to the female gender. They realise that it is one of their ilk that has to undergo the destabilising process of spirit possession. In fact, the gradual process of the men in the narrative coming to terms with the supernatural actually delays the resolution and therefore prolongs the physical and mental exploitation of the possessed women. The female victim has not only to contend with her own possession but also to make allowances for the rational male characters to scrutinise and then helplessly accept the spirit world. Thus, it is a no-win situation for possessed female characters like Swati. The visual and aural iconography in the film motors contrasting sets of perceptions associated with the modern high-rise urban world. The images of urban landscape, high-rise buildings, Imaxe Adlabs theatre, Spiderman movie posters and the popcorn munching audience are juxtaposed with the archetypal horror film images of the malfunctioning lift, deserted parking lot, suspicious looking guard, image of the dead in the mirror, playdoll, dark rooms, dark corridors and the sound of falling vessels. Bhoot uses numerous techniques to instil horror – the arbitrary shaking of the camera, panning right and left, moving back and forth, heavy breathing sound in 47

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the background – they all add up to create horror in the mise en scène. The film is often credited to have started the trend of songless movies of the period (Garwood 2006: 169). As such it gives new dimension to the Hindi horror film aesthetics that till now thrived on the economy of good and memorable songs. The final result is the very effective displacement of the feel-good factor and all-is-well notions generally associated with what Ranjani Mazumdar describes as the post-globalisation ‘panoramic interior’ of Hindi cinema (Mazumdar 2007: 148). Instead, the overall representation is of ‘dying cities or new cities that are already shrouded in death and a history of violence’ (Vasudevan 2010: 389). The possession-ravaged female body becomes the site of such representations of death and violence. In one of the very violent and graphic possession episodes, the previously eroticised body of Swati is shown to be convulsive and out of control. The film narrative then conveys a need to ‘reform’ the female body/mind from its state of dystopic violence. And this need is reflected in the scared male gaze of Vishal when he encounters Swati’s possession for the first time in a more detailed way. The cinematic language of the film betrays such masculine anxiety through a sequence of shots. The sequence begins with the over-the-shoulder shot of Vishal looking at Swati from behind as he moves gradually towards her. The camera focusses on a rope toy: rope tied like a human baby with legs wrapped around. This is juxtaposed within the same frame with Swati staring at the outside world. The suggested image is of confinement coupled with a fervent desire to break free. When Vishal anxiously touches her shoulder, she turns back in a close-up shot, and then punches him and throws him on the bed with the camera zooming out in a mid-shot. The scene then oscillates between the close-up shot of a possessed Swati and an extreme close-up shot of Vishal staring from under the bedside. The sound scheme employed in this scene heightens the horror impact: an eerie silence is followed by a very abrupt diegetic sound of shrieking Swati as she shows her possessed self to Vishal. The voice of the monster is dubbed (non-diegetic) and that along with the shriek of Swati intensifies the horror quotient of the scene. This crucial POV shot from the perspective of Vishal establishes two things: fear of the supernatural and the need to reform/correct the violent female gaze to its former state. So while the male characters might feel the need to correct/change their views on the supernatural, as discussed above, larger emphasis is given to the fact that it is the female victim who needs more urgent reformation. And on emphasising this, the lop-sided gender equations come to the fore within the narrative. For, it is the female on-screen representations that are shown to be more exploited and this exploitation graduates from the domestic ghostly torture within the flat to the public scrutiny of outside male figures like Dr Rajan and Inspector Qureshi. Bhoot, thus, paints a grim portrayal of 48

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upper-middle-class women trapped in the sordid life of the posh high-rise buildings which are often judged as one of the parameters of real-estate economy boom. Often regarded as fiercely independent and self-sufficient, the new-age Indian woman of the likes of Swati and Manjeet becomes unwilling victim of male-incited domestic violence. Hidden behind the glitters of tall structures and cash registers ringing, the very divisive gender violence against women goes unnoticed. Bhoot explores such tales of trauma through this supernatural fiction.

Chemistry If Gehrayee and Bhoot depict possession narratives centring around female protagonists that germinate primarily from the home, the Malayalam film Chemistry spins its tale in the more public domain of the school. It portrays on the screen the debilitating effects that MMS scandals generally generate on teenagers and in the process becomes the first Indian horror film to do so. Chemistry is the story of how Gowri (Shilpa Bala) comes back after dying in the form of a spirit and takes revenge from her rapist school music teacher Aloyshi (Vineeth). Gowri is the only child of a poor truck driver and studies in a boarding school in Alwaye. Secretly, Aloyshi with the help of another female teacher runs a sex racket in the school. They make nude videos of school girls bathing in the bathroom through a hidden mobile camera. Later, Aloyshi uses the MMS clips to blackmail these students and sexually exploit them. Gowri and her two friends fall prey to one such Aloyshi endeavours while out on a school picnic. Unable to cope with the sexual abuse, the three girls try to commit suicide in their chemistry laboratory. While her two friends die immediately, Gowri is still alive when Aloyshi, afraid that his misdeeds will be revealed to the outside world, kills her. A year later, Parvati (Saranya), the niece of the investigating officer in this case Sreekanth (Mukesh), joins the school. Gowri possesses the body of Parvati to kill Aloyshi and fulfil her revenge. Along with the Hindi Dev.D (dir. Anurag Kashyap, 2009), Chemistry started the trend of Indian films shot around the theme of MMS scandals. Films like Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (dir. Dibakar Banerjee, 2010), Ragini MMS (dir. Pawan Kripalani, 2011) and Chaappa Kurishu (dir. Sameer Thahir, 2011) have since occupied the popular imagination. Much before the release of this film, debates were already taking place on the public domain in Kerala about the necessity of banning the use of mobile phones by students on school campuses (The Hindu 2008). Chemistry adds to the discussion with its sensitive portrayal of the school-going teenagers’ sexual exploitation through MMS scandal. However, this narrative is riddled with fissures that reinforce gender stereotyping. This chapter locates such fissures in the film and reads them as an 49

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attempt to extol one type of femininity over the other. This study explores how the ‘othering’ of a specific type of femininity largely stems from the male fear of the strong, independent, ‘uncontrollable’ woman and the fear of female homosociality. The film articulates two types of femininity: one a very obedient, submissive, god-fearing and docile as typified by Parvati. She had spent a considerable part of her childhood in the West and yet remains culturally pious as the normative masculine narrativisation will like the audience to believe. Her virtues are praised and the elders of her family shower affection on her because of her gentleness. In short, she is projected as one who can do no wrong wilfully. This idealised female subjectivity is juxtaposed with the Gowri-like female personality. She is very much an antithesis of how Parvati is depicted. Her body language is carefully constructed to give her an air of the less-desired femininity. She is shown to be stern, angry and confident, and her rebellion against the normativised code of societal behaviour is metaphorically presented through her constant flicking of her hair back. She is the one who dares to have relationships with boys of her age. It is not without reason that such female subjectivity is chosen by the narrative to be the rape victim. After all, nothing happens to the more docile Parvati though both were placed in the same public domain: the school. Both encountered the same rapist music teacher Aloyshi. It can be argued that the film is sending a subtle message: while MMS scandals are acts of vicious perversion, the victims of such assaults, more often than not, are going to be Gowri-like females. Meena T. Pillai while writing about female characters in Malayalam cinema asserts: Film after film in Malayalam has created the image of the woman who ‘loves’ to cook and clean, wash and scrub, shine and polish for her man . . . the centring of the ‘New Woman’ in the cool competitiveness of a workplace is undertaken only after eliciting her tacit consent in continuing her services in the unpaid realm of domestic labour. (Pillai 2010: 8) Parvati’s docility thus makes her an ideal candidate to be the ever-so lovable ‘right’ Malayali female protagonist. Whereas, Gowri remains the ‘other’: kept at a distance and prevented from assimilation in the mainstream Malayali society. The film uses conventional horror narratives to enhance this effect. Gowri has returned after death as a spirit and possesses Parvati’s body. Even though Gowri has been the victim and now has come back for her rightful revenge, the fact that she possesses a human body which has its own irreparable bodily as well as mental consequences for Parvati 50

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automatically makes her ‘othered’. She after all becomes the medium for torturing Parvati and all horror narratives necessarily conclude in exorcism of the spirit. The tussle between these two types of female subjectivities is very tactically crafted with the use of the conventional horror trope of the ghost-visible-in-the-mirror. Parvati sees Gowri’s image in the mirror and gets terrified. It is for the first time that Parvati encounters Gowri’s spirit and the cinematic language captures the meeting of their gaze. Parvati is seen standing in front of a mirror. The mid-shot highlights the enormity of the mirror and thus the importance of the gaze in question. The next shot is an extreme close-up shot of Parvati where only her startled eyes are visible and the rest of her face is shown covered by her hands. Then in a clever manipulation of over-the-shoulder shot, the audience as well as Parvati sees Gowri’s image within the mirror. Usually in over-the-shoulder shots, the audience sees what the character sees which is independent of the character’s own perspective. But here since Parvati is standing in front of the mirror, so the audience’s view is actually from the perspective of Parvati. In a flash of moment, Parvati sees Gowri’s image without of course knowing who Gowri was. The meeting of their gaze evoke opposite reactions: Gowri’s stern and angry look versus Parvati’s terrified and flummoxed look. Parvati turns back to see if Gowri was standing beside her. Amidst ominous background sounds, the camera pans from left to right as Parvati and the audience see nobody. The simultaneous sequence of shots is engineered towards the creation of the dominant effect of horror. Parvati is horrified on seeing Gowri’s image alongside her own reflection in the mirror. The meeting of their gaze marks the beginning of trauma for Parvati. From then on, Gowri consistently uses Parvati’s body to seek her revenge. Mary Ann Doane in an influential article on female subjectivity in Western cinema observes: ‘the woman’s exercise of an active investing gaze can only be simultaneous with her own victimisation’ (Doane 1984: 72). Doane’s theorisation of the female subjectivity has been used to argue that in the classical Western horror film, ‘the woman’s look at the monster offers at least a potentially subversive recognition of the power and potency of a non-phallic sexuality. Precisely because this look is so threatening to male power, it is violently punished’ (Williams 1996: 24). While both of them were writing about female gaze encountering male ones (monster or otherwise), I argue that the same can also be applicable to situations where the female gaze encounters the gaze of a woman who is seen as a potential challenge to the male-dominated patriarchal set-up. For example, in Chemistry, Parvati’s ‘active investing gaze’ at Gowri’s spirit – the ‘othered’ female subjectivity while she was alive – ensures traumatic experiences for her. The fact that Parvati’s gaze acknowledges the existence of Gowri’s spirit in that mirror scene is potentially ‘threatening to male power’ and 51

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thus Parvati ends up being tortured within the film narrative. It does not matter that Parvati does not encounter Gowri’s spirit out of her own volition. Her fear betrays the existence of the spirit and any female subjectivity that acknowledges the presence of the Gowri-like femininity is left inevitably punished within the filmic narrative. When the filmic narrative punishes Parvati for merely acknowledging the presence of the Gowri-like female subjectivity, it is not surprising that the narrative will also punish her for accepting an alliance with her spirit. For, it is the fear of female homosociality that spurs the masculine anxieties in investing in the patriarchal discourse. Gayatri Gopinath has pointed out that unlike the Euro-American queer stereotypes, the South Asian popular culture has queer signifiers of its own. Such queer representations might not be immediately legible to the general heterosexual audience, but is very evident to the target queer subjectivities (Gopinath 2005: 11). Chemistry too abounds with such signifiers. Gowri’s spirit in the narrative manages to strike friendship with an initially hesitant Parvati. Together, they play basketball and enjoy each other’s company. They dance on the outdoors and walk on the bridge holding hands together. Gowri’s spirit comes and meets her in the computer room, in the classroom and Parvati is immediately transported to their joint imaginary world. If one just replaces one of these female characters with male ones during these activities, it easily takes the colouring of the heterosexual romance. How often have we not seen heterosexual couples dancing on the outdoors – be it rain, sun or snow. Walking together holding hands is the quintessential idea of cinematic heterosexual romance. It is also not unusual to find characters lost in their own imaginary heterosexual romantic world and totally oblivious of their surroundings – be it school, college or party. The cinematic narrative in this film depicts a seamless entry of Gowri’s spirit in the privatised emotional world of Parvati. When Sreekanth realises for the first time that there is something wrong with Parvati’s behaviour, he turns nostalgic and starts singing an old tune which shows her past childhood life with the family. Midway through this song, Parvati is transported to her present life and Gowri’s spirit enters the scene. So while Sreekanth’s voice is still heard in the background, things have changed on the screen. Gowri’s spirit displaces Sreekanth and other family members from the narrative. It is now only the two of them – Parvati and Gowri’s spirit till the very end of the song. This can be read as the narrative-enabling of the privatised female homosocial world of Parvati and Gowri’s spirit. A similar same-gender friendship between a girl and a female spirit has been studied in the context of the Malayalam film Ennu Swantham Janakikutty (dir. Hariharan, 1998). It has been argued that the film tries to imagine same-gender relationships as an alternative to heterosexual relationships before the narrative is finally ‘manipulated’ to endorse 52

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heterosexual union (Muraleedharan 2010: 168). A similar narrative strategy can be seen in Chemistry too albeit in a different form. The narrative first enables the depiction of the female homosocial world of Parvati and Gowri’s spirit, but then it punishes Parvati for acknowledging the least preferred ‘other’ femininity as discussed above. Not only that, the narrative then privileges the heterosexual world over the homosocial. When the spirit’s revenge is fulfilled, she still wants to stay back in the human world. This is strongly opposed by an exorcist who is employed by Sreekanth and his family to ‘cure’ Parvati. The message is very simple and straightforward: female homosociality is feasible only in the imagined hinterland and cannot be the basis of actual existence. A handful of Malayalam films have depicted female homosociality without making it explicitly lesbian cinema: The diegetic placing of Malayali heroines is always within a frame that marks desire as heterosexual; heroines are also constantly being shaped for a heterosexual future existence. Female subjectivity that is not exclusively defined by male requirements is an unfamiliar type in Malayalam cinema. (Rajendran 2015: 17) Exceptions like Randu Penkuttikal (dir. Mohan, 1978), Deshadanakili Karayarilla (dir. Padmarajan, 1986), Sancharam (dir. Ligy J. Pullappally, 2004) and Notebook (dir. Rosshan Andrrews, 2006) contain plots based either on romantic female friendships or on explicit female sexual relationships. Horror genre too does not remain untouched. The portrayal of the use of technology in Chemistry can be read as an attempt to enable the politics of patriarchal discourse. While the main argument in the narrative has been to showcase the evils of modern technology such as the MMS which leads to violent unethical uses, the film is replete with numerous subtexts as this chapter has shown. First, there have been efforts within the narrative to streamline and fashion femininities into the more patriarchal-friendly discourses. Certain type of femininity is preferred over the other within the narrative. Second, heterosexual relationships have been privileged over female homosociality. The film has, as this study shows, made careful employment of the cinematic language to reinforce gender stereotypes. If Gehrayee and Bhoot exhibit the gender stereotyping primarily within the home, Chemistry depicts this in the outside world.

Pillai Nila The next film under consideration, Pillai Nila, draws its supernatural plot from the possession of a small girl child. From the female teenage 53

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protagonists of Gehrayee, Bhoot and Chemistry, this chapter now captures the post-possession experiences of a four-year-old girl Shalu (Baby Shalini) and her immediate family comprising her father, mother and grandmother. The child-possession narrative though begins when the film almost reaches the halfway stage. In the initial half, Pillai Nila builds up the narrative of Dolli (Radhika) who would later die and possess Shalu’s body. Dolli is presented as a highly pampered and rich college-going girl who gets her way with everything in life. She falls in love with her college mate Mohan (Mohan) and Mohan too indulges in a brief period of romantic dalliance with her. Enamoured of him, Dolli quickly convinces her elder brother to facilitate socio-economic and professional upliftment of Mohan. Meanwhile, Mohan is forced by his mother to get married to a girl of her own choice. When Dolli comes to know of Mohan’s marriage, she tries her utmost, including tempting Mohan and his mother with money, to convince them to leave her daughter-in-law and instead accept her as Mohan’s wife. When all her attempts fail, she commits suicide in front of Mohan by jumping from the sixth floor of her building. The rest of the story is about how the spirit of Dolli comes back and possesses Shalu to haunt Mohan and his family. In the end, Dolli’s brother burns her dead body to save Mohan and his family from Dolli’s wrath. The film at several points betrays a strong masculinist economy to restrain and circumscribe woman. This study explores the narrative strategies that monsterise the woman, making her subservient to the more dominating and persuasive Tamil Hindu majoritarian masculinity. The film uses horror as a necessary narrative vehicle to implant this hegemonic masculinity. The deliberate gargantuan presentation of Dolli clearly signals the film’s horrific appetite to enact a prejudiced vilification of her character. She is presented as a young arrogant female from an affluent background, who uses her money power to attain her desires. Almost all the students of her college are enamoured of her wealth; they bunk their classes and flock to see what new car Dolli arrives in each day. When the newly appointed principal asks her why Dolli made and followed her own rules in the college, she buys the entire college in response. ‘Nethaji Arts College’ thus becomes ‘Dolli Arts College’ to gratify her ‘need’. When she stands in the college election, she ends up buying all except two votes, which results predictably in a massive landslide victory for her. What is depicted as fun and comic if somewhat uncontrollable and unusual female predilections in the first half is rendered monstrous in the second half of the film, where Dolli is placed in the landscape of everyday life, past the putative growing-up space of college. The narrative monsterises her through the exaggerated negative-character traits attributed to her. In the meta-history of Tamil cinema, she is the stereotypical ‘other’ who needs to be fashioned 54

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by patriarchy into the streamlined docile and submissive Tamil heroine or ideal woman. C.S. Lakshmi observes that the bold, beautiful and liberated woman in Tamil cinema must be normativised or ‘depending on the imagination of the filmmaker, there are many ways of killing a woman who claims to be different’ (Lakshmi 2008: 25). It is not surprising thus that Dolli commits suicide in the narrative. But such a presentation of women is deeply embedded within the patriarchal politics of marginalising the ‘other’ female as monstrous. The process of monsterising Dolli is enabled in the narrative chiefly through two ways: first, most of her negative-character traits and attributes are exaggerated to abnormal monstrous levels; and second, she is presented literally as a monster when it is revealed that after her suicide her spirit comes back to earth to possess Shalu. The first narrative strategisation works primarily around the fact that she is extraordinarily rich. The narrative suggests that her wealth creates arrogance in her. She is rich and therefore able to mesmerise and bully her equals, superiors and inferiors. However, by projecting Dolli as rich and therefore uncontrollable, the narrative reinforces male stereotyping of assertive women. The shared male fantasy of controlling woman gathers force once the strong/ assertive woman is deprived of her source of independence (in this case, wealth). Thus, presenting Dolli as a rich arrogant girl serves to propagate the very patriarchal agenda of depriving economic independence to womanhood. It is important to note here that Mohan quietly persists with the socio-economic benefit provided to him by Dolli. He clearly knew that Dolli endowed him with the material benefits including the job of an important official in her brother’s hotel business because she madly loved him. It is as if he has begun to ‘own’ the socio-economic attributes of the woman while still having done away with the woman. He expresses no gratitude for the grant of superior socio-economic status nor remorse for having annexed a dead woman’s goodwill without gratitude. This can be metaphorically understood as patriarchal ownership of all kinds of wealth; a woman’s wealth in other words does not remain her own, instead its (mis)appropriation by men is taken to be a given. Mohan’s lack of guilt and remorse is thus an expression of the patriarchal monopoly on agency and rights by men. He feels threatened only when Dolli’s brother swears revenge for the wrong done to his sister because this places him in direct competition with another man regarding access to wealth of various kinds, including the legacy of the (dead) woman. Unlike the case of the avenging woman, within Mohan’s imagination, once Dolli’s brother David steps up, society was bound to legitimise his endeavour to right the wrongs done to the honour of a woman he was custodian of. One of the first actions Dolli performs after buying the college is to conduct a modern equivalent of the ancient custom of swayamvar. Holding a 55

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competition where the best student would win fifteen days with her, Dolli’s administration of the educational system she has just obtained is strikingly at odds with conventional patriarchal pedagogy. Rather than teaching women to be compliant spouses to men, Dolli pursues a quest of her own. The film does not specify that she is looking for a marriage partner. Her quest to spend fifteen days with the best scholar from the college defeats not only conventional swayamvar scripts in that a marriage is not explicitly the aim, but also conventional notions of women always seeking a man. When Mohan wins the competition, he becomes the object of her desire, upsetting the normative specular economy of Tamil cinema. The song ‘Raja makal, Roja makal’ (‘Daughter of a king, daughter of the rose’) which narrativises their fifteen days together is sung by a male playback singer, suggesting that Mohan is making encomiums to a powerful woman. Though much of the mise en scène uses conventions from normative love songs and is thus recognisable as such to the audience, the latter half of the film surprisingly frees Mohan of any knowledge or responsibility for having participated in the courtship of Dolli. Later, when Dolli brings her marriage proposal to Mohan and his mother in person, she is refused on grounds that Mohan is already married to the prescribed traditional partner, his maternal cousin. When Dolli tries to ‘buy’ her way into a union with Mohan, then his mother relents as it were to say that she would agree if only her daughter-in-law were to agree. While the narrative portrays and thus censures Dolli as headstrong and arrogant enough to even think of purchasing relationships, one can also argue that this is Dolli’s attempt at inverting the Tamil practice of chinna veedu, for ordinarily it is a man who is socially enabled to keep more than one spouse. The institution of the chinna veedu, or ‘little house’ literally, refers to the socially accepted practice of men keeping multiple mistresses in addition to the first lawfully wedded wife. The other ‘mistresses’ are also socially recognised as partners of the man, but of lesser social standing than the legally wedded first wife. Chinna veedu are always thought of as a form of male agency. Dolli in her insistence to marry Mohan even after knowing he is married openly challenges this existing patriarchal practice of keeping a chinna veedu. The film validates both the modern nuclear family of one pair of monogamous child-rearing spouses and simultaneously the biological prior traditional family where the modern nuclear family itself is presented as authentically and harmoniously arising from prior traditional kinship relations (Mohan’s wife Bhuvaneshwari is his maternal uncle’s daughter and thus the ideal spouse in that Tamil social context). Vindicating modernity and tradition simultaneously, establishing at the same time that the two are in an organic interlinked rather than competitive relationship, is only accomplished through the monsterisation of the wrong kind 56

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of feminine – Dolli. Dolli as a Christian woman is seen as an upstart who cannot fit into the Hindu ethos of normative Tamil families. Dolli as an agential woman is shown to be choosing the backward, if socially vindicated, practice of the chinna veedu in her mad rush to gain a man. Dolli’s espousal of a non-monogamous traditional practice is thus at odds with the carefully scripted biological heteronormative family the film seeks to create as the ideal space of Tamil modernity. This complicated interaction is not unusual: ‘the values that “we” consider to be desirable are not the dominant ones in society and therefore, the freedom to choose most often simply reasserts existing dominant values which, from our point of view, are deeply problematic’ (Menon 2012: 212). Dolli’s agency thus can only express itself as somehow anti-feminist and anti-modern; both these feed into her monsterisation. Dolli as monster expresses herself through the possession of the girl child who is the product of the traditional/modern nuclear family that Mohan creates. The film uses the narrative convention of having Dolli’s suicide happen on the same day as Shalu’s birth; her spirit is said to have entered the newborn’s person thus, but the actual expression of possession is only displayed on Shalu’s fourth birthday, when she sings the same song that Mohan had once sung to court Dolli. Her evil is thus established also through the incestuous suggestions of a girl child wanting to seduce her father after the typical Freudian model, if one were to read the love song literally. Pillai Nila implodes the seamless production of normative nuclear parenting when it allows female resistance to male rejection or control to be expressed. However, in expressing this resistance as monstrous and then legitimising the mastery of this monstrosity, the film is explicitly anti-feminist. Thus, Shalu then gradually proceeds to dismantle Mohan’s household. Her first victim is Mohan’s mother, despite Mohan’s many precautions. Bhuvaneshwari is next, but Mohan meanwhile has annexed the help of a secular spirit reader as well as the Church to lay the spirit to rest. Quite remarkably, unlike other contemporary Indian horror films which focussed on the obvious physical manifestation of horror, such as bared fangs, protruding teeth, exposed entrails etc., Pillai Nila creates horror primarily through suggestion, a point Isabel Pinedo makes when she says: ‘What is at stake is seeing, or not-seeing, the monster and the violence that accompanies its appearance. The monster, which is often off-screen or masked, is a conspicuous figure of absence whose very absence incites the desire to see it’ (1997: 54). Neither Dolli nor Shalu is physically presented as a monster. At best, Shalu’s face reveals an inordinate sense of unchildlike fixity. Nowhere do we see any visualisations of corporeal distortion so typical of possession horror films. The spirit of Dolli is shown in the Christian bridal attire that 57

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she was wearing at the time of her suicide. Even in the climax when Shalu tries to kill Bhuvaneshwari, the evil within Shalu remains at best suggestive. The cinematic camera employs the mid-shot and shows that as soon as Bhuvaneshwari opens the door, she is thrown by a gust of wind over the sofa. A cutaway shot of a telephone hanging from its set backed with an equally eerie background sound creates a horrific atmosphere. The next shot is again a mid-shot showing Mohan’s back as he tries to wrestle with the closed door. Images of Mohan confined inside the room are juxtaposed with Shalu’s stern looks as she stares blank in a close-up shot. The camera then pans from the bottom to the top showing Shalu’s entire body dressed in whites. Then, in a POV shot from the perspective of Shalu, Bhuvaneshwari is shown being attacked with moving sofas and chairs. A medium close-up shot alternately captures Shalu smiling and then adopting a stern facial look as Bhuvaneshwari continues to be displaced in a moving sofa. The scene finally ends with Mohan rescuing Bhuvaneshwari after a long struggle. In this entire sequence of shots, the monstrousness of the evil within Shalu is only suggested through the background voices, dark settings and her wicked smile. Perhaps the most important divergence of Pillai Nila vis-à-vis the other horrors discussed above is that the host body never feels any experiences of supernatural torture. Further, the film elides the question of whether Shalu consents to the ghost’s possession of her body: her status as child seems to foreclose the question of consent. If stripped of its horror valences, Pillai Nila’s second half would read as a strange parable of perverse resistance by a child to her loving father’s mechanisms of medicalising her. One would have to read it as the child’s articulation precisely of resistance to lack of control over her own person. However, within the mainstream cinema, the space for such an articulation is extremely limited. Mainstream melodrama’s use of the horror convention to explore the female child’s resistance to the male parent’s excesses in relation to a woman not immediately part of the family must thus be seen as an instance where the unseen horror of the everyday private sphere of family is expressed metaphorically, parabolically, rather than literally. The child’s resistance to the male parent is thus only articulated through the convention of horror, since she is a child and otherwise powerless. Conversely, Dolli was already infantilised in the first half (she asks her brother when she falls in love: ‘Is Mohan a good man or a bad man? He makes me feel I am wrong’), but this infantilisation is given its more obvious visual manifestation in the latter half when she possesses a four-year-old’s body. Thus, patriarchy expressing the junior/juvenile status of women is foregrounded via various conventions. Within the narrative, Dolli’s own resistance as a woman also flounders without the narrative of the horror film to express righteous female anger. 58

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The horror narrative assumes Hindu fundamentalist colour when it is repeatedly shown that Christianity is inadequate as compared to what is felt to be the more authentic Tamilness of being Hindu. Dolli’s Westernised appearance – manner, clothing and emotions – is the first set of objects the film censures; her spirit is also shown wearing the Christian bridal gown Dolli wore on the day she committed suicide. Fetishising her Christianness thus, the film displaces the burden of horror onto non-Hindu aberrations within Tamil society. In a crucial juncture in the film’s narrative, a Malayali mantravadi whose services are sought by Mohan expresses his helplessness in the face of the knowledge that the spirit is an (uncremated) Christian. Christian burial practices, it is suggested, are responsible for the horror of the undead woman. Dolli’s powerlessness in death is further reinforced by her Christian spirit’s inability to enter the temple premises where Mohan seeks refuge from her anger. Dolli’s spirit is shown to be powerful within the cemetery or outside the temple premises. When the Church pastor finally gives permission to burn Dolli’s buried body and David duly sets fire to his sister’s corpse voluntarily in order to save Mohan and his family, the film legitimises Hindu burial rituals and by extension Hindu religious practices as not only superior, but also universally applicable remedies against incursions of the monstrous. Subtly, Pillai Nila manipulates the viewer’s possible sympathy with the betrayed Dolli into an endorsement of Hindu metaphysical and social structures. Bhuvaneshwari as the righteous wife is also maternity personified; when her sari catches fire, she echoes Sita’s agnipariksha. However, the test by fire here is not of her own sexual probity as it is a test of her steadfastness to her husband and to her child. Bhuvaneshwari, whose name echoes connections with the earth just like Sita of the epic, does not even unravel her sari when it catches fire – thus preserving in the eyes of the audience her bodily integrity as unsullied Tamil wife. She does not give up on her sole heir, her daughter, even when it appears that Dolli has gained the upper hand, again validating the mythic (Indian) mother’s undying devotion to her children. However, located as these virtues are within a Ramayan-like ordeal by fire, maternity and wedded status, both denied to Dolli but replete in Bhuvaneshwari, are also legitimised as essentially Hindu attributes. Thus, at the end, Pillai Nila shows a complete modern nuclear family, seamlessly traditional despite its modernity, as the sole inheritor of the earth. Dolli’s brother David stands by the side promising eternal guardianship but standing just outside the field of the family, the Christian other becomes just that – the Christian other to an always already Hindu Tamil self. Thus, the taming of Dolli is accomplished through the equally problematic desecularisation of Tamil (and by extension Indian) modernity. Dolli as monstrous woman has as little place under this moon as Dolli the Christian Tamilian. 59

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Yaaradu? The last film this chapter discusses is very different from the ones studied above. First, in this film, the possession is that of a female body by a male spirit. In Bhoot, Chemistry and Pillai Nila, it is a female spirit who enters and possesses a female body, while Geharayee maintains ambiguity about the gender of the spirit. Next, there is a kinship relationship between the host body and the spirit possessing it – the spirit of the dead son inhabits his mother’s body. Yaaradu? is essentially based around an incident of ragging. Mary (Dr Leelavathi) lives with her son John (Nihal) in a guest house in Bheemanakuppe forest in Sirsi district of Karnataka. John goes to Bangalore to pursue higher studies in a college there. One day, the mother receives a call from him saying he wanted to come back. The next morning, the mother comes to know that he has died in a bus accident. Simultaneously, she also discovers that his girlfriend, who lives nearby, has suddenly developed mental trauma. After a passage of time, five students from the same college as John’s come to the guest house to enjoy a vacation. One after the other, four of them disappear; police inquiries reveal that these boys were connected in some way to John’s death. Further inquiry in the college reveals that John had been viciously ragged there; his attackers were suspended from the college and in revenge, they had killed John when an opportunity presented itself, in addition to raping his girlfriend. Towards the climax, it is revealed that it was John’s mother who had killed John’s assailants one by one, once they come to stay in the guest house. Bouts of possession by John’s spirit enable Mary to kill; it is also revealed that Mary is not consciously aware of the fact. After these revelations, the final surviving assailant is also killed when the mother is again possessed by her dead son. The film depicts an idealised, self-sufficient mother–son relationship and locates it in a forest ecology. I argue that the film establishes that such an ideal relationship can only survive in an idyllic location like the forest and will break apart on contact with the urbane, harsh realities symbolised by the city of Bangalore. Traditionally, locations have played an important role in the narrativisation of horror. Sometimes, the locale is that of the outdoor, pastoral space and sometimes inward-looking, psychologised spaces. Bruce Kawin says: ‘A good horror film takes you down into the depths and shows you something about the landscape’ (Kawin 2012: 237). Within the narrative of Yaaradu?, a strong binary is drawn between the rural Sirsi forest and urban Bangalore. It is suggested that the inhabitants of the rural idyllic world are simpler than their urban counterparts. The film conveys this through a series of images when the setting shifts to Bangalore. One prominent such image is that of a T-shirt worn by a Bangalore student with the inscription 60

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‘urban outlaw’, for example; the students there appear to be more rough and rowdy in contrast to gentle John. The incident of ragging takes place in this urban outlaw world; the students who rag are themselves from the city of Bangalore. The educational institution also cannot guarantee John’s safety outside its own territory, reflecting the failure of modern institutions that purport to replace traditional relationships. In an interesting mix of things, the assailants, when they come to the forest, seem totally lost just as John was when he first goes to the city. It is as if the strong binary oppositions herald a mutually parasitic existence: to achieve an education, people like John need to leave their pastoral world; similarly, the people of Bangalore need to leave their concrete jungle in order to be reformed. An almost Shakespearean drama takes place, the difference being that the urban world is seen as intruding upon the pastoral one and is therefore punished. As noted by M.K. Raghavendra, the meta-history of Kannada cinema, especially contemporary cinema, is replete with examples that construct the city of Bangalore as essentially dual in nature, necessary for a livelihood but destructive of one’s soul. The figure of the mother, as he notes, is a pivotal one in such films: ‘one might say that the mother and Bangalore stand on opposite sides of the protagonist. “Bangalore” is attractive but it is also either treacherous or inaccessible’ (Raghavendra 2011: 153). This film invokes the reference to mother as in complete opposition to the city of Bangalore; the mother is primarily represented by two modes – one, as Mary, literal mother of John; and second, as forest, mother nature, primordial mother of us all. Bangalore here can be seen as other to the maternal primordial space of rural retreat; when patriarchy disrupts the idyllic lives of Mary and John, the world of the mother strikes back, engulfing within its womb the assailants of her progeny. Yaaradu? thus establishes a matrilineal/matri-centric discourse. However, one cannot ignore the fact that the hostile Bangalore–forest relationship is also premised on total otherness: the space of the rural here is completely free of caste distinctions, for example, just as the space of Bangalore is almost exclusively violent. In other words, these stark polarities are aggressively distilled types rather than nuanced depictions of either topography. The narrative does engage with the normative stereotyping of the dark forest world as the genesis of horror, showing instead conventional modernity to be more thoroughly lawless. The prominence given to the mother-world in this film is directly proportional to the complete negation/absence of the patriarchal father-world. It is nothing new for Kannada cinema. The father figure is typically absent in most Rajkumar films: The absence of a traditional father figure as an embodiment of tradition may be read in two ways: on one hand, we could say that 61

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it is precisely the emergence of the star into a position of moral and political dominance that renders father figures weak, as the star transcends the familial system even as he works to protect it; on the other hand, the absence of a father figure as a stable, unchallenged representative of a durable social order may also suggest that it is precisely the impossibility of community (defined linguistically in this case) under modern conditions that renders it difficult to make do with a traditional parental figure. The supplementary paternalism of the hero contributes crucially to the illusion of community. (Prasad 2010: 15) The only close reference to the world of the father comes from the very genial figure of Uthappa. He is seen trying as best as he can to console or advise the mother–son duo on various issues; however, he does not seem to have a real say in most decision-making. The next reference to the fatherworld emerges, as discussed above, in the figures of the assailants, who in the end are annihilated completely from the narrative. Prototype paternal figures like the bursar and principal of the college John is ragged at are revealed to be inadequate and totally circumscribed by their institutional roles with no say in the larger society beyond: John is anyway murdered for protesting against the act of ragging. Metaphorically, it can be understood that patriarchal forces murder John as he represents the umbilical connection to the mother-world. Unlike the absentee father figure, the mother figure has a crucial role in the narrative: John sings an entire song to the mother at his birthday celebration, for example. Though mother is apostrophised as invaluable, a few questions still remain. It is Mary who encourages John to enter the outside urban world for his education. Does this mean that there is recognition within the mother-world of its own inadequacy, or is it the patriarchal meta-discourse that fissures the otherwise self-sufficient mother-world to expose its inadequacy? Mary as a symbol cannot go unrecognised: the Christian symbolism of Mary’s loss of her son Jesus is here equal to this Mary’s loss of her son to the brutal urban world of Bangalore. The nature of possession here, as already noted, is unlike the stereotypical body-torture of films like Gehrayee, Bhoot or Chemistry. When the possession takes place, Mary becomes totally oblivious of the outside world and in a trance-like state commits murder. Both before and after possession, she relapses into the regular world without any realisation of the crimes she has committed. Her journey between these states is extremely smooth with no bodily or mental trauma involved. John’s death within the educational apparatus leads to horror. Unlike typical horror films where the body of the female protagonist is laid bare to 62

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the gaze, it is here the male body that is central to the specular economy. When he is ragged, John is paraded unclothed to the college community; there are also suggestions of bodily assault and violation beyond the gaze when his assailants are shown pinching or touching his bare body and John is shown protecting his chest with crossed arms. This is more typically recognisable to the viewer as the bodily gesture of female characters in similar vulnerable situations; placing the male body at the centre of such violation re-narrativises the conventional scripts available to male characters. The male body becomes vulnerable to voyeurism just as much as the female body would conventionally be to both characters within the film as well as to the spectator. South India’s vast numbers of professional colleges become here the scene of the horror John undergoes. Yaaradu? narrativises immediate societal anxieties about the precarious and vulnerable lives of young people in explosive peer-group situations. In the cultural narratives that abound about ragging, the cynosure of the tale is almost always the violation of the male body. One reason could of course be that the earliest student beneficiaries of professional educations were overwhelmingly male. If ragging is a rite of initiation, then young men are initiated into a brutal adulthood through a symbolically enacted brutal wrenching from the loving maternal embrace. A young man’s ability to survive a brutal ragging marks his creation amongst his peers as an adult man, no longer a namby-pamby person who needs a mother to hide behind. Thus, here the violation of body is endorsed as a necessary tool for the production of a proper masculinity. This narrative of ragging must be understood as itself a patriarchal discourse to sever ties with the mother-world, infantilising or juvenalising as it does qualities associated with the mother-world, such as lack of violence and lack of aggressive male homosocial/homoerotic bonding. Bangalore is created in Yaaradu? as a patriarchal space where severance from the mother leads also the death of the son; but Yaaradu?’s pursuit of alternative paths to growing up can only end fantastically by possession of mother by son. The mother–son dyad that might have represented an alternative to patriarchal coaching of son by father figures ends at its very first enunciation. Outside the mode of the fantastic, beyond the horror film’s conventions, there appears to be not much space for the kind of gentle masculinity that John embodies nor for the nurturing, wise maternality that Mary symbolises.

Conclusions To conclude, this chapter has shown how possession-horror narratives of Indian cinemas can be read to explore the connections between the exploitation of the body and socio-economic and -cultural structures of 63

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exploitation. Drawing examples from Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada horror films, this chapter has discussed the possession of the bodies of adolescent females, a young married woman, a girl child, an old mother and a teenage boy. It has taken into consideration possession by the spirits of both the male and female dead. Analysis shows that the dominant heterosexual masculinist economy of these narratives is deeply invested in socio-cultural violations of the autonomy of both the female and of ‘softer’ or less normative masculinities. Within the conventions of horror cinema, the body becomes the narrative site of hegemonic masculinist perpetration. Using ecofeminist perspectives, this chapter has read Gehrayee as a fictional representation of how the exploitation of nature is linked to the patriarchal repression of women. The possession of the adolescent female foregrounds the privileged masculinist commodification of woman and nature. Bhoot territorialises the gendered violence within the high-rise, upwardly mobile world of the urban elites. The microcosmic exploitation of the possessed body of the young married woman represents the macrocosmic exploitation of the young urban female confined within a masculinist economy. Chemistry portrays how scientific and technological advancements like the MMS can easily fall prey to the most perverse side of the patriarchal discourse. By facilitating unethical violations of the female body, female agency in form of female homosociality is invisibilised. The monsterising of the female body continues in the possession narratives of Pillai Nila. The dominant Tamil Hindu majoritarian masculinity fashions femininity through the possession of a four-year-old girl child. If this chapter began with the degradation of forest ecology in Gehrayee, it ended with Yaaradu?’s pastoral forest space which however appears to exist only within the mode of the fantastic that the horror film genre creates.

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2 VAMPIRISM AS STRUCTURES OF RESISTANCE 1

The vampire is one creature from the horror phalanx that the lay viewer may have the most success identifying and defining. Everybody now knows, thanks to the mainstreaming of the vampire genre in television and in cinema as well as in popular literature, that vampires are nocturnal creatures, preferring to haunt darkened as well as cool spaces as they are sensitive to sunlight and bright light; that paleness of skin can be an identifying characteristic of vampirism; vampires have irises that change colour and are hypnotic; vampires possess impossible physical strength along with enormously alert senses in addition to being confident, cultured, intelligent and strong willed, as well as experts at mind-reading. Of course, their canine teeth have always been a premier identifier, as also the concept that they are blood-drinkers. Vampires are thought to be immortal but repelled by holy symbols such as the Christian cross and destroyed when a stake is driven through the heart. Strangely, they cannot enter a household until they are invited in. They lack reflections in the mirror. They are shape-shifters, with the form of the bat being the one most closely identified with them. Theories of their origin are several. Vampire legends can be found on almost every continent: African vampires include: adze, asasabonsam, ataru, bori, loogaroo, obayifo, and ramanga; blood-sucking folklore in North and South America includes: abchanchu, chupacabra, civateteo, iron-fingered demon, jaracaca, the New England vampires, quazates, and tlahuelpuchi; Asian undead include creatures like the: danag, hannya, hantpare, hantu langsuir, hantu laut, huli jing, incus, kiangshi, nagasjatingarong, polong, tengu, xiang shi, yukionna, and the viscera sucker; European vampires include: afrit, ala, algul, Alnwick Castle vampire, alp, baobhan sith, Breslau Vampire, bruxsa, callicantzaros, chupacabra, Croglin Grange vampire, Johannes Cuntis (Pentsch vampire), dachnavoar, dearg-diulai, 65

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dhampir, doppelsauger, empusa, erestun, eretica, eretik, The Girl and the Vampire, Highgate vampire, kathakano, kosci, kozlak, krvopijac, kudlak, lampir, lhiannan-shee, liderc, ludverc, moroi, nelapsi, opji, palis, pijawica, procolici, striges, strigoi, upier, upir, The Vampire and St. Michael, varcolac, vjesci, vjiesce, vukodlak, vyrkolaka; Indian lore includes: baital, brahmaparusha, churail, mmbyu, neamma-parusha, ut, and vetala. (Guiley 2005: 1–337) Their origin has been traced in the Himalayas through a series of guises like the Kali, the blood-drinking goddess; Yama, the lord of death and the Mongolian God of time (Varma 1970: xvii–xix). At the same time, it has also been observed, perhaps more to our point, that ‘vampires go where power is: when, in the 19th century, England dominated the West, British vampires ruled the popular imagination, but with the birth of film, they migrated to America in time for the American century’ (Auerbach 1995: 6). The vampire as cultural signifier includes the German Nosferatu (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1922), who is a living corpse with rat-like features, and the more famous Dracula (dir. Tod Browning and Karl Freund, 1931), who would not eliminate his prey but convert them into vampires thus adding to the numbers of the undead. Prominent texts in the Western cinematic canon include The Horror of Dracula (dir. Terence Fisher, 1958), The Last Man on Earth (dir. Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, 1964), Blacula (dir. William Crain, 1972), Fright Night (dir. Tom Holland, 1985), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) and The Twilight Saga (2008 onwards). Blacula was an important addition to the Dracula canon as it for the first time depicted the vampire myth through the interracial perspectives. It led to a large number of blaxploitation spin-offs of the vampire tropes. The last of these films is expressive of the current cult of the vampire as seductive, transgressive and powerful (anti-)hero. The vampire in this context is not only the brooding cultured romantic, but also the sophisticated European other to the New World’s wolves/Indians/natives. The vampire in this context is a figure not of resistance as much of teen romance, carefully homogenised in these films to prevent recognition as regressive and misogynistic. As a series, these films have, however, mainstreamed the vampire from cult other to teeny-bopper sensation; the vampire, in this reckoning, has become the ultimate commodity. In a sense, this is the culmination of the vampire’s journey that started with the vampire as an ethically conflicted character in the 1960s: Most of our current vampires are conflicted, and this notion of the struggling-to-be-moral, conflicted vampire really got traction 66

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in the late 1960s, at the moment we first saw pictures of the Earth from space and realized our vulnerability and moral complicity. (Adler 2014: viii) The majority of the films have decontextualised the vampire’s dilemma into the dilemma of ‘man’, an Everyman trying to restrain himself from descent into the total gratification of all desires: ‘In part, the modern vampire story is one about self-control, about man struggling to master his worst impulses – perhaps even his essential nature – through whatever means necessary’ (Backstein 2009: 38). Vampires have been an integral part of Indian myths and folklores, though their representations in the form of the vetala or baital or brahmapurusha were radically different from their Western counterparts. Unlike the possession-horror, one cannot boast of a very large number of vampire films within the Indian horror canon. It is difficult to pinpoint one particular reason for this, especially keeping in mind that we are dealing with several film industries within the rubric of Indian cinemas. However, it can be argued that most film industries within the umbrella of Indian cinemas are largely male-hero-centric. Typically, in most Hollywood films, there is a complex presentation of the vampire figure bordering almost on the heroic. As such, prominent stars/actors have often essayed the character of vampire in the history of Hollywood cinema. The same cannot be said in the Indian context. Indian star/actors, perhaps fearing negativity and the public rejection of their mass following, are hardly seen in the role of a vampire. Most vampire films in India are more faithful to the Western stereotypes of the Dracula, and this differentiates the way they are seen in Indian literature (at least, the older) and the way they are shown in Indian films. This chapter studies in detail the following five films: the Hindi Purana Mandir (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1984) and Bandh Darwaza (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1990), the Malayalam Vayanadan Thampan (dir. A. Vincent, 1978) and Dracula 3D (Dir. Vinayan, 2012) and the Bangla Nishi Trishna (dir. Parimal Bhattacharya, 1989). Any discussion on Indian horror films will be incomplete without a reference to the Ramsay horror productions of the 1970s and the 1980s. The vampires in Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza articulate structures of resistance to the mainstream cultural beliefs and practices in the form of necrophilia and paternal incest, respectively. Vayanadan Thampan foregrounds the normative male anxieties of ageing and loss of physical beauty through an apprentice vampire who is only a work-in-progress vampire. The vampire in Nishi Trishna is deeply rooted to the structure of the rural hinterland and represents a culture of alienation from the urban world. The cross-cultural explorations of the vampire myth express itself through the 67

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narrative of the spirit of the Dracula who possesses the body of an Indian Malayali. Produced at different times and in different languages, all these films reveal heterogeneous signifiers of the vampire figure.

The Ramsay chronicles The 1970s in Hindi film industry witnessed some very significant changes that radically altered the face of Hindi cinema. The chocolate boy romantic hero epitomised by Rajesh Khanna was gradually receding in the background as the new generation angry young man brigade led by Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Sunil Dutt took centre stage. Hindi cinema had its tryst with the middle-class common man archetype through the films of Amol Palekar, Sanjeev Kumar and Farooq Sheikh during this period. The decade was also notorious for stringent censorship that the Indian film industry had to face in the wake of the ‘National Emergency’ imposed by Indira Gandhi. At the same time, a small conglomerate of young men in the F.U. Ramsay household were slowly working their way up the success ladder of commercial B-grade Bombay horror films. They were the seven brothers – Kumar Ramsay, Keshu Ramsay, Tulsi Ramsay, Kiran Ramsay, Shyam Ramsay, Gangu Ramsay and Arjun Ramsay – who edited, produced and directed horror films to keep the ‘Ramsay Brothers’ syndicate afloat. The journey which started in the early 1970s and reached its peak in the 1980s still continues, albeit sporadically, even in the twenty-first century. The Ramsay Brothers successfully churned out low-cost productions year after year in the 1970s and 1980s. It turned out to be a profitable venture as they not only earned huge profits, but some of their films also gave big banner productions a run for their money. The Ramsay phenomenon had a paradoxical effect on the development of the horror genre in the history of Hindi cinema. The Ramsay banner, no doubt, gave the industry its first serious and cohesive workforce that specialised in the production of Hindi horror films. But at the same time, it was heavily criticised for promoting cheap quality, poor copies of Hollywood horror films suitable only for the intelligence of B-category audiences. Nevertheless, these horror films, as others in most film industries globally, articulate a scope for depiction of certain non-normative issues which are almost oblivious to their mainstream counterparts. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how these low-budget, intellectually discredited films depict marginalised and forbidden issues of non-normative sexualities such as necrophilia and incest. After a brief overview of the innovative explorations in the Ramsay oeuvre, this chapter explores in the main non-normative sexualities portrayed in Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay’s Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza. While Purana Mandir showcases 68

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a rare instance of necrophilia in Hindi films, Bandh Darwaza narrates father–daughter incestuous relationship. The Ramsay Brothers’ horror chronicles posit a series of firsts for the Hindi film industry. To begin with, their depiction of supernatural presences in their films transformed the horror scene in Bombay cinema which till then was thriving on the suspense-based fear of the unknown in films like Bees Saal Baad (dir. Biren Nag, 1962) and Woh Kaun Thi? (dir. Raj Khosla, 1964). Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay’s joint collaboration, the Ramsays’ first horror venture Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1972) introduced the archetypal horror figure of the ‘zombie’ to Hindi horror films. Though the film in the climax reveals the presence of a fake zombie – the central protagonist role-playing to punish those who seek to murder him – trope, it features the conventional filmic deployment of zombie narratives as practised in the global horror cinema. Darwaza (Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1978) sketches the first authentic monstrous figure in Hindi horror cinema through the portrayal of a hybridised monster: a werewolf type who sucks blood like a vampire. It improvises on the conventional depictions of the werewolf and the vampire in horror cinema worldwide. The director duo of Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay in their film Dahshat (1981) demonstrates the pathetic conditions in which animals captured for scientific experiments survived. Till then, there was hardly any discussion about the ill-treatment of these animals by human researchers though animals have prominently featured in Hindi films before. Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay’s Veerana (1988) opens up discussion on the figure of the witch, another rarely depicted representation in mainstream Hindi cinema. The director–brother duo continues with the explorations of non-normative themes with Ajooba Kudrat Ka (1991) in which Hindi cinema for the first time comes across the onscreen portrayal of the figure of the mythical Himalayan monster Yeti. The Ramsay banner in the 1990s entered the world of Indian television with its prolific productions of the television serial Zee Horror Show (2012). It was unprecedented in the history of Indian television as till then there was no bona fide television serial themed around horror. When Shyam Ramsay directed films like Dhund: The Fog (2003), Ghutan (2007) and Bachao: Inside Bhoot Hai (2010) in the twentieth century, it was for the first time that a syndicate, not to mention the filmmaker, associated with horror filmmaking had survived for almost four decades in Hindi cinema. Significantly, film scholarship on Indian cinema, just like the popular imagination, had synonymised Indian horror with the Ramsay productions till very recently. It goes without saying that since independence there have been a large number of horror films produced in different Indian languages that do not belong to the Ramsay banner. However, on their own, Ramsay horror films merit every bit of critical attention they have received so far. 69

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In an exhaustive survey of global horror films, it has been described how the Ramsay Brothers had successfully stuck to the formula of quick productions at a low budget (Tombs 2003: 246). In a dictionary of horror films, it has been mentioned that Ramsay horror films borrowed generously from Western horror films (Hutchings 2008: 171). Aastha Atray Banan observes that the Ramsays deliberately combined sex and comedy with horror so that the audience is not left too scared while watching their films (Banan 2010). Valentina Vitali pursues a socio-political reading of these horror films substantiating the links between them and the turbulent times that India as a country faced in the 1980s (Vitali 2011: 79). The marginal status of the Ramsay films has often been elaborated by pointing out to the fact that most of their business revenue came from the semi-urban and rural sectors and it earned them enough money to keep consistently producing more films for almost twenty years (K. Nair 2012: 127). Perhaps, this was the reason that these films could never attain respectability though being self-sufficient genre by themselves (Sen 2011: 109). In some of the horror films, traces of the modern rationalist Hindu discourse that were in circulation as early as 1850 were also discovered (Iyer 2013: 111). There are of course, as this chapter shows later, large vistas still left to be explored by film scholarship researching on the Ramsay Brothers’ horror films.

Necrophilia and Purana Mandir One of the taboo subjects in the Hindi cinematic history is the depiction of necrophilia. While this transgressive topic has never quite been an integral part of the mainstream film around the globe, there are few films like Love Me Deadly (dir. Jacques Lacerte, 1973) and Nekromantic (Jorg Buttgereit, 1987) that are based on necrophilia issues. Necrophilia is generally understood as an obsessive fascination with death and corpses centring on erotic attraction to or sexual contact with dead bodies. The limited academic scholarship on necrophilia has tried to theorise its origin, causes and symptoms with varied results. It is interesting to note that recent psychological research on necrophilia points out to the fact that necrophiles, with very few exceptions, are mostly men (Griffiths 2012). It has also been argued that necrophiles, usually men, suffer from very poor self-esteem which might be due to fear of rejection by women or fear of the dead itself. In both cases, the necrophile compensates for his low self-esteem by desiring and possessing the dead (Rosman and Resnick 1989: 161). Necrophilia can be considered in most cases to be a ‘fetish variant’ as the object of desire is already dead (Kafka 2010: 374). Comparisons have also been drawn between necrophilia and myths of vampirism. Richard Bergh and John Kelly are of the opinion that though necrophilia and vampirism 70

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are two different categories, both necrophiles and vampires seem to draw a sense of power from their respective acts of victimisation (Bergh and Kelly 1964). In one of the very few substantial studies on necrophilia, it has been observed that both necrophilia and vampirism are fundamentally two different categories as vampirism involves the dead disturbing the alive, while necrophilia is primarily about the living disturbing the dead (Aggarwal 2011: 294). Purana Mandir affords one of the rare instances in Hindi cinema when necrophilia gets mentioned as well as depicted, albeit under the guise of horror and monstrosity. However, the portrayal itself is not a studied discourse on necrophiles, but, as this chapter shows, reinforces stereotypes associated with necrophilia in the popular imagination. Purana Mandir narrates the story of a devil worshipper Saamri (Anirudh Aggarwal), who was caught and accused of several heinous crimes committed some 200 years ago. The king of the fictional Bijapur had then ordered for his killing by beheading him. His beheaded dead body was buried behind an old temple, while his head was kept in a strongbox in the king’s mansion. Before dying, Saamri had cursed the king that as long as his head is kept severed from his body, every girl baby born in the king’s family will die at birth. And the moment Saamri’s head is joined with his dead body, he will rise from the dead to kill every member of the king’s dynasty. The rest of the story is about how his head gets joined after 200 years and he pursues the king’s descendants before he is finally set on fire and finished. Though the life and death of Saamri borders on vampirism as his beheaded body lies buried before he arises from the dead, necrophilia remains an integral constitution of his character. While laying down charges against him, it is emphasised with horrid intensity that Saamri dug up corpses for sacrifice and eating. Metaphorically, and to the extent that censorship in India would have allowed, this charge against him suggests an obsession with the dead bodies buried in the grave. The manner of filmic presentation of Saamri – the necrophile – is fraught with negativity. He is portrayed as a demon which essentially makes him an outcast in the civilised society. He is accused of rape, abduction of newly married women and child slaughter among others. Thus, necrophilia in alignment with evil misdeeds of Saamri is validated as a vice best avoided and if caught with, then mercilessly punished. The mise en scène is used to evoke cinematic necrophilia when the impact of necrophilia within the narrative displaces the emphasis on the gender violence against women. This happens just after the scene where Saamri rapes and kills princess Rupali (Vishaka Chotu). As a build-up to the cinematic necrophilia, Rupali’s death scene utilises the usual conventions of horror to highlight the monstrosity of Saamri and victimisation of the female body. But immediately after, this impact generated is negated 71

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when the focus shifts on necrophilia. Rupali’s death scene is set in a typical horror background with old ravines and eerie looking creepers and bushes making their appearance in a foggy environment. The deserted winding staircase serves as the chief horror prop as Rupali ascends the stairs only to find the descending Saamri in a dark cloak moving ferociously towards her. A series of medium and over-the-shoulder shots establish the power position between them with Saamri dominating the scene from above as Rupali is terrified below anticipating the swooping monster. Her fearful awestruck eyes are constantly juxtaposed to the reddened pupils of the monstrous figure. The cinematography further creates the unequal tormentor–victim dyad when the close-up shots of the gigantic Saamri are pitted against the medium close-up shots of a terrified Rupali. This results in a mismatch of the proportion of space occupied by these characters in the individual shots. Thus, Rupali’s face appears small when compared to the huge monstrous face of Saamri. Stifled to a wall, the over-the-shoulder shots show the black cloak of Saamri subsuming her entire body. With the cloak showing the image of an extremely cruel lion lookalike, the whole screen blanks out suggesting the complete domination of Saamri. Finally, the red pupils of Saamri emerge in an extreme close-up shot, followed by Rupali’s traumatised face deadened with whitened eyes and tears of blood trickling down. The background sound in this sequence of shots constantly oscillates between the diegetic (ferocious voice of the monster and thunder) and non-diegetic (the signature Ramsay background crescendo) sounds, increasing the intensity of gender violence against the woman. The horror of gender violence against women created by the cinematic language is superseded with fear of necrophilia in the next few shots when it is announced that one of the charges against Saamri has been that he digs up corpses and eats them to increase his evil powers. It is important to observe that the announcer loses his composure most when he starts reading out about Saamri’s desecration of graves. Previously, he maintained equanimity in describing Saamri’s other ghastly misdeeds including those against women. This can be read as one of those rare instances of cinematic necrophilia in Hindi cinema in which the narrative inclines the audience to consider necrophilia a graver crime than committing violence against women. While it is not the purpose of cinema to always engage with reformist formulations, the artistic/creative license often throws up interesting subtexts that open up discussions on hitherto uncharted territories. This seems to be missing in this film. Certainly, Purana Mandir cannot be regarded as a bad film insensitive to the needs and desires of necrophiles. After all, it is considered as one of the popular cult films of Hindi cinema primarily because it brings to the fore, and in a manner never before, the articulations of the Hindi gothic to the screen. Nevertheless, this filmic depiction 72

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of necrophilia remains indifferent to a more careful understanding of the character in question, Saamri. Seen from the perspectives of Rosman and Resnick’s theorisation of necrophilia as lack of self-esteem, one wonders whether the film has been able to do justice towards a better understanding of necrophilia. The character of Saamri is essayed by Anirudh Agarwal, a stellar performer as the monstrous villain in some popular Ramsay horror films like Bandh Darwaza. Film after film, Agarwal brings to the fore the idea of the monster-villain as a despicable figure devoid of any physical beauty. Unlike the typical suave vampire in the Western horror films who seduces his female targets with his physical charm and mannerisms before preying on them, Saamri is an out and out deplorable character whose physical appearance signals hatred and monstrosity. He kills his intended targets with fear and calls for ostracism. This lack of natural beauty can very well be one of the reasons behind Saamri’s necrophiliac tendencies. Nothing is told in the film about Saamri’s childhood or his youth. The film does not try to explore the origin of Saamri’s necrophilia. It could be that Saamri compensates for his ugliness and therefore rejection from male or female suitors by possessing the world of the dead. In this way, he would not have to fear any rejection and this would also nurse his bruised self-esteem. However, the film does not generate any explorations of the causal roots of necrophilia. Thus, on the one hand, if Purana Mandir traverses the path of transgressive cinema in depicting necrophilia, on the other, it severely proscribes its exploratory ambit well within the stereotypical imagination of necrophilia in the popular domain.

Incest and Bandh Darwaza Like necrophilia, incest too has been a taboo subject in Hindi films. Across the globe, there has been prolific production of incest-based films, both mainstream and otherwise. Films like Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski, 1974), Flowers in the Attic (dir. Jeffrey Bloom, 1987) and The Cement Garden (dir. Andrew Birkin, 1993) have shown that Western cinema has the necessary expertise and more importantly ‘will’ to experiment with the myriad manifestations of incestuous relationships. Unfortunately, Hindi cinema has mostly ignored incest-based films apart from an odd Mandi (dir. Shyam Benegal, 1983) or That Girl in Yellow Boots (dir. Anurag Kashyap, 2011). Traditionally, incest was understood as illegitimate sexual relationship between members of the same family and sometimes extended family. Academic scholarship on incest reveals how the understanding of incest has expanded over a period of time. It has been pointed out that unequal power hierarchies and trust deficits have been the major consequences of most incestuous relationships (McClendon 1991). This unequal power 73

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relationship becomes more acute and exploitative in nature when one of the parties involved is a minor, such as the daughter in father–daughter incest, who becomes the symbol of the female sexual victimisation (Herman 2012: 4). There also have been case studies of how the adolescent victim in long-term sexual abuse, in order to cope with the trauma, tries hard to accommodate to such an extent that he/she appears to be a willing participant in the ordeal (Feiner 1997: 1390). It has also been established beyond doubt that India has a long history of incest, so much so that even some tribes formally sanction incestuous relationships to honour their custom and tradition (DeMause 1991). And yet, there is a dearth of Hindi films dealing with the issue of incest. One can only assume that rigid censorship laws and fear of public backlash are the primary reasons which discourage Hindi filmmakers from depicting incest on the screen. It is in this background of scarcity that a film like Bandh Darwaza generates valuable screen space on the issue of incestuous relationships. However, in portraying father–daughter incest through the lens of horror, the film reinforces stereotypes associated with incest in the popular imagination. Bandh Darwaza depicts the story of a monster Nevla (Anirudh Agarwal) who sleeps like a vampire in the coffin during the day and transforms into a bat after sunset every day to prey on human blood. He is approached through his disciples by the wife of the local thakur (Vijayendra Ghatge) as she is unable to conceive a baby. On the pretext of helping her to have a baby, Nevla rapes her and on top of that demands that if the offspring born of this act is female, then she should immediately hand over her to him. As destiny would have it, the wife gives birth to a girl and when Nevla tries to abduct the baby, an enraged Thakur semi-demolishes him. Sucked out of vitality, Nevla retreats to a coffin and lies buried. The rest of the film is about how after twenty years, Nevla comes back to life and tries to destroy the girl and her family before he is finally destroyed once and for all. Usha Iyer points out that unlike the conventional vampire or the Dracula figure, Nevla is presented simultaneously as the ‘sorcerer, folk healer, vampire, and tantric’ (Iyer 2013: 101). But it is his sexual violence against women that drives the narrative forward and becomes the pivotal point of his character constitution. Particularly, the incestuous relationship with his own daughter Kamiya (Kunika) becomes the focal point of the narrative. That Kamiya is informed of her lineage before Nevla sexually exploits her becomes irrelevant as he uses hypnotism to completely dominate her. Having no control over her will power, Kamiya completely capitulates to become a mere pawn in the hands of Nevla as he seeks to destroy the thakur’s family. Thus in one sense, sexual exploitation leads to labour exploitation. Kamiya under the spell of hypnotism becomes a working ancillary in Nevla’s scheme of things as he tries to destroy the thakur and his family. Incest in this film can be 74

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read not only from sexual economy but also from labour economy. Nevla and his group can easily symbolise any subaltern tribal community out to destabilise the existing ruling class as represented by the thakur and his clan. However, the film carefully elides this aspect as Nevla is presented as a horrific monster who is only interested in perpetuating his evil and incest is one of the ways through which he validates his wickedness. The film uses its cinematography to highlight the villainy of the incestuous Nevla when he rapes his own blood daughter. The father–daughter incest theme gets complicated when in a curious twist, the rapist father is shown coming to life in front of the about-to-be-raped daughter. So in a way, she also metaphorically becomes mother of the creature taking birth in front of her. Symbolically, this can be interpreted as destruction of the heteronormative structuring of the family. Her seeing the act of her father coming to life and then raping her can be read as a double act of incest: first, she as a daughter gets raped by her father; and second, when she as a mother gets raped by the newly born son. The film uses conventional horror film settings and tropes to intensify the monstrousness of the act. The scene is set in a dark ravine with occult practitioners and bandits dressed in black in a dark night accompanied by lightning and thunder. The darkness of the ambience emphasises the ominousness of Nevla and his followers. Shortly after a skimpily dressed Kamiya is informed about her ancestry, she is told that she would now have to serve as a lifelong servant of Nevla. The camera then shows the opening of a coffin as it zooms in to a mummified Nevla. The camera contrasts the terrifying monster with the terrified victim. First, the camera pans from left to right showing almost three-fourth of Nevla in the frame. Second, it zooms in to show an extreme close-up shot of Nevla’s face. This is followed by a cutaway shot of a knife reminiscent as the murderous trope in several horror films. The build-up to the victimisation of Kamiya proceeds with a two-shot of a terrified Kamiya juxtaposed with the staring eyes of one of Nevla’s gang members within the same frame. Soon the embryo-like birth of Nevla is portrayed on the screen. A cut-in shot shows the fingers of Nevla starting to move, and then an extreme close-up shot reveals the opening of Nevla’s eyes, followed by the opening of bare fangs of his teeth as a terrified Kamiya closes her face. Kamiya who experienced the birth of the monster next faces the onslaught of the same creature as he rapes her. Nevla in a dark cloak is shown descending from the stairs in a mid-shot scene. The camera zooms in on an approaching Nevla, followed by an abrupt cut. Kamiya shrieks and moves back on the floor while the camera keeps zooming on the ferocious monster face. The next few shots display the male monstrous hands roaming on Kamiya’s body and catching hold of her leg. Finally, Nevla is shown lying upside down on Kamiya, symbolising the culminating act of rape. The 75

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scene ends with a satisfied Nevla emerging victorious. The sound scheme of the monster-birth and rape scene also serves to heighten the effect of monstrosity. The sound of thunder with cry of women and several characters coming out with monstrous prophecies in-between signify a diligent mix of diegetic sound that augments the ambiguous nature of the incest rape. Bandh Darwaza has successfully established the incest-rape theme in the narrative. But in the process, the film reveals a lack of compassionate and sensitive awareness of the desires of both the victim and the perpetrator of violence at the micro- as well as the macro-level. Kamiya’s incestuous rape happens under the hypnotic spell of Nevla. And after that, she continues to remain hypnotically subservient to Nevla. Her state of unconsciousness can be read as the film’s attempt to equate her with an immature small girl child who gets sexually exploited by her own father. In fact, she does not understand the meaning and implications of the violation of her body. However, in making her lose control of her mental faculty through witchcraft, the film deprives her of her adulthood and her ability to take her own decisions. The film thus uses horror to deny a mature woman her womanhood. Not only is she raped within the narrative, but she also faces graphic violence at the level of the pro-filmic reality. The spatial and temporal integrity of her character stands highly compromised on the pretext of the filmmaker’s artistic license. Similarly, the film’s artistic liberty fashions Nevla in such an unsympathetic discourse that the other non-mainstream anxieties get obscured. In many tribal societies in India, the tribal laws encourage marriages within the same family to perpetuate prosperity of the community. Nevla and his followers resemble any tribal community that lives on the outskirts of the society. But in aligning incest with rape, the film adheres to the dominant ideologies in the popular imagination that ‘other’ any nonmainstream community formations. The mainstream society considers all such subaltern community formations as uncivilised and continues to assert its superiority over them. The film’s insistence on considering incest as rape appears to be part of such a mainstream fashioning of the popular consciousness. Nevla is judged within the parameter of the mainstream society rather than from the perspective of the group he represents. Thus, even though the film bravely articulates the theme of incest, it is severely limited within the stereotypes floating in the popular consciousness. To conclude, most horror films produced throughout the world have generated spaces to accommodate non-normative sexualities that hardly afford representation in the mainstream film and media. Whether such spatial representations are incidental or strategic is open to interpretation and as such may vary from case to case. For, on the one hand, it can be argued that films should have some didactic undercurrents for the audience; on the other, it can also be reasoned persuasively that cinema is basically for the 76

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purpose of enjoyment and filmmakers need not be always burdened with the role of a social messenger. Ramsay films too fall in this conundrum. For, if they can be credited for consistently producing spaces for the marginal sexualities, their profit-making enterprise superseding their philanthropic intentions cannot be ruled out either. This ambiguity gets manifested in the numerous partially developed non-normative issues in their films. For example, as this chapter has shown, Purana Mandir portrays necrophilia but in a very judgemental negative light. Similarly, Bandh Darwaza depicts incest as a personal evil that has no place in a civilised society. By making the monstrous villain the repository of necrophilia and incest, these films hardly leave any scope for a sensitive appraisal of these characters and the situations they are placed in. Such one-sided depictions by the filmmakers can be rationalised variously as the pressure of the censor board, or fear of the public backlash or simply lack of inclination and the political will to develop what are regarded as dissident sexualities in the public imagination. However, one can always shore up some positives out of, and in spite of, such endeavours. In their very act of presenting these marginalised sexualities, these films contribute significantly to the development of nonmainstream sexualities studies. One can always read, ‘mis’read and deconstruct the normative expectations emerging out of such depictions. For what would surely interest sexualities scholarship is the fact that these horror films enable fructification of probabilities that lay dormant for long in the public imagination. And Ramsays need to be acknowledged for facilitating such dialectic processes that germinate stimulating organic reassessment of the subaltern sexualities in the public sphere.

The vampire as seductive: Vayanadan Thampan Vayanadan Thampan recasts the vampire myth dramatically in presenting the story of Thampan, who is depicted as a man who has fallen in love with his own youthful self. He prays to the devil to bestow youthful immortality on him. The devil-god pleased by his dedicated worship blesses him with seven youthful lives, each of which will end in the sudden ageing of Thampan unless he sacrifices a virgin on the pedestal of this devil-god. After seven such sacrifices, he would finally be allowed entry among the eternally youthful undead. Thampan manages to seduce and sacrifice a few virgins before he falls in love with a Christian woman; they conceive a child. Annoyed by Thampan’s betrayal of his pledge, the devil-god rebukes him and gives him one last chance to prove his fidelity towards him. It turns out that the last girl Thampan was about to sacrifice is his own daughter. When he comes to know this, he is traumatised and ends his life. The spell breaks and the curse is released; society is safe again. Thampan’s story reimagines 77

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the conventions of a typical vampire film. Unlike a typical vampire who is immortal, Thampan is a work in progress. He aspires to immortality but does not succeed in becoming immortal. Thus, the film captures the making of a vampire; in other words, this is the story of how to become a vampire, or a Vampirehungsroman if you will. Unlike vampires who seduce and suck blood out of target bodies, here, Thampan merely seduces the women and passes them on to the devil-god. In a way, he is only metaphorically taking away the vitality of the women by acting as an agent for the devil. This explains, for example, the lack of canine teeth that are the most distinctive identifying feature of the vampire in, say, conventional vampire films. Whenever Thampan is shown to be ageing, he displays ugly protruding front teeth which are emblems of old age and decay rather than of predatoriness. Unlike conventional vampires, Thampan does not have to sleep all day, nor is he afraid of the sun. Instead, he periodically loses his vitality and youth, which he has to recharge by sacrificing virgin girls. The subversion of these conventional vampire tropes, I argue, points us to the displacement of conventional male anxieties of ageing onto the female body. Thampan while terrible and fearsome, is also a fragile male person, afraid of natural processes and life cycles such as ageing. The fragility and vulnerability of maleness itself are substituted by the disguise of vampirism and devil worship. Vampirism thus is a code here for normative masculine anxieties. The film challenges the stereotype of the female as narcissist by showcasing the male protagonist’s agony at his impending old age. Thampan is played by the male icon and macho hero Kamala Hassan, whose early stariconography centred around his virility and appeal to women. To have an actor of this sort of screen profile essay a character afraid of ageing and the loss of male beauty thus brings a new dimension to the screen’s characterisation of possible male disintegration. The story of Thampan’s eternal predatoriness on women can thus be read as an index of conventional male desire to have a fresh supply of women to counteract one’s own decay and debility. His fear of ageing is the primary cause of his deviating towards devil worship; this is a deviation from the conventional mythology of how vampires are created. Unnatural desire in life is Thampan’s reason for becoming undead. Thampan is no doubt a fascinating figure; for one can always argue, what is so wrong in pining for eternal youthfulness. The film is a classic reworking of the Dorian Gray and Faustian myths. And all those archetypal figures can never be branded as pure villains. Faustus will always be revered for his scholarly genius; Dorian Gray’s fin-de-siècle charm and sophistication, though dangerous, are central to late modernity. Thampan himself as an organic amalgamation of these and other archetypes is an expression of a cross-cultural desire to move beyond 78

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mortal chains. Thampan thus expresses the fascination for the trope of the vampire. As aptly put, Perhaps it is the freedom with which they conduct their lives, existing simultaneously in and out of the flow of human affairs. . . . Cinema keeps returning to a deathless fascination with the vampire because of all the monsters in horror cinema, the vampire most resembles us, or at least that romantic part we sometimes fancy ourselves to be – the nomadic spirit devoid of serious commitments and mundane responsibilities alike – unfettered to wander the earth in the quest to satisfy our most selfish urges. (Magistrale 2007: 55) Several positive attributes can be attached to Thampan – he is patient, persevering and dedicated. He also fits the template of the idealised romantic male love-interest during his courtships with the women he falls in love with. Further, in his brief phase of loyalty to the Christian woman who captures his imagination, Thampan shows the ability to put himself second. He also shows a striking ability to integrate himself with people from all walks of life. He interacts with Muslims, Hindus, Christians and tribal communities with ease and intelligence. His seduction of women from these communities is thus facilitated by his excellent integration into their native spheres. But Thampan as supplier of virgins to the devil-god is nothing but a male procurer or pimp for another male entity. In other words, the symbol of the vampire can also be read as a symbol of the self-perpetuating sexual violence of patriarchy. The female body becomes the site of Thampan’s lust, insecurity about ageing and wish for immortality. As a vehicle for immortality, the body of the woman must perish. Thampan’s ability to seduce guarantees a perpetual supply of women, of all creeds, colours and communities; however, his insecurity about ageing means that none of these relationships last very long. Paradoxically, his seductions across different religious and socioeconomic communities transcend what are largely patriarchal pressures to marry within one’s own caste/class/community. It has been observed that Vampires are polymorphously perverse: In their search for blood, they can find physical intimacy with a person of almost any gender, age, race, or social class. . . . Transgressive and violent eroticism links the vampire’s monstrousness to revolution against norms established by patriarchal institutions of religion, science, law and the nuclear family. (Freeland 2000: 124) 79

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It is Thampan’s perversity that ironically ennobles the institution of vampirism: his resistance to structures of endogamy, to the narrower confines of social convention with its hegemonic masculine practices. This is especially true of the adaptation of vampire myths to a culturally heterogeneous country like India for different social, economic, linguistic, regional and cultural matrices of heterogeneity which are more visible markers in this society than they would be in relatively more homogeneous countries. Since the figure of the vampire is comprehended as an overreacher, it is but natural that social codes do not exist for him. But this remains a muted reading as the focus of the film is to show that vampiric needs essentially are defined as either incest or prostitution. Like Bandh Darwaza, incest here too is shown as an instance of custodial abuse of daughter by father. This sort of incest must be read as a literalisation of patriarchal violence: the father as patriarch violating the daughter through non-consensual incest/ rape is in many ways a trope for the foundation of heteronormative family. In Thampan’s case, the daughter he romances is one he has never been a social father to. In other words, the force of the violation of taboo in this incestuous relationship is dissipated and invisibilised. It is the mother of the girl who notices that the young man her daughter is enamoured of is in fact her father. The social prohibition against incest is thus articulated by the mother alone, and to begin with, she is a person whose love of this man has already been socially isolated. In other words, commonplace patriarchal abuse becomes in this film a special or unusual kind of abuse within the narrative. The mother’s pre-existing social isolation in a sense makes her daughter vulnerable to this further abuse by the same man. If Thampan had been no vampire but an ordinary mortal, his excesses may have been caught by pre-existing social boundaries: checks and balances such as the families of partners involved in a relationship may have been able to prevent the ‘accident’ of father–daughter incest from happening even in the case of a socially absent father. However, the unusualness of Thampan’s life story allows him impunity in this regard: his antagonists all age and die before he revisits the location again for fresh female prey. Thus, the film interestingly invokes, disavows and at the same time articulates the problem of consent between partners to a relationship. Since this film depicts a man about to be converted into a vampire, one is also able to see how the full attainment of the vampire state comes with its own limitations. Vampires might be able to seduce any women at all, but they also appear to pine for true love, both platonic as well as sexual. An insightful take on this is that: Dracula, after all, is the ultimate charlatan and con man. He is a “castrated” seducer who cannot penetrate in the conventional 80

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way; all sex energy is displaced to his mouth. Instead of providing stimulation, repeated encounters only drain and depress his lovers, who can barely recall his visits. Unconsummated in normal terms, their passion soon becomes undead as well. (Skal 1993: 126) Since the devil-god wants virgins, Thampan therefore cannot consummate these liaisons: his form of rigorous penance is sexual abstinence, very much in keeping with vampire lore. At the same time, since he offers erotic and sexual titillations in the process of seduction, this sexual abstinence is only abstinence in the narrowest sense of non-penetration of the hymen of the ‘virgin’ girls. This is also a very narrow patriarchal definition of virginity as unpenetrated and therefore ‘chaste’ femininity. Going back to Cynthia A. Freeland’s notion of transgressive polymorphous vampiric eros, we come to a peculiar dialectics of gaze. The seducer – the male vampire – who artfully seduces but does not penetrate himself becomes an object of study for the viewer. His perversity as a non-penetrator of the female on-screen becomes a remarkable component of the viewer’s experience. Vayanadan Thampan’s story ends on a chilling note in relation to the various sex scandals that routinely figure in Kerala’s mass media. The Christian wife of Thampan is able to band together the families of the women who had already been sacrificed by Thampan and together, they hunt him down. Thampan’s conscience is pricked by the knowledge that it is his daughter that he is sacrificing this time; the devil-god is also unable to persuade him to make the final sacrifice for immortality. Thampan chooses to sacrifice his own ambitions for his daughter. Thus, the film ends on a high moral note for the eponymous protagonist and on a rather depressing one for the notion of the public sphere in Kerala. Thampan is given the cathartic options unavailable to other vampire protagonists in Indian cinema; this of course is possible only because he is an apprentice-vampire. It is only when he falls into the circle of family – mother, daughter etc. – as encoded by society that his fall is imminent. In other words, the film is finally reliant on the private sphere to counteract the violences and injustices of patriarchy. It is visibility in a sense that leads to Thampan’s demise – he is caught in the act, as it were, and found out. In other words, the film’s denouement points favourably towards a politics of exposing sexual harassment as sexual harassment. At the same time, Thampan’s impunity within the public sphere is counterpointed by the unusual ability of the only woman he marries to mobilise the public against him. This itself is remarkable to Kerala cinema’s narrative conventions, within which energetic and agential female characters are quite unusual. 81

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Horror as the rural hinterland: Nishi Trishna Unlike Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza, both of which evoke a panIndian narrative, and Vayanadan Thampan, which inscribes a multi-religious topography, Nishi Trishna is deeply rooted in rural Bengal. This film uses a very indigenous representation of the vampiric myth in the form of the rakta pisach (blood-sucking spirit) to use the common parlance of rural Bengal. It is also this rural hinterland that is the source of horror in this film. The film draws heavily from the British line of Hammer production horror films and the Indian Ramsay articulation of vampiric traditions. It tells the story of a young college-going scholar who takes special interest in the study of tantric and other occult disciplines. With the help of a tantrik, he is able to summon the devil, who in turn demands the usual quota of human blood. Destruction is assured if this sacrifice is not made. Approximately a couple of decades later, the existence of this devil and the devil worshipper comes to be discovered when some young friends from Calcutta visit a remote, rural mansion called ‘Moinabari’. Bengali cinema of the 1980s focussed chiefly on the rural landscape: With Calcutta’s middle-class public favouring Hindi films, or turning away from the film theatres to television, the industry was beginning to look at other audiences for its primary viewership. In this period, therefore, the industry reached out to the lesser sectors of the film market, and aggressively targeted the rural hinterland. (Gooptu 2010: 265) Where normative characterisations of authentic Bengaliness are often synoptically represented by the figure of the urban middle-class bhadralok, this film attempts to revise this axiom by showing that Bengaliness also encompasses wider rural realities. The narrative shows the interaction between urban and rural worlds, each encroaching upon the other, however with totally different consequences. The first encroachment of rural into urban is shown through the college-going scholar’s foray into the literature of the occult sciences. Since his college would not provide a degree in occult sciences, the young man apprentices himself to the village tantrik, who in a sense thus misappropriates a citified bhadralok individual’s talents. What it results in is the complete disintegration of the scholar’s mind and his relationship with the girl who loved him and wanted to marry him. This can be read as the film’s insistence that the study of the supernatural, or of black magic, or the occult leads to the destabilisation of the structure of the family. The girlfriend repeatedly warns him to leave the pursuit of the supernatural for she loved the academic scholar and soon to be settled careerist 82

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within him, but he persists. This finally leads to his disappearance, only to resurface later in the narrative as the vampire’s caretaker/loyal servant, Mr John. The budding bhadralok has become, as the narrative shows later, a village recluse. The second such rural intervention in urban life comes when Mr John takes the vampire sleeping in his coffin to prey on urban human blood. It causes mayhem, as can be anticipated. The rural foray, in this case into the urban world, only happens during unearthly hours of the day. Thus, the rural is a menacing and destabilising presence in the framework of urban lives. On the contrary, when the urban world comes to the rural, it leads first to the recognition and acknowledgement of a para-reality outside the ambit of collective urban ‘wisdom’, and then total destruction of this para-reality follows. For example, when Paul (Prasenjit Chatterjee), an embodiment of the urban bhadralok, goes to Moinabari Gorchampa palace with his equally rational friends, he is shocked and forced to acknowledge the existence of the supernatural. The film up to that point had shown Paul constantly dismissing the supernatural as a matter of superstition. Second, one of his friends is killed by the vampire’s associates in Moinabari. This can be read as the unknown rural mystery devouring the city-bred disbelieving individual. Third, the vampire is finally brought to his end when the erstwhile girlfriend of Mr John (now an old lady and a medical practitioner herself) helps these people in laying his spirit to rest. The killing of the vampire is symbolic, in that it is the slaughter of rural self-fashioning by the urban. The village is thus portrayed here as a threatening other, which if not controlled and moderated by the urban intellectual would spin out of control. It appears it is the urban man’s burden to both civilise – that is to exercise rationality – and to also exorcise – by definition, a reference to the supernatural or what is beyond rational. The film suggests that the rural world is too aware of such a threat: for example, the charioteer who drives the city visitors to Moinabari after much hesitation was apprehensive about the other-worldly killings associated with the mansion. This suggests that rural folk are also aware of the infamy of the mansion; the film depicts simultaneously the dead body of a tribal woman lying on the wayside, for example, but it is only after the urban visitors establish themselves that the village is proclaimed ‘cured’ of this malaise. The film is thus an undercover reform project for the dark spaces of ‘underdevelopment’. It can be argued that such an endeavour is by nature elitist; the process of ‘development’ is thus overtly depicted as the prerogative of the learned, intellectual, Bengali bhadralok. Any knowledge not codified or recognised by this group is conceived as the tormenting other that needs to be eliminated. An important inference that can be drawn from this film is that the urban world acknowledges the existence of certain ‘presences’ that challenge its monopoly on rationality. The fear of being challenged on this count leads to the purging of an entire way of thinking. 83

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Another way of thinking is represented by the series of stock images the film uses to portray the vampire and his retinue. Some of these images include an old Victorian haunted house and its caretaker, a wailing woman in Western house wear, a buggy that ferries the vampire’s coffin around, a female vampire etc. At one level, all these images suggest a colonial hangover. At another, however, these images are also indigenous reproductions based on Romanian Dracula myths. The presence of these ‘foreign’ realities makes it imperative for the Bengali bhadralok to discard these from their everydayness. The bhadralok’s internal colonisation of the hinterland is evident from the lack of depictions of actual village life in this film: the village is either presented through static images like the above or depictions of tribal life substitutes for the rural. Both kinds of depiction await imminent expulsion from the bhadralok’s ideal imagined utopic Bengal. Amidst all this, the film ignores why the urban world is drawn to the rural other in the very first place. A certain attraction of apparent opposites is taken for granted rather than explored. For example, John is shown to be closely attached to the figure of the vampire and it is also suggested that this vampire too is dependent on John. Initially, the film shows that when John summons the vampire, it threatens to kill him unless he provided it with human blood. But again, the bond between the two which becomes very evident as the film progresses is never explored. Questions could have been asked about why the vampire did not finally kill John. If the vampire represents initially the space of the rural, then to follow James F. Iaccino: Unlike other shadow monsters, the vampire has a strong desire to relate to other humans, in the hopes that it can survive on their blood and, more importantly, create companions like itself to avoid the negative feelings of isolation and death. Because the curse of the undead cannot be altered, however, a vampire can never achieve what humans possess already – the life force of the soul. Thus, it will wander throughout time, watching the centuries come and go, unable to endure the agony of a damned immortality but simultaneously incapable of ever destroying itself. (Iaccino 1994: 62) Once attached to John, the rural as represented by the vampire both impinges on John’s urbanity as well as itself loses its exclusive rural ambit, travelling to ever-broadening horizons soon in John’s company. Conventional fears of strong women are also invoked in the course of the film’s movement through various geographies. The minoritisation of the female gender is exemplified by the figure of the female vampire, once an aspiring model herself. The aspiring career woman comes to her death 84

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in the house of a photographer with whom it is implied that she is having a sexual relationship; later, she sucks the life out of one of the young male visitors to Moinabari. This young man, Tapan, had been appreciating a photo of the model unaware that she was already dead; the female vampire’s aggression towards him can be read as a literalisation of the concept of ‘vagina dentata’. The filmic language of the mise en scène creates this dialectics of the tyrant female–male victim narrative. The seductress female vampire is presented as a lonely woman in a see-through dress, standing with her back facing Tapan, in a deserted street one night when Tapan was driving towards Gourchampa castle. In an over-the-shoulder shot, the curious Tapan is shown walking towards this half-naked woman. The next shot is a mid-shot where the camera focusses on the back of the woman from close revealing her undergarments. Then in another mid-shot, the male gaze of the onlooker Tapan is captured. The mysterious girl then walks into the forest and disappears. The effects of the background sound during this sequence meanders from curiosity to temptation: the diegetic sound of the tempestuous wind and the non-diegetic sound of the backstage noise. Tapan turns back to find that the girl is standing behind him and thus begin the game of pursuit. The girl turns towards the camera and the viewer realises that she had been smiling all along. The eye-level angle of the camera shows her facial expression changing from mischievous smile to firmness to sternness to anger. After a sequence of shots, the camera alternates between zooming on the woman’s face and the curious polite enquiries of Tapan. Then a series of close-up shots makes it amply clear that Tapan fears he is going to be killed by this seducing female monster under the guise of a beautiful woman. The fear of the ‘vagina dentata’ finally culminates in a very literal biting of Tapan’s neck by this female vampire. The close-up shot with the background crying noise of the male victim and the predatory smile of the blood-sucking vampire along with the visually terror-stricken Tapan with none of them looking at the camera affords the viewer a perverse voyeuristic pleasure. It has been observed that ‘a model of a self-sufficient, dominant and mature female illustrated through the vampire myth seems to be constantly reappearing in the popular culture of the 2000s’ (Hadyna 2013). The appearance of a female vampire in a cinematic text as early as the 1980s ought to be read as a trace response to the various feminist mobilisations of the 1980s in India. The implication is that as a financially independent career woman, she would have, if alive, sucked the life out of her male partners simply by virtue of being an autonomous individual. Within the vampire world too, her fate is rather tenuous and othered; her narrative ends abruptly – after swiftly killing the young male visitor, this character is retired from the film’s diegesis. Her abrupt arrival and exit thus suggest that strong female presences can at best be transient ones within 85

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what is a powerfully patriarchal vampire parallel-world. Another promising female character is John’s ex-girlfriend, who is shown to demand a marital commitment from him. His refusal to commit suggests male refusal of accountability to women, itself a reversal of the more typical arrangement wherein men are used to acquiring commitment from women. It is thus in the fitness of things that this woman witnesses John’s death. While her strength of character has led her to social and economic independence, John’s lot is one of perpetual servitude. John’s anxious and insecure masculinity also surfaces when the outspoken Shiuli (Moon Moon Sen) tries to save her sister; his calmness of demeanour is disrupted and he is shown to be visibly shaken. Nishi Trishna thus validates both urban dominance of the discourse of development as well as masculine monopoly over agency and autonomy; as the above shows, both ideologies are brittle.

Unreal translations: Dracula 3D The final segment of this chapter discusses Dracula 3D which is loosely based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as the film’s credits claim. Unlike the other films discussed so far, Dracula 3D presents a unique rendering of the Dracula myth keeping with the modern technological advancements in Indian cinematic methodology. The film, as the title suggests, has been shot using 3D technology. It describes the fate of a Malayali called Roy (Sudheer Sukumaran), who spends his honeymoon in Romania. Deeply interested in occult practice, Roy frequents a Romanian castle where it is widely believed that Dracula was buried. The Romanian government has turned this castle into a tourist attraction. Roy confirms with his mantravadi guru in Kerala over phone that mantravadi techniques will be applicable even in distant foreign shores. Using special permission from the castle authorities, Roy performs a tantric ritual invoking Dracula. The spirit of the Dracula comes to life and inhabits Roy’s body after killing him. He then comes to the hotel where his wife was staying and kills her. The narrative then traverses a certain period of time off-screen and we are told that Roy has been living as the scientist Wilson D’Souza in Kerala at a mansion. The rest of the story shows how Dracula, using Roy’s body, preys upon different people till he is finally killed when his coffin is opened and his body is exposed to direct sunlight. This film, I argue, creates a sense of displacement and of unreality that comes as a bargain with the use of modern technologies like 3D. Using this sense of displacement, this film monsterises non-normative sexualities and practices like incest, bisexuality and lesbianism. Using the modern 3D technology, the film creates a digitised 3D economy. Unlike the other horror films discussed above which used the special effects of the corresponding times to not only highlight the monstrosity of 86

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the monster but also to situate it in the contemporary social realities, Dracula 3D thrives on the creation of the make-believe world. For example, the spirit of Dracula is presented as a muscular Hulk cum Batman. This is so different from the conventional images of Dracula that have historically been presented to us. The 3D presentation, however, results in the production of a comic book hero of the virtual world. The divorce of the virtual world from the real is so strong that it takes away the fear factor from such depictions. When one steps out of the cinema hall, one is assured of the fact that such digitised monsters will not appear in real life; whereas in the films discussed earlier in this chapter, the probability of encountering ghosts remains quite plausible as they are anchored in folkloric antecedents. However, the digital economy of 3D lacks this freight of folkloric history. Fear, it appears, is not produced only by the immediate encounter with something fearsome, but through associations in memory with earlier objects and experiences. In Vayanadan Thampan, the mantravadi Thampan has a parallel history in the countryside folklore. Similarly, in Nishi Trishna, the countryside presents itself as the repository of horrors. The haunted temple in Purana Mandir and the ancient mansion in Bandh Darwaza have all been a part of the collective unconscious. However, there is no parallel fictional archival history of such 3D horror. The sense of alienation of the viewer from digital or 3D horror is also created through the viewer’s fatigue and other medical conditions that may arise due to the exposure to such technologies: Viewing 3D movies can increase rating of nausea, oculomotor, and disorientation. Analogous to riding a roller coaster, for most individuals the increases in symptoms is part of the 3D experience and enjoyment and these experiences is not necessarily an adverse health consequence. However, some viewers will have responses that in other contexts might be unpleasant. (Solimini 2013) This neurological fatigue accompanied by historical disconnect of the narratives themselves strengthens the feeling of unreality. The surfeit of forms that strike the eye suggests what Frederic Jameson calls the depthlessness characteristic of postmodernity. A series of images strike with the help of special effects without creating a corresponding context within which they can be received. In such unreal presentations, it is quite obvious that the narrative itself will be built on unreal premises. One wonders how could a tourist, that too a foreigner, get access and permission to perform an elaborate set of tantric rituals in a room that is not open to the public for several years; the film gives no hint to suggest that Roy had access to connections that would help facilitate such access. Similarly, the presentation 87

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of Romania as a country is also generic, and is simply substitutable for any other Eastern-European location with a castle. But ‘Dracula’s crossing of boundaries is relentless: returning from the past he tyrannises the present, uncannily straddling the borders between life and death and thereby undoing a fundamental human fact’ (Botting 2003: 150). The unreality of the film also manifests as overreach: first, the overreaching associated with the cult of Dracula and other vampires; second, Roy’s own overreaching using mantravadi techniques to invoke the Dracula; and third, the overreaching of the cinematic language in creating this digitised economy of viewership. The first kind of overreach is manifested in Dracula’s transportation of himself to Kerala. One wonders how and why this cinematic transportation within the narrative was required. For, if as the narrative has already suggested that Roy is dead and Dracula inhabits his body, why did the spirit have to leave European shores for Asian ones? Does this suggest that the dead body influences Dracula’s actions? It is also surprising to note that Dracula, through Roy/Wilson’s body, speaks in Malayalam language. Where Dracula would have been an immigrant in Romania if he had stayed right there within a South Asian body, in India his total acquisition of and incorporation into Malayaliness to the erasure of any Romanian/East European antecedents or culturing is another mode of unreality. The figure of Dracula that this film presents is one of translation from European modernity into a non-Western cultural zone, but at the same time, the film is invested in completely erasing the process of this translation, instead making it seem as if the Dracula legend is universal. Dracula 3D’s erasure of local contexts for both Romania and Kerala are then to be read as symptomatic of the film’s lack of anchorage in any culture other than that of globalisation. The second kind of overreach is the mantravadi’s invocation of the Dracula. Roy’s use of the Malayali mantravadi practices in a Romanian setting is an attempt to validate these practices as universally signifying and universally potent. Instead of seeing mantravadam as local, indigenous and limited, the film is trying to export these to its conception of the West to parallel the flow of the Dracula myth to the non-West. Yet, because of his invocation of the Dracula using these practices in what would be in reality a crowded tourist spot, the film is unable to depict this movement of narratives across different spatial economies as movement. Instead, this appears to be unreal because of the static montage of occult Eastern practices onto Western storyline; this static passage confirms diegetically the superior value of Malayali mantravadam, but immediately thereafter, it is the uncontrollable Western myth that appears to overpower the non-Western society thereafter. The third kind of overreach, generated by the use of 3D technology, lets loose a 3D image of Dracula on an otherwise apparently developmentally non-modern social and ecological space. The unreality 88

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thus is generated by the clash between organic social practices, as it were, and non-organic, technologically orchestrated vampire. In other words, the vampiric presence of Dracula seems to float somewhere beyond and above the working of the immediate world of contemporary Kerala. Wilson Dracula’s Malayali avatar is apparently a scientist, but we never see him working on-screen as one. Thus, it appears that all the technology employed in the non-West seems to be confined to the locus of the Dracula figure. Thus, while the Dracula’s screen presentation involves the use of some of the most advanced kinds of technology available to filmmaking today, the narrative’s own extermination of the figure of Dracula – to refer to him and others like him the English word ‘vampire’ is used – is achieved through lowtechnological apparatus like stakes, amulets and traditional magic incantations. The digital narrative economy also monsterises non-normative sexualities. Roy/Wilson’s bisexual tendencies are revealed when he is shown to be tempted by blood on the neck of a boy called Raju (Aryan). The Dracula’s desire is registered through the mise en scène; Wilson’s tongue is shown protruding out of his mouth desiring to suck the visible blood on Raju’s neck. However, when Raju turns to face him, the tongue is immediately retracted. The sequence of shots begins with a two-shot capturing Roy/ Wilson and Raju in a single frame. Roy/Wilson has just desirously looked at the photo of Raju’s beloved Meena (Monal Gajjar) and he returns her photo to him. Raju takes the photo very coyly. If one concentrates on the assemblage of these two characters in the frame, then Roy appears as the dominating wooer, whereas Raju comes across as the shy and reticent beloved. In the next shot, which is a POV shot from the perspective of Roy/Wilson, the camera focusses on the bloody wound on Raju’s neck. On the right side within the frame, there is a statue of a bat. Bat represents the vampire and is thus metaphorically expressive of the predatory/sexual desires of Roy/Wilson. A painting/picture of a ship sailing in the sea is also placed beside the bat. The ship is usually interpreted as the lover’s heart in romantic poetry and the sea stands for the emotion of love. The arrangement of these artefacts can be read as Roy/Wilson eyeing Raju with passion, the site of passion being the wound on Raju’s neck. The camera zooms in at the neck wound and then in the next medium close-up shot, it focusses on Roy/Wilson’s face. His vampiric teeth are out in the open as he gazes at the wound. The entire frame here is dominated by his black-coloured gown. Black symbolises evil and so the film suggests that bisexuality is a non-normative desire best to be avoided. In this very shot, it is shown that the vampiric tongue gradually comes out of his mouth suggesting lust for male blood. The camera then focusses on Raju’s neck wound again. Then finally, the camera shows the protruding tongue coming out even more before Roy/Wilson turns his face away. Now the camera captures only the back of his head. In 89

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a reversal of over-the-shoulder shot, the camera focusses on Roy/Wilson on the foreground and Raju in the background. The troubled recoil of the tongue and therefore the vampiric desire gets evident on the screen. In a fit, Roy/Wilson conceals his emotion and regains his normalcy. If Dracula sucking blood is equated with his satisfying sexual urges in his own way, then this temptation to suck on Raju’s neck is clearly a bisexual temptation. When this very Dracula sucks the blood of female prey, then his act of sucking is presented as sexually gratifying and orgiastic. All such scenes start on a romantic or sexual note before the monster in him emerges. In Raju’s case, however, the act is presented overtly as not so much sexual as purely predatory. While feeding on women is heterosexualised, the film works hard to desexualise cross-sexual blood sucking. This must be read as an instance of cinematic homosexual panic. The Dracula’s bisexual or homosexual self is thus suppressed actively by the film’s diegesis even though, as is insightfully argued, ‘both film and fictional vampires are often portrayed as polygamous and bisexual and it would appear that for many viewers the vampire film reflects a sexual fantasy’ (Cherry 2007: 174). Dracula 3D’s sexual morality thus is as regressive as can be despite its eager adoption of technological advancements like 3D cinematography. In presenting Dracula as heterosexual and only heterosexual, the film is eliding all possibility of reading the figure of Dracula as a transgressive trope indexing sociological anxieties about sexuality. Similarly, the film also demonises lesbianism. In a scene, we see one female vampire trying to bite an adolescent girl by taking her into her own garden one night. Before she is able to successfully suck blood out of her prey, the female vampire is interrupted by the arrival of an intruder who drives her away. There are suggestions of incest readily available when one considers Lucy the vampire is the aunt of the young victim. Lucy’s white bridal negligee and generally sexualised presentation reinforce these suggestions. The arrival of the child’s uncle, a policeman, disrupts the bloodsucking endeavour, suggesting further that not only vampirism but also the connotations of autonomous female–female erotic action are unwelcome to both the state and to its civil society. Bonnie Zimmerman’s observations of how vampirism signifies in narratives are very useful here: The function of the lesbian vampire is to contain attraction between women within the same boundaries of sexual violence, to force it into a particular model of sexuality. By showing the lesbian as a vampire-rapist who violates and destroys her victim, men alleviate their fears that lesbian love could create an alternate model, that two women without coercion or morbidity might prefer one another to a man. (Zimmerman 1996: 381–2) 90

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The under-age niece, however, anchors lesbianism in this scene as not merely attraction between women, but as non-consensual attraction across a generational line that makes any erotic play not only unwelcome but also a violation of custodial expectations. Thus, non-consensual incest is tied to the possibility of lesbian attraction in a reinforcement of the theme of homosexual panic. The eviction of Dracula finally from the social world of Kerala thus means not only the successful banishment of baleful ‘outside’ influences in the form of non-Eastern occult, but also the equally successful banishment and containment of non-heterosexual possibilities.

Conclusions As this chapter has shown, vampires are interstitial figures that code within themselves a host of sociological and non-normative sexuality anxieties. Sometimes, the figure of the vampire directly metamorphoses such anxieties and at other times, their active or passive doings motor crosscultural and personal voices of dissent. Though Indian horror films do not depict that many number of vampire stories when compared to, say, possession horror, each of those vampire portrayals rework the traditional understandings of the Western vampire tropes. The vampire in Purana Mandir, for example, is explored through cinematic necrophilia which in turn, as I have argued, displaces the focus from gender violence within the narrative. Bandh Darwaza, on the other hand, narrates among other issues the father–daughter incestuous relationship, although in a very judgemental light. Vayanadan Thampan narrativises the normative masculine anxieties about old age, decay and loss of physical beauty. Rural hinterland in Nishi Trishna becomes the face of dread as the film suggests that the rural landscape is the repository of pagan evil forces that need to be eliminated by the civilised urban discourses. Finally, Dracula 3D takes the discussion to a surreal level with its projection of the 3D digitised economy of the unreal. All these depictions necessitate the understanding of the great Indian vampire lore not in terms of a monolithic presentation of the vampire but as a body of heterogeneous signifiers.

Note 1  This chapter draws from my chapter ‘The Ramsay Chronicles: NonNormative Sexualities in Purana Mandir and Bandh Darwaza’, in Vikrant Kishore, Amit Sarwal and Parichay Patra (eds), Bollywood and Its Other(s): Towards New Configurations, pp. 174–185 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Used with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

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3 THE GHASTLY GENDERED NARRATIVE OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATION 1

While the werewolf myth has a significant corpus of takes in Western cinema, Indian horror films abound in snake, tiger and gorilla transformations. Most of these shape-shifting monsters represent aberrant subjectivities that set in motion a cycle of destruction and redemption within these narratives. This chapter enables a reading of how the cinematic traditions of the India horror film locate the male/female body as a site of different bodily discourses that are deeply embedded within the socio-political fabric of the country. Animals in Indian cinema, apart from the genre of horror films, have largely been portrayed sympathetically: for example, the domesticated animal is lauded for its ability to perform human-like actions as well as serve as loyal companions to its human counterparts. In fact, the animal world has been constantly telescoped through human emotions: that is the closer such an animal appears to be towards idealised ‘humane’ virtues, the more it is lauded or valorised. However, the horror films this study considers differ substantially in the representation of such animal–human relationships. The subject of such films is usually a wild and exotic animal that threatens the very existence of man. This exoticisation and othering of the animal, the chapter argues, is deliberately done to demarcate firm boundaries between consumerist civilised man and bestial wild nature. This bestial nature is used as a narrative technique to gesture to the transformation of the human being into something fearful and incomprehensible. Fear of animals lies in human inability to understand their behavioural patterns, especially their aggressions. This is harnessed for particular effect in horror genre. This study delineates two kinds of animal transformation horror films in Indian cinema: woman-to-animal and man-to-animal transformation films. The chapter through an interpretive reading of select animal transformation horror films proposes that while animal-to-woman transformation films articulate narratives laced with reciprocal gender negotiations, animal-to-man transformation films narrativise crises of masculinities. The gendered complexities that emerge in these horror films can be read as the products of the 92

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socio-political climate of their times. There are almost a dozen Indian horror films till date starting from the Bangla Hanabari (dir. Premendra Mitra, 1952) to Hisss (dir. Jennifer Lynch, 2010) that deal with such shapeshifting monsters. This chapter limits itself to the study of Nagin (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1976), Nagina (dir. Harmesh Malhotra, 1986), Hisss, Punnami Naagu (dir. Rajasekhar, 1980), Jaani Dushman (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1979) and Junoon (dir. Mahesh Bhatt, 1992). In this chapter, I read Nagin as a metaphorical expression of socio-political anxieties evident during the National Emergency that Indira Gandhi imposed in 1975. These anxieties reveal themselves as a part of gender negotiations in the film’s narrative. Gender equations are the fulcrum again in my analysis of Nagina as I read this film in the light of the gradual emergence of the right-wing politics of the Hindutva nationalism in the 1980s. Hisss is explored as a metaphor to study the Third World ecological exploitation by the Western superpowers. I examine Punnami Naagu as the narrative of the central protagonist’s male anxiety trapped within the class and caste politics of the 1970s and 1980s Andhra Pradesh. Jaani Dushman too expresses the masculine anxieties of an aged thakur albeit in the backdrop of the diminishing assertiveness of the feudal world. Finally, I read the aberrant sexual behaviour of the central male protagonist in Junoon as an instance of societal ostracisation of the tribal world and its beliefs. The human–animal transformation horror is a very specific sub-genre among other Indian horror films. While possession horror films also involve shape-shifting, this category invests in actual human to animal transformations and vice versa. Then, possession horror films can be set in either rural or urban places. Human–animal transformation horror, on the other hand, is necessarily set in rural areas as in most cases the animal to be transformed is an exotic one such as tiger, snake or Godzilla. These films are also very different from the vampire horror films. Vampires do not need a host body to inhabit as they merely feed on the human body. However, human–animal transformation horror requires a host human body for the animal spirit to inhabit. Unlike vampires who become alive only during the night, humans can be transformed to animals at any part of the day. The non-vampire horror films depicting monsters, witches and zombies are also different from this sub-genre of horror films. Unlike monsters, witches and zombies which are by nature mostly considered to be associated with evil and death, human–animal sub-genre shows non-evil transformations as exemplified by human–snake transformations. In fact, Indian mythology abounds in several instances of snakes being revered as gods. Then this sub-genre is also very different from the horror-comedies. In horrorcomedies, the effects of the monstrosity are usually toned down in keeping with the spirit of comedy component. In most cases, mischief and pranks 93

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dominate the supernatural occurrences. However, human–animal transformation horror films can be very dark by theme and characterisation. Last, this category of horror is obviously vastly different from the psychological/ uncanny horror films that are by definition based on the premise that there are no supernatural activities within the film and crime that is entirely manmade is revealed towards the end.

Woman-to-animal transformation films Perhaps, no other animal has had such a deep impact on Indian culture as the legless, carnivorous reptile snake which generates simultaneous feelings of awe and veneration. This is nowhere more evident than in Indian films, chiefly mythologicals and horror films. The purpose of this chapter is to examine those horror films produced in India where snakes play a major role in the articulation of the plot. Unlike Hollywood cinema which usually depicts snakes as forces of evil or harbingers of misfortune, such as in Anaconda (dir. Luis Llosa, 1997), Boa vs. Python (dir. David Flores, 2004) and Snakes on a Plane (dir. David R. Ellis, 2006), Asian cinema generally merges compassion with fear as they generate a more sensitive appraisal of the snake world and its interactions with human figures. Thus, the Japanese film The Legend of the White Serpent (dir. Shiro Toyoda, 1956) or the Taiwanese film Snake Woman’s Marriage (dir. Sun Yang, 1975) or Green Snake (dir. Tsui Hark, 1993) produced in Hong Kong in their own treatments of the Chinese legend of the white snake myth combine ferocity with empathy as they narrate the predicament of two sister snakes in the process of being transformed into humans. It is quite surprising to observe this singular mode of representation of snakes in Hollywood films though. While it is true that the image of the biblical serpent tempting Eve has pervaded the Western civilisation for long, it is equally fascinating to know that the conceptualisation of a serpent-god was present in almost all civilisations. In the first notable academic scholarship on the subject of the tree and serpent worship, it has been observed that There are few things which at first sight appear to us at the present day so strange, or less easy to account for, than that worship which was once so generally offered to the Serpent God. If not the oldest, it ranks at least among the earliest forms through which the human intellect sought to propitiate the unknown powers. Traces of its existence are found not only in every country of the old world; but before the new was discovered by us, the same strange idolatry had long prevailed there, and even now the worship of the Serpent is found lurking in out-of-the-way corners of the globe, 94

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and startles us at times with the unhallowed rites which seem generally to have been associated with its prevalence. (Fergusson 1886: 1) Indian horror films that have snakes as their focal theme, as opposed to their Hollywood and other Asian counterparts, are neither limited by any unidimensional perceptual understanding of snakes nor confined to any one specific legend or myth. In Indian films, snakes are at once revered, empathised with and feared. Then different snake films in India often depict region-specific snake myths and cults. But before proceeding on a comprehensive exploration of these films, it is imperative to trace the origin of snake worship in India. The origin of snake worship in India is very closely related to the growth of the Naga cult in the country. The lexical meaning of naga varies from ordinary snakes to that of aboriginal tribes whose religious lives were deeply rooted in snake totem rituals. In keeping with the ambivalent meaning of the term ‘naga’, there has been more than one interpretation of their origin. Anthropological exploration of their origin primarily focalises in Western Asia, from where they are supposed to have entered India through Afghanistan (Viyogi 2002: 9). There seems to be a consensus among historians and anthropologists that these people entered India sometime after 3000 BC or roughly in Indus Valley period (2700–1600 BC). Takshila in northern India is generally considered to be their central location, from where they spread to other parts of the country. Scholarly research has forwarded an interesting argument for the genesis of ophiolatry among nomadic forest tribes, mostly Austric people, in the Indo-Gangetic plains of the Western Himalayas; in the pre-urban world of the shifting cultivation, extreme paranoia about snakes led to serpent worship among the natives (Handa 2004: 80). An equally, if not more, popular line of thinking has been the mythical exploration of the origin of Nagas. According to this school of thought, snake worshippers were descendants of real snakes. It has been opined that ‘the veneration for this serpent is not borrowed, as some have supposed, from the aboriginal tribes. It is intimately connected with the worship of the Sun, and is thus closely related to the orthodox Hindu religion’ (Oldham 1905: 30). The discovery of some of the seals from the Indus Valley Civilisation having serpents on them points towards the fact that snake totemism was prevalent in India at that point of history. It can be further traced into the Vedic period. In fact, Hindu religious scriptures demonstrate a very close relationship between animals and humans in the Vedic period (Macdonell 1897: 147–8). The Rigveda, for example, has several accounts of Naga kings and warriors. Arthur Keith draws our attention to 95

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the description of serpent deity ‘Ahivitra’ in some of the verses of Rigveda. He also notes that the word ‘Ahi Budhnya’, meaning the serpent of the base of a mountain, appears twelve times in the Rigveda. Bhagwat Sharan Upadhayaya in his scholarly work on Indian history in Hindi locates some hymns in the Atharva Veda having references to Assyrian Naga kings Aligi and Viligi. One of the primary purposes of snake lores in the writings of the Vedic period was to help prepare humans from the danger of snakes: ‘In short there is a vast body of snake lore in Vedic literature, much of it intended for the practical application of reducing the danger of poisonous snakebite, a danger as real as ever in India today’ (Minkowski 2007: 394). The transition from the Vedic to Epic Age in India introduced a new chapter in the serpent mythology through the rendering of the Janamejaya serpent sacrifice episode in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. According to legend, Parikshit, the King of Hastinapura, died of snakebite, the serpent chief Takshak being responsible for his death. When Janamejaya came to the throne, he decided to take revenge by performing ‘sarpa satra’ or snake sacrifice to destroy all living serpents. Around 20,000 snakes were killed in this mass-sacrifice ritual. Episodes like this blur the distinction between mythology and history: The Mahabharata records constant wars from ancient times among the children of Surya (the sun) and the Tak or Takshak (serpent race). The horse of the sun, liberated preparatory to sacrifice, by the father of Rama, was seized by the Takshak Ananta; and Parikshata, king of Delhi, grandson of Pandu, was killed by one of the same race. In both instances the Takshaka is literally rendered the snake. The successor of Janamejaya carried war into the seats of this Tak or serpent race, and it is said to have sacrificed 20,000 of them in revenge; but although it is specifically stated that he subsequently compelled them to sign tributary engagements, the Brahmans have nevertheless distorted a plain historical fact by a literal and puerile interpretation. (Tod 1832: 626) Even Buddhist scriptures and Jataka tales add significantly to the alreadyexisting Naga myths by exploring the more generous and benign aspects of the serpent-god (Vogel 1926: 133). While the colonial scholarship on snake worship in India is vast and varied, none of it seems to have concentrated on the examination of different feminine subjectivities within the rubric of the snake mythology. In this chapter, I propose to fill this lacuna through a study of human–snake transformation horror films. Snake transformation films serve as a boundary 96

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test, and perhaps in rendering women as snakes, these films are making visible at the literal level society’s bestialisation of the feminine. Yet, in showing the bestial, in turn, as sentient, responsive and desirous of a say in the conversation, these films are also allowing a voice to the abject. At the same time, given how Indian cinematic traditions render the snake as part of the universe of living beings rather than as ‘other’ to it, is it possible to argue that the feminine is thus incorporated within a discourse of change rather than placed liminal outside of it?

Nagin Democracy in India received a severe jolt with the imposition of national emergency on 25 June 1975 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The twenty-one-month ordeal, the first of its kind since independence, shook the entire country with its authoritarian suspension of elections and civil liberties. The country witnessed arbitrary arrests, press censorship, forced sterilisations, tampering with the legal and constitutional frameworks and sudden retirements or transfers of several judicial and police officials who were unwilling to toe the mercenary policies of the government (Rao 2011). Indira Gandhi and her political cronies defended the imposition of the Emergency citing threats to national security and internal instability instigated by the non-Congress political leaders which prevented her government from pursuing economic and social reforms (Palmer 1976: 100). Voices of dissent could not streamline themselves into an alternative master discourse owing to the state repression, particularly during the Emergency period, and instead remained scattered and unorganised. Later, they appeared in the form of personal experiences, underground literature, prison memoirs etc. (Tarlo 2003: 32). Thus, Hindi films made during this period that dealt with the sensitive topic of Emergency were either destroyed as in the case of Kissa Kursi Ka (dir. Amrit Nahata, 1978; Ahmed 2009) or banned as was Aandhi (dir. Gulzar, 1975) initially in 1975. However, when we look at certain Hindi films released during this period which had no obvious direct reference to the Emergency, we were still able to locate the structures of resistance that had a parallel to the contemporary socio-political events of the times. Rajkumar Kohli’s Nagin released in 1976 is one such film. My reading of Nagin politicises social anxieties evident during the Emergency period. These socio-political anxieties, I argue, are displaced on to the construction of femininity in the film. Nagin is a mainstream multi-star film which revolves around the story of how an ichchadhari nagin, played by Reena Roy, takes revenge of the brutal killing of her male partner (a role essayed by Jeetendra) from his murderers. Vijay (Sunil Dutt) saves the life of a tribal man (Jeetendra) in 97

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a jungle by shooting a falcon that was trying to kill him. When the man comes to know that Vijay is writing a book on ichachadhari nagin but has never seen any such thing in his entire life, he discloses his snake identity and promises him a sighting of the ichchadhari nagin the next night to thank him for saving his life. Vijay informs his five friends – Uday (Kabir Bedi), Kiran (Anil Dhawan), Raj (Feroze Khan), Rajesh (Vinod Mehra) and Suraj (Sanjay Khan) – about the incident and invites them to see the snake-woman. The next night, all of them are drawn to the mystical and very musical sexual union of these snake creatures in the jungle. Unwilling to believe in the existence of such creatures, Uday mistakenly thinks that the snake was trying to harm the woman and shoots it to death. The enraged snake-woman swears revenge and starts killing all of Vijay’s friends one by one during the course of the film. In spite of numerous attempts to kill him, only Vijay survives and the film ends with a repentant dying snake-woman ruminating on the evils of revenge. The film’s cosmic universe narrativises a reign of terror where all the characters are left at the mercy of the despotic revenge-seeking snake-woman. She uses all manner of guile to deceive people in order to achieve her revenge. Lies, mistrust, suspicion, ill-will, jealousy and violence remain at the core of this chaotic world. One could argue that this filmic world was very similar to the existing socio-political conditions in India during the Emergency period. The authoritarian rule of Indira Gandhi generated a similar lawless situation where civil liberties were neglected and people were subjected to endless tortures of various kinds and degrees. It is too tempting to ignore that the strong feminine agency in the form of the snake-woman paralleled another strong female presence, that of the prime minister of the country. This film can also be read as playing upon the fear of forceful sterilisations in the outside world during the Emergency period with its own depiction of strong masculine anxiety about the female sex. The snake-woman extracts her revenge by killing five of the six men who were involved in the killing of her male partner. Each of these murders can be read as manifestations of the male fear of the female as the monstrous. In the first instance, the snake-woman is shown duping Kiran by pledging her gratitude towards him for freeing her from the bondage of the deceased snake-man. Believing her version, as he tries to approach her sexually, she turns herself into snake and bites him to death. Rajesh, her second target, is enticed into sexual foreplay which finally leads to his death. In both these instances, the snake-woman is shown to be a superior malevolent force that can sexually exploit men. The fear of the female as the monstrous gets a more literal representation in her unsuccessful attempt at seducing Uday, her eventual third victim. As Uday is about to drink the poisoned brandy from his chalice, Vijay suddenly enters and throws away the glass. They both then see 98

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the blue coloured stain on the opposite wall and realise that the drink had been poisoned. Hearing a noise from a room inside, they rush to open the door. The camera then pans from the bottom to the top disclosing slowly the red bridal attire and the black snake coming out of the sari and moving out of the window. This can be read as a very graphic representation of the male fear of marriage and the woman imagined as a vile and poisonous snake. The fact that the snake disappears in the dark outside the window reveals the camera’s attempt to exoticise the origin of woman. When we align the looks of male characters with that of the camera, it implies a stereotypical male fantasy to gaze at woman as a mystery. It also suggests the masculine anxiety at the impossibility of comprehending the female. At the level of the colour composition in the shots, red is juxtaposed with blue and black. Red has traditionally been the colour of the bridal garment in Hindu weddings, whereas blue represents poison (as remarked by Vijay) and black represents death and misery. Thus, the colour scheme too suggests male fears associated with marriage. The play between the diegetic sounds (thunder, lightning and the conversation between characters) and the non-diegetic sound (background music) serves to heighten the effect of horror. The diegetic sounds of thunder and lightning can be interpreted as upheaval, both at the level of the personal (in case of Uday) and the homosocial (in case of both Uday and Vijay) at the realisation of the feminine as monstrous. Uday though is killed finally when the snake-woman manages to convince a local strongman that Uday was her husband who of late had taken to bad ways with another woman and thrown her out of the house. The man believes her and a fight ensues between him and Uday, and taking advantage of the opportunity, she kills Uday. The film thus treads on another of the stereotypical male phobias: woman as the instigator of fights between men. The snake-woman next kills Suraj disguised as his sister giving credibility to again a stereotypical male assumption that women are very selfish and will go to any extent to fulfil their desires even at the cost of personal relationships. Her last victim is Raj whom she seduces to his death and emerges as this great seducing monster. This fear of the female as a monster is not unique to Hindi cinema or Indian society alone: ‘All human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine, of what it is about woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject’ (Creed 1993: 1). Thus, male sexual anxieties form a major part of how the discourse about femininities is constructed in this film. But at the same time, the film also engages with several subtexts that deconstruct the normative aspirations attached to the depiction of female characters in Hindi cinema. It is no secret that mainstream Hindi films have for a large part of their history limited on-screen presentations of women to either a submissive character bounded to the household or a more vampish persona seen as 99

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the bad-influence ‘other’ to society. This film challenges such stereotypical notions in more than one way. First, it affords the character of the snake-woman a substantial amount of screen presence. It is more usual for Hindi films to give more space and time to male heroes unless the genre of the film is that of the mythologicals or if it is a ‘woman-oriented’ film. Second, and more importantly, the snake-woman is the primary agential figure in the entire film. It is her film in every sense of the term. Once her male partner is killed, it is she who manages the show as she starts killing one person after another, devising newer ways to extract revenge. Third, she does not need any male figure to take revenge on her behalf in most cases; in the few in which she does need male assistance, there is no abiding sense of loyalty that she must exchange in return for getting the job done. In fact, she dupes them to serve her own needs, which leads to the next crucial point. Lastly, the snake-woman performs a role that many female characters in the past had no inclination or opportunity to do in a major way – the role of the villain. In fact, the film’s director Rajkumar Kohli had a tough time finding an actress ready to essay the role of the snake-woman. One major actress, Rekha is said to have liked the role very much but refused to do it as it appeared negative to her, validating the negative social implications of even playing a powerful, albeit negative, female role at the time.

Nagina If Nagin encodes some of the more specific socio-political anxieties relating to the Emergency, the next film that I study, Nagina, serves as a template of the socio-political changes that the country was undergoing in the 1980s. India in the 1980s had been witnessing an increase in the influence of the right-wing politics of Hindutva nationalism especially in the northern part of the country. The year 1980 saw the establishment of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) which was to become the political voice of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the coming years. Even more powerful was the steady cultural invasion executed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad through the consolidation of a global Hindu fraternity: The VHP had been organising around the Ayodhya issue in a sustained fashion since 1984. . . . As a religious organisation rather than a political party, the VHP was freer to assert its commitment to ultimate values and to adopt positions which it refused to negotiate. Thus the VHP claimed that Hindus knew that Ram was born in Ayodhya and required no documentation of this. (Basu 2001: 170) 100

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One of the main reasons behind this emergence of the Hindutva nationalism in the public consciousness was that right-wing organisations were ‘able to adapt to the processes of technological and economic modernization, making Hinduism more relevant to capitalist modernity’ (Bose 2009: 8). This adaptation through the blending of ancient Hindu scriptures and folk myths with ‘processes of technological and economic modernization’ becomes evident in the popular cultural scenario of the 1980s. Comics like Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha introduced series on Indian mythologies in the 1980s. Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan ran from 1987 to 1988 and B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharat was shown on Doordarshan from 1988 to 1990. This decade also saw the production of Harmesh Malhotra’s Nagina (1986) and its sequel Nigahen (1989) which were two prominent snake-themed Hindi horror films. The mid-1980s, when he chose to release the film, seemed to be the perfect timing as the film was declared a superhit with box office collections of 26,56,00,000 Indian rupees (Boxofficeindia.com). It is not my intention to explore where Malhotra’s own political and ideological sympathies lay. The point I am trying to make, however, is that Malhotra as a filmmaker found the socio-political climate of the 1980s conducive enough to try out his luck with snake myths, a subject that in the past was handled primarily in the mythologicals in Indian cinema, with the exception of Nagin. The Sridevi-starrer Nagina depicts a child being bitten by a snake as he accidently stumbles upon it. A snake charmer, Bhairo Nath (Amrish Puri) with his magical powers manages to rescue the child. In the process, he kills the snake and transfers its soul to the child’s body. Years later, the child grows up into Rajiv (Rishi Kapoor) and he returns to India after having completed his schooling abroad. When he returns to his native village, he is mesmerised by a beautiful saree-clad Rajni (Sridevi) who follows him everywhere singing a melodious song. Rajiv is immediately attracted to her and they fall in love. It turns out that Rajni is an ichchadhari nagin whose male companion was killed by the snake charmer after it had bitten Rajiv in his childhood. She was following him as she knew that if she could kill him, then her dead male snake companion, whose dead body she still preserved, could be brought back to life. However, after seeing Rajiv’s honesty and dedication towards her, and also his mother’s immense love for her son, she decides against killing him. Instead, she marries him, having decided to remain with him till the end of their lives. But as destiny would have it, the old snake charmer comes to know that both Rajni and her dead male companion were also the protectors of the precious naag mani, the possession of which could make him the most powerful man of this world. Hence, his relentless pursuit of her till the very end when he is killed by Rajiv roused to intense vengeance by the tantrik’s accidental killing of his 101

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mother. Due to the intense prayers of the dying snake charmer in an act of repentance, Rajni in the end is liberated of her naag yoni (clan of the snake tribes), ‘freed’ to live as a human without having to undergo the trauma of periodically transforming into a snake ever. One of the more enduring images of the film has been saffron-colour-robed disciples of Bhairo Nath playing on their snake charming flutes. The colour saffron is considered very sacred within the right-wing ideology and political activism and is the dominant colour in the BJP iconography including its flag. One of the available interpretations is that the film’s saffronised presentation of a homogeneous collective identity led by an evil snake charmer, aptly presented in a long black tunic, shows concern about the increasing influence of Hindutva nationalism in contemporary Indian society. For unlike the helpful Sapera (Premnath) of Nagin, who had limited scope in the film, Bhairo Nath is all-pervasive with his villainy throughout the film. These political identities and anxieties related to their increasing influence find expression in the construction of feminine subjectivities in the film. The masculinist scopic economy of the film gets manifested on several occasions. To begin with, Rajiv hails from a feudal landowning family exemplified best with the large-sized portrait of his father with a tiger sitting at his feet. In actuality, the portrait is of the actor Ajit, a very popular villain of Hindi cinema, who is known for his stylish dialogue delivery, who was also most often seen performing the role of a womaniser and who enjoyed the company of far younger women best in his screen career. Thus, the irony is not lost on anyone aware of Ajit’s films when Rajiv’s mother tells him that he should follow the footsteps of his father. The story of the film oscillates between an old abandoned mansion and the palatial mansion in which Rajiv and his family live. Both these mansions symbolise old world patriarchal endeavours to fashion feminine subjectivities. The old haunted mansion, an important horror genre convention, imprisons the sordid tale and the dead male companion of the snake-woman Rajni. Her existence is rooted within the tragic loneliness of this haunted building. Rajiv’s mother, on the other hand, is mostly confined within the walls of her palatial building, a typical 1980s style massive mansion with winding staircase, and has no say in the family business, which is being looked after by Thakur Ajay Singh (Prem Chopra). Then the narrative extols the virtues of the chaste wife, the pativrata nari as if a woman devoted to her husband is the highest form of womanhood that women should aspire for. So Rajni warns Bhairo Nath that despite being a very powerful magician, he would inevitably suffer defeat at her hands as she is a chaste married woman. This negates the possibilities of autonomous identities that women might have beyond marriage. Further, the film often shows women themselves curtailing the autonomy of other female characters. For example, Rajiv’s mother keeps a 102

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constant watch over Rajni, on the advice of Bhairo Nath, to see whether she transforms into a snake or not. Such supervisory manoeuvres can be read as a deliberate intrusion into the privacy of feminine subjectivity. Although animal transformation horror films with women as the main protagonists seem to be largely infested with male-centric violence, yet there are certain slippages in these films that paradoxically set up an agenda for liberating women characters from the clutches of such male dominance. One of those slippages is the song ‘Main teri dushman, tu mera dushman. . . ’ picturised on Rajni as she performs a variant of a ‘snake dance’ with Bhairo Nath and his followers playing the flute. Although its conventions place it in the typical mujra format, the song yet deconstructs these conventions in multiple ways. For one, here the angry gaze of the woman replaces the coy and submissive look demanded of a traditional mujra dancer. Where in most Hindi film mujra songs the camera shows the dancer’s steps as limited to the imaginary circle made by her male audience, here it begins with a low-angle shot of a visibly angry Sridevi descending the staircase in a zigzag manner that broaches and challenges the traditional limits of the artificial circle that proscribes and enjoins stasis of the female ‘performer’. The song’s composition, edited using the continued editing format, never for once shows a full circle of limitation or proscription that the heroine is enjoined to stay within. Instead of the circle in entirety, the song’s shots reveal arcs of men sitting with their flutes. Then the camera shows her transgressing this putative circle of men: first, by medium close-up crane shots which suggest that she is moving above those sitting men and second, when the camera pans right to left showing her moving in and out of the circle made by men. These transgressions metaphorically arm the female protagonist with more liberty than the usual courtesan song does its performing protagonist. Again in filmi mujras, a common convention involves the coy dancer playfully ignoring the sexual advances of her male audience. Here, instead, the protagonist threatens to kill anybody who would make such a move. Songs in Hindi films have often been noted for their independent existence and operate on more than one para discourses: ‘Far from being an additional element to the entertainment on offer, music is the central axis along which desire and identification are calibrated’ (Gopal and Moorti 2008: 5). Here we observe that the spectacle of the song becomes the site of gender negotiations with the main female protagonist challenging the normative patriarchal order of things.

Hisss In comparison to the pre-globalised presentation of the snake-woman myth in Nagina, Hisss reveals a more exploitative description of the female body. Perhaps, this also has to do with the choice of the leading woman. 103

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When Sridevi was cast in Nagina, she was one of the leading female stars of the Bombay film industry; she was also known for her wonderful acting abilities. Mallika Sherawat, on the other hand, is seen to be more of a showgirl, a typical item-number performer. Further, the character in Hisss is literally dumb, unlike its predecessors, which is also another way of limiting the feminine voice in the film. There is also a generous dose of nudity in the later film which perhaps is an indicator of a more liberal censorship policy of the post-globalisation period. Unlike Nagina, Hisss failed miserably in the box office. However, this film as a cultural text gives valuable insights about global exploration of contemporary Indian society. Jennifer Lynch is an American filmmaker, while one key character in the film, George, is also an American citizen. Thus, the film can be read as a mainstream American exploration of Indian snake myths, operating at both on-screen and off-screen levels. This is nothing new as even in the past, as shown in the initial part of this chapter, there has been a tremendous interest among foreign scholars about Indian snake mythology. But the context of global politics has changed. In a newer form of colonialism, where Western superpowers are engaged in ecological exploitation of Third World countries like India, China and Brazil, perhaps it is ‘dumb’ films like Hisss that take up the gauntlet – unwittingly of course – of representing Third World economic and ecological colonialisms. Control of cheap labour, international laws on global warming, indigenous forest resources and genetically modified seeds are some of the areas where this West has a monopoly. Hisss focusses upon the extraction of indigenous forest resources by the West in the form of Third World development activity. Ecological destruction and marginalisation of women are the products of development activities that are over-reliant on the economic and scientific paradigms created by a Western gender-based ideology (Shiva 1989: xvi). Thus, my reading of this film is deeply rooted in the constructions of femininities even as it evaluates the film’s own treatment of the subject of ecological destruction. Hisss, also known as Nagin: The Snake Woman, narrates the story of another ichchadhari nagin who takes revenge against the human killers of her male partner. George States (Jeff Doucette), an American citizen who suffers from a potentially life-threatening brain cancer, comes to India in pursuit of the naag mani, believed to be the elixir of life. Since snakes are known to zealously guard the naag mani, he hatches a sinister plan to get hold of the jewel. On encountering a pair of mating snakes in a forest, he captures the male partner and goes back to the city. The idea was to strike a bargain with the female one in forcing her to give him the jewel in exchange of getting back her male partner alive. His plan seems to have succeeded initially when the female snake transforms into an unnamed woman (Mallika Sherawat) and comes to the city frantically looking for its 104

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partner. This half-snake and half-woman figure instinctively starts killing one by one vicious men around her who physically try to harm her and other women. Vikram (Irrfan Khan), the local police officer, is puzzled to see the grotesque nature of these mysterious killings. He starts investigating the matter and finds out that all suspicions point towards the mysterious unnamed woman whom he has already encountered once before, whilst she was shortly a resident of a women’s help and care centre run by his wife. Vikram is finally able to locate her fighting with George with her male partner already dead due to the constant electric shocks administered by George. Fully enraged, this half-snake half-woman kills George and disappears back into the forest. At one level, the film articulates its voice of protest against the several injustices meted out to women in the society. This half-snake half-woman punishes men who torture women. She first mercilessly kills two men who try to outrage her modesty by tearing apart one and swallowing the other in her monstrous form. The whole incident takes place during Holi – a traditional Indian festival celebrated to welcome the arrival of spring. The context of Holi is very important for more than one reason. One unfortunately comes across several incidents of ‘eve-teasing’ and molestation during this festival which incidentally is one of the few Indian festivals which facilitates a very liberal mixing of the two sexes, however unwanted such mixing might be to the female recipients of attention. Thus, the film paints a very accurate picture of societal reality when most Hindi films over the years have portrayed only the piety, bliss and happiness associated with this festival. Another symbolic meaning can be attributed to this incident: Holi symbolises the end of wintry gloom and onset of happiness with springtime. Thus, the killing of these unwanted elements of the society gives the glimpse of the blissful dawn when women would eradicate all the cruelties that they are subjected to in this patriarchal world. The ichchadhari nagin’s next target was a wife beater who used to regularly get drunk and beat up his wife and small children. Poor and thus subaltern in more than one way, the wife would not register her protest with the police or other suitable agencies but suffer the physical tortures and at the same time try her best to protect her children from her cruel husband even as their neighbours do not try to protect her and instead choose to be indifferent. The snakewoman’s brutal killing of the husband underlines the need for stronger measures to be taken by the authorities who have the power to initiate action against such cruelties. But are the authorities listening? This perhaps gets answered when we consider the occasion of her third instance of killing. She kills a man who tries to rape an inmate of the women’s rehabilitation shelter; this centre is meant for socially impoverished women afflicted by different misfortunes who have nowhere else to go. Now it is important 105

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to know that this centre is managed by the wife of Vikram, the local police officer. This is not to say that the couple was involved in any way in such heinous crimes but it draws attention to the general level of insecurity that women have to encounter daily in the world outside. If such crimes can take place in what is supposed to be a protected zone for helpless women, one shudders to think what happens to women who have no access even to such ‘shelters’, with all assurances of safety they embody. This film thus at various levels critiques institutionalised patriarchal domination and exploitation of feminine bodies. However, at various points in the narrative, the film also betrays strong patriarchal leanings that tend to severely limit the potential of feminist interpretations. First and foremost is the abject sexualisation and exoticisation of the female body, most sharply of the female protagonist. The snake-woman is shown either as a skimpily-clad sexually alluring figure or as a pre-civilised archaic mythical entity engulfing human beings or eating snake eggs. Both ways, this figure becomes the object of male voyeuristic attention. The persona of Mallika Sherawat is a crucial cog in this portrayal as both the on-screen and the off-screen persona of the leading actress have always projected her as a top sex icon, renowned more for her ‘glamour’ than for her acting talent. In fact, her first film Khwahish (dir. Govind Menon, 2003) is remembered almost exclusively for her kissing spree with her costar Himanshu Malik. Second, this snake-woman is presented as a literally mute figure, which makes her even more helpless in this patriarchal world and robs her of verbal resistance that the earlier filmic snake-women had access to. And last, unlike the earlier snake-woman films, this film shows in graphic detail a lot more physical violence on the women it represents, thus rendering consumable, even as it renders legible, the spectacle of violence that may be performed by men on female bodies. Quite often, film scholarship considers horror genre anti-woman. The objective of this study has been to problematise these traditional approaches by examining the different perspectives that operate behind the male–female dialectics of these narratives. One cannot ignore that women have often been objectified as ‘prey’ within the typical Dracula/vampire/werewolf or zombie narratives. However, in films where women are seen being transformed into animals, there are certain slippages which allow for relative emancipation from traditional constraints placed on femininity, on representations available to womanhood. While horror films transform women into horrific creatures thereby removing them from mundane everyday reality, this unreal/fantastic can be seen as a mode of resistance that emerges as a powerful critique of the patriarchal society. Then how do we resolve these dynamic gender equations? May be instead of siding with any populist universalisation, we can see these films as sites of reciprocal gender negotiations: 106

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When popular cultural forms, operating within a melodramatic framework, attempt to engage contemporary discourses about women or draw on women’s cultural forms in order to renew their gender verisimilitude and solicit the recognition of a female audience, the negotiation between ‘woman’ as patriarchal symbol and woman as generator of women’s discourse is intensified. (Gledhill 1994: 121)

Man-to-animal transformation films Unlike woman-to-animal transformation films, man-to-animal transformation films, quite predictably, focalise primarily on the predicament of the male protagonist who undergoes the metamorphosis. Such films narrativise the trials and tribulations which these male characters undergo to come to terms with changes in their bodies. This is not to say that such struggle fructifies into anything meaningful as all the male protagonists eventually die. And one must add, die dissatisfied. This is very different from how female protagonists of the snake-women films react to such metamorphoses. Right from the beginning of the films, they are shown to be entities who have already adapted themselves to their dual selves – that of the supernatural and human. As a result, whenever they transform into snakes, the process seems to be less painful and less self-conflicting than what their male counterparts undergo in man-to-animal transformation films. Also, the ending of films with snake-women is less tragic as everything culminates in the fulfilment of the snake-woman’s desires (usually the destruction of evil) as in Nagina or Hisss, or in instances like that of Nagin, where the snake-woman dies partially unsuccessful in her revenge, she is repentant of her actions and reconciled to her fate. But nowhere does one see them troubled with the uncontrollable changes in their bodies – a malaise that torments most of the male characters that undergo transformation in manto-animal horror films. The male protagonist’s inability to comprehend and assimilate these bodily changes can be read as its incapability to understand and thus withstand crises of masculinities. These horror films generate valuable insights about the preoccupation of the male subject with his body, his masculinity, choices of diverse masculinities around him and his uneasiness at his repeated failures to achieve his desired notion of masculinity. Studies on masculinities have gained rapid ascendance since the 1990s particularly in the West. And it cannot be denied that sometimes models of masculinity developed in the West have become the benchmark for the rest of the world (Kimmel 2001: 22). The label ‘masculinity’ does not suggest any static framework of ideas and beliefs. Rather it is an evolutionary process where the ‘masculine’ subject constantly negotiates his own understanding 107

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of masculinities in relation to the world outside it (Kahn 2009: 190). In any given historical moment, this negotiation usually involves a reaction to or against the normative cultural exaltation of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995: 81). This ‘hegemonic’ masculinity is not a stable, singular structure but a ‘hybrid bloc’ of diverse constituting processes that legitimise and reproduce patriarchy (Demetriou 2001: 337). While there is no ignoring the fact that global patterns of masculinity had a vital role to play in influencing masculinities through processes of colonialism, imperialism, post-colonialism and geopolitical struggles (Ouzgane and Morrell 2003), it is equally important to explore the local indigenous patterns of masculinities (Ruspini et al. 2011: 5). In the Indian context, it has been argued that the two dominant forms of masculinities thrive on exactly two opposite principles: one, which is based on the Brahmanical ideas of control and detachment; and the other, working on the principles of non-vegetarianism, sociability and providing for the family (Osella and Osella 2006: 50). Then, in certain special circumstances, like that of a prison where there is a forfeiture of human independence in a gendered set-up, a new set of competing and alternate masculinities other than the popularly conceived ones develops (Bandyopadhyay 2006: 187). The purpose of this study is not to search for some elusive indigenous exclusivity of Indian masculinities as ‘it is no longer possible to conceive of a pristine theoretical and cultural world of “non-Westernness” unmarked by a history of asymmetrical interactions’ (Srivastava 2004: 27–8). Instead, the focus is on the various socio-historical and economic processes that map the growth of the male protagonists in man-to-animal transformation horror films. This study focusses on three films in chief: Punnami Naagu, Jaani Dushman and Junoon.

Punnami Naagu The 1980 Telugu film Punnami Naagu is deeply rooted in the feudal and caste politics of Andhra Pradesh of the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike Hindi cinema which tries to cater to a pan-Indian audience and in the process often deliberately avoids local issues (Raghavendra 2010: 175), regional films are ‘far more culture specific and rooted in their communities in terms of subjects and their treatment. They could use their local idioms, manners and customs to make a greater claim on realism’ (Benegal 2007: 29). This potboiler starring Chiranjeevi narrates the story of the protagonist Naagalu who is fed with snake poison by his father right from childhood. As a result, his body becomes snake-poison resistant, but it also turns out in the end that the poison had transformed his constitution, turning him into a snake every punnami, that is every full moon night. His repentant father tells him the secret of his remedy before he dies, but it is already too late 108

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as Naagalu’s skin moults with a periodicity akin to snakes, accompanied by powerful desire for union that leads finally to his death – found out by the community, ultimately, he ends up committing suicide by jumping from the mountain top. The film follows Naagalu through adolescence quickly to bring him to full-grown youth when his vocation every full moon night was to mesmerise some pretty young woman, who, hypnotically drawn by his eyes, would be found dead the next morning, Naagalu nowhere near her. The body politics permit an exoticisation of Naagalu’s body. The mise en scène of these full moon narratives permits reading between the lines: the naive but often buxom women would suddenly find themselves lurching towards the very virile Naagalu whose physicality sets him apart from the average local male body-type. The film’s soundtrack confirms that there is a structural equivalence in how the prey is drawn: the same song accompanies their drift towards Naagalu. The non-diegetic post-synchronous music in the song contributes to the building up of the predatory actions of Naagalu. The setting – surreally entangled in what appears to be the branches of a lone and very old banyan tree all by itself in some forest wilderness – is also the same for all of them, as is the hour of night: dark, yet ethereally lit up by a moon that appears to mimic daylight. Naagalu’s and the woman’s gazes meet at a midpoint of the song; both appear hypnotically drawn to one another and the romantic song narrative suggests coitus through this embrace of the eyes, followed by bodily contact – a chaste but intense embrace of bodies. The context however suggests that this embrace is a metaphor for sexual intercourse. The next morning sees these women dead: the first such woman is Naagalu’s beloved; the next prey is a woman teacher – clad in markedly urban clothing and carrying a camera, emblem of advanced technology and emancipation. Out of every such encounter would emerge a repentant Naagalu traumatised with his uncontrollable lust and desire for sexual union. The film perhaps best magnifies his uneasiness with his masculinity in the scene when the camera focusses on a highly traumatised Naagalu in front of a mirror peeling off his facial skin. At a metaphorical level, this scene shows a male subject frustrated with his inability to fashion a coherent understanding of his changing masculinity. He could feel his masculine self disintegrating beyond public acceptance. Naagalu’s body becomes the site of interplay of class and caste politics depicted in the film. It is obvious that the snakes themselves synecdochically represent the tribal world of the snake charmers who were then considered to be a dangerous entity within the premises of both class and caste. The snake charmers represent a denotified section of Indian population not only who lie at a very low level of class and caste hierarchy, but also whose profession is considered illegal. The Wildlife Protection Act passed by India in 1972 prohibits anyone from exporting or owning 109

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snakes. Tribal communities like the Irulas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and Kalbelia of Rajasthan, known for their snake-catching prowess, had a harrowing time after the passage of this act. This had a bearing on their personal lives too: In the 1970s, most of the Irula were immobile; if they had to get anywhere they walked. No bicycles or public transport for them. You couldn’t blame them, they were paranoid about being identified and getting kicked off buses for carrying snakes. They are a dark people with curly hair, and when armed with a crowbar, their tool of the trade, the Irula stick out from the rest of the population. As with many tribal peoples, the focus of the Irula’s interaction with the world is to blend in as much as possible. (Lenin 2011) This blending was also necessitated by the fact that more and more forest areas were dwindling because of ever-expanding urban world. However, this blending with the society was from being smooth. They were looked down upon and were repeatedly refused caste certificates by the authorities concerned, which led to their loss of educational and professional opportunities (Karthikeyan 2008). Naagalu’s tragic predicament has undertones of the hardships that an average individual belonging to the snake-catching community has to face even today. The crisis in masculinity of Naagalu in the film is enforced through his three major relationships: with his father, with his love-interest Menaka and with Menaka’s adopted brother. Naagalu’s tragedy arises from the fact that without his knowledge or acceptance, his father fed him snake poison since his childhood. His fate is thus of an average young snake charmer who inherits his ‘illegal’ profession. The burden of inheritance is something which Naagalu is never able to shed as it defines his own existence, his own masculinity. And the film narrative constantly vilifies the subaltern snake charmer class by showing them in a dangerous light. In the initial part of the film, it is shown that Naagalu’s father deliberately summons his captivate snake to bite a Brahmin priest after the priest prevents him from raping a woman. The priest dies of snakebite. The film thus posits the lower class and caste snake charmer as the violator and the upper caste Brahmin priest as the protector. This class and caste warfare continues with the next generation too in the form of hostility between Naagalu and Menaka’s adopted brother who turns out to be the dead priest’s son. Predictably, he is the hero and Naagalu the villain in the film. In a twist to this class and caste warfare, the film shows Naagalu sexually involved with Menaka and her brother romantically involved with Naagalu’s sister. While Naagalu kills Menaka during their 110

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sexual consummation, Menaka’s brother and Naagalu’s sister are shown to live happily ever after. The film thus makes a statement which is very parochial and serves to maintain the interests of the upper class and caste. Symbolically, the film affirms the stereotypical upper-class/caste views that inter-caste marriage outside the class tampers the ‘purity’ of the blood. Naagalu is shown as a monster (read lower class/caste) out to prey the vulnerable (read upper-class/caste), and Menaka’s death will be the fate of all such upper-class/caste individuals who are involved in relationships unsanctioned by the class/caste patriarchs. At the same time, it is also shown that the upper-class/caste man can choose to take a woman much lower to his social position provided that she severs ties with her family. Thus, towards the end, Naagalu’s sister is shown suspecting Naagalu of monstrosity at the behest of her lover. Her emotional separation from her brother will be complete with her physical separation in form of his death. Thus, with all ties with her family finally severed, Naagalu’s sister is swiftly accommodated within the family structure of the dominant social caste/class of the society. Metaphorically, the film then depicts how the normative understanding of ‘family’ is limited to an upper-class/caste structure, which maintains its status quo by destroying all alternative structures. Thus, in the end of the film, Naagalu’s family lies totally disintegrated. The final cog of that disintegration lies in the final face-off between him and Menaka’s brother, the hero of the film. He berates Naagalu, in a sermon tinged with strategic sympathy, for his crossing over to the non-human realm of monstrosity. Nowhere to go and utterly disgusted at the shame of his own uncontrollable monstrous masculinity, Naagalu commits suicide in the end. The film thus uses horror to ‘other’ the lower-class/caste snake-charming communities from the mainstream Andhra society. This othering is located very much through the body as the moulting of Naagalu’s skin would testify. The narrative mirrors the cruelties meted out by the feudal upper caste/ class with physical, emotional and mental assault, a feature quite common in Andhra Pradesh of the 1970s and 1980s where the entire state machinery would work in secret understanding with the cash-rich upper castes in denying Dalits their fundamental rights (Satyanarayana 2005: 206–16). Naagalu’s masculinity is the focal point of such cruelties and assaults. His masculinity is as much shaped by his inheritance as by the swelling resentment and antagonism against him. The enigma of his non-normative masculinity is a product of the social othering of his caste, class and profession. The film depicts horrific images of his draconian sexual self to vindicate the construction of his virile, and if one may add villainous masculinity. It is another matter of course that the actor playing the role of Naagalu was soon going to christen himself as the reigning superstar of Telugu cinema for decades to come. 111

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Jaani Dushman If Chiranjeevi started his career playing anti-hero roles, Sanjeev Kumar, the male protagonist of the next film under study, was generally known to play the role of a gentle and soft-spoken protagonist in comedies of the middleclass cinema (Angoor, dir. Gulzar, 1982) or of a repentant father (Trishul, dir. Yash Chopra, 1978), and his most famous role – the wronged Thakur of Sholay (dir. Ramesh Sippy, 1975). Jaani Dushman is set in a fictionalised North Indian village of the 1970s. It is a multi-starrer film comprising wellknown and high-paid stars of the 1970s like Sunil Dutt, Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Neetu Singh and Rekha. It tells us the story of a feudal world where an old Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) enjoys enormous respect and command of his fellow villagers. The film also dishes out an amalgam of separate love stories of different couples. It narrates the story of one Lakhan (Sunil Dutt) who is a hard-working and morally upright farmer. He works laboriously to collect money to marry off his only sister Gauri (Neetu Singh). Then there is Amar (Jeetendra) who is in love with Gauri. Shera (Shatrughan Sinha), the son of the Thakur, is an arrogant and a known philanderer who typifies the spoilt brat of a rich father. He is unwilling to reciprocate the love of Champa (Rekha) as she belongs to the poorer section of the society. Lakhan and Shera are often shown quarrelling and fighting with each other – an oft-used trope of class struggle in Hindi cinema. Then there is Shanti (Bindiya Goswami), the daughter of Thakur, who secretly nurtures love for Lakhan even as he becomes emotionally attached to Reshma (Reena Roy). Women protagonists are shown to be tending to their domestic familial activities with the sole exception of Reshma who exhibits certain tomboyish traits. The film exhibits an interesting mix of different themes such as romance, unrequited love, chivalry, class warfare, feudal masculine anxieties and creation of a fictional landscape. All these are essential ingredients of the social, the most dominant form of Hindi cinema since the studio era. However, the film meanders towards horror as we come to know that this village is afflicted with a curse: newly wed brides disappear on their way to their in-laws houses. And we are reminded of the start of the film when it is shown that Jwala Prasad (Raza Murad), a wealthy landlord, is poisoned by his newly wed wife and ever since his spirit haunts the village and kills any newly married bride. The end of the film shows that Thakur’s body was possessed by this spirit and whenever he saw a bride in her red attire, he transforms into a Godzilla-like figure and devours her. At last, he is killed and the village is saved from the curse. The body of the Thakur becomes a site of multiple crises of masculinities. On the one hand, like Nagin, Jaani Dushman too without any obvious direct reference to the National Emergency politicises social anxieties evident during the Emergency. If in 112

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Nagin these socio-political anxieties are displaced on to the construction of femininity, here they are reflected through the crises of masculinity felt by the Thakur who undergoes the transformation. On the other hand, within the microcosmic film narrative, the source of his masculine anxieties also stem from his own gradual loss of power in a society that is moving beyond the feudal world of his youth. The striking contrast between Godzilla Thakur and non-Godzilla Thakur sets up an interesting exploration of his masculinity. This film does not mention any specific regional location of its setting. It instead creates a fictional landscape of its own. The figure of the Thakur mirrors the image of the secular nation in this national imaginary. Lakhan remarks: ‘Gaon jab savere uthta hai toh Bhagwaan ke baad aap hi ka naam leta hai’ (when people wake up in the morning in the village, they pay respects first to god and then to you). Thus, the Thakur ensures that justice and peace prevails in the village. He is also shown preventing fights between Lakhan and his own son Shera. The secular credentials of the Thakur are enhanced when we consider the iconic status enjoyed by the on-screen persona of the actor Sanjeev Kumar in Hindi cinema as discussed above. This benevolent side of his suffers disastrously when the ghost overtakes him. He starts behaving exactly how a nameless character in the initial part of the film creates a discourse about ghosts. A possessed man shows certain symptoms: he would constantly sweat, would pursue his lips as he talks, his whole body would tremble and he would never wink but constantly stare. Though these are very common filmic strategies to show the behaviour of people who are possessed by evil spirits, yet there is this deliberate articulation of such traits in the film almost insisting that the spectator does not miss the point which the film is trying to make. All these symptoms are related to the control of body through censure of speech and expression. The monstrous figure of the Thakur metaphorically mirrors the draconian face of the state during the Emergency. The National Emergency saw the suspension of the Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. This article ensured the right to freedom of speech and expression. And it is this very freedom of speech and expression that is getting violated within the film narrative. Article 19 also ensured the freedom to move freely throughout the territory of India. The restriction on mobility comes through on numerous occasions when the newly wed brides are abducted and killed on their way to their husbands’ homes. This can also be read as an infringement of the freedom of movement. Further, the mise en scène at the level of the scenic construction also enables a more direct communication with the audience. It subverts the aesthetics of frontality by reworking the frontal mode of address. Frontality is the placing of the camera at 90 degrees angle to the action so that the audience gets to have a 180 degrees view instead of 360 degrees. It has its own politics of 113

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representations in Hindi cinema. It has been argued that most Hindi films prefer a largely frontal mode of address that disrupts the perspectival narration (Vasudevan 1993: 51–79). According to Valentina Vitali, the frontal mode of address creates spatial hierarchies within the film frame between characters in a pre-established manner that seriously impairs the dialogue between the film and the audience (Vitali 2011: 99). However, this film tends to dismantle this frontal mode of address in those moments when the monster attacks its victims. In one such scene, one sees the head of the monster rotating at 360 degrees while the camera vigorously pans left and right. This facilitates the destruction of the unitary frontal mode of address. This also symbolically reflects social crises in the national imaginary during the Emergency period when human rights were curtailed. The monster after all can be imagined as the state (once upon a time which was benevolent) going berserk as was the case at the time of the National Emergency. Within the filmic narrative, the ghostly possession of the Thakur can also be read as his own anxiety at his gradual loss of feudal power amidst the changing fabric of the socio-political order and the rise of other forms of masculinities. Lakhan symbolised a working-class upright man who had the potential to mobilise public opinion against class system and thus upset the carefully and well-preserved feudal structure of the Thakur. Lakhan for him thus represents an alternative masculinity that threatens to diminish the power of his own. This threat becomes obvious at several moments in the film. Lakhan on one occasion openly accuses him of being the real bride murderer when the Thakur’s daughter was not attacked the way other newly wed girls were. Though Lakhan did not know then about Thakur’s spirit possession, yet he could instinctively feel that only women of Thakur’s subjects were getting killed and Thakur’s own daughter did not meet the same fate. This was the first open challenge to Thakur’s fiefdom. Then, on several occasions, the Thakur had to ward off fights between his son Shera and Lakhan which can be read as instances of class antagonism. Lakhan was a self-made man and had more acceptability among villagers than his own son, who anyways was used to throwing tantrums at any given opportunity. Lakhan was also the reason behind the severing of ties between the Thakur and his son. Unable to rationalise his accusations against the Thakur, Lakhan blames Shera for all misgivings. At this point, the whole village takes his side and asks the Thakur to punish his son. Shera manages to escape. But the father–son relationship between the two takes a beating. Thakur, in order to save his own skin, takes the public stance of blaming his own son for all the murders of newly married women. This can be read as the familial structure of the decadent feudal world getting destroyed by the new-age class mobilisations. With the heydays of its glory behind, the feudal order does attempt to incorporate the new class formations in order 114

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to prolong its existence. This explains Shanti’s secret love for Lakhan and the Thakur’s own hidden fondness and fascination for Lakhan. However, all these attempts fail: Shanti’s love remains unrequited and the Thakur, of course, cannot fight his fate. The body of the Thakur lies at the epicentre of all these crises. His raping and killing of newly wed women when possessed by the evil spirit, besides symbolising the cruelty of the feudal world against women, can also be read as the crisis of his own masculinity. The decadent feudal masculinity is on the verge of extinction. In comes the newer age masculinity, essentially the product of new-age class formations. The film narrative shows that the Thakur and the feudal world’s inability to adjust to the new societal patterns lead to their downfall. The film also at another level explores the rampant violation of human rights during the Emergency period and establishes a dialogue with the audience in this regard. Again, the body of the Thakur becomes the site of such explorations. The turmoil that his facial expressions reveal during the possessions can very well mirror the fragile condition of the country during an equally ghostly possession of the National Emergency.

Junoon If Jaani Dushman has an otherwise gentle and soft-spoken actor Sanjeev Kumar playing the Godzilla-like beast, the next film under study Junoon employs the services of Rahul Roy, a chocolate-boy romantic hero of the early 1990s Hindi films. Junoon maps the travails of a young protagonist Vikram Chauhan (Rahul Roy) who ventures into the forest along with a friend with the purpose of hunting on a full moon night and is attacked by a ghostly tiger. Seeing his friend get killed, he manages to somehow avert the killing spree of the tiger but in the process ends up getting cursed and soon begins to lead a life of an outcast who is fated to be transformed into a tiger every full moon night. Vikram falls in love with Dr Nita (Pooja Bhatt) who supervises his recovery after being fatally wounded by the tiger. She does not reciprocate his love as she was already in a relationship with a budding singer, Ravi (Avinash Wadhawan). But Vikram manipulates her father into marrying her to him. Nita starts noticing his suspicious behaviour and his going out every full moon night on one pretext or the other and then usually being found near the murders that were regularly taking place. Ravi finally kills him with a holy dagger to end his curse. The preoccupation with the body forms one of the main themes of the film. Two kinds of ‘others’ are involved in the process of self-formation here: one, the masculine self is created through the enactment of various sexual aberrations; and two, the ‘othering’ of the tribal world creates the 115

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‘civilised’ self. This civilised masculinity is expressed in a fashion dangerous and unsettling to society, however. The body becomes the site of masculinity crises that initiates Vikram’s aberrant sexual behaviour. His constant sexual avoidance of Nita can be read as an instance of his own male sexual anxiety. It is important to note that he is transformed into a tiger for the first time on his wedding night. As she waits for him sitting on the bed, he runs away from the apartment. The film makes extensive use of montage, at this point, through the depiction of wild animals like the tiger, a black ominous looking wild cat or even the pigeons kept in captivity as it narrates the first instance of Vikram’s tiger transformation. This use of montage technique serves to highlight the sexual anxiety within him through the analogy of the predator–prey relationship. Just as the tiger/wild cat preys on the pigeon, Vikram hunts down women. It is this sexual anxiety that prevents him from establishing normal relationship with women in the film. He does not have a single female friend. He marries Nita against her will and yet when she wants to be loved by him, he runs away. His inabilities are succeeded by various acts of violence against women. Thus, at one level, his transformation into a tiger is metaphorical representation of sexual perversion. The possessed Vikram kills several young women, attacking particularly the autonomous and sexualised female body: his first victim is a young girl swimming in the hotel pool at night, her presence in that space signalling privilege, economic and social, as also personal autonomy at least to a partial extent; the second victim is a dancer at a bar whom he seduces – this victim is marked by the sexualisation of her body and her labour, which stand in stark contrast to the privilege the earlier victim can be said to symbolise. The voyeuristic and the fetishistic can thus be said to unite in Vikram’s victim choice, suggestive outlets of his sexual anxieties as a man and markers of perversion thereon. Vikram also kills men, but the film suggests that his violence is directed more keenly against women. Each time he kills them, the mise en scène shows blood gushing out of the victims’ bodies. The sound track is in sync with the visual which produces very gory and graphic images of violence. The diegetic sound of the roaring tiger and the shrieking victim accompanied by the non-diegetic background noise create a cacophony of absolute horror. Unlike his female victims whom he kills out of pure predatory instincts, whenever he kills men, it is out of sheer compulsion as these victims somehow come to know about his secret of transformation. Further, there is absence of any graphic gory descriptions. Instead, the male killings are always suggested. The theme of the othering of the Bhil tribal personae connects sexual perversion back into the narrative of self-formation: the tribal in the film serves as a metaphor for the sexual. It is contact with the tribal other that ‘contaminates’ Vikram in the first place, unleashing the cycle of sexually 116

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aberrant activity. The tribal thus becomes the germ, as it were, of sexual aberrance, and its expression in the violence of Vikram’s actions is meant to diegetically justify its othering thereafter. Sexual anxieties can be managed by carefully separating the tribal other from the self. The long-tracking shot with which the film begins establishes this very well. This 1 min 35 second long uncut shot begins with the depiction of a dead human skull and dismembered human carcasses lying in the desert. The camera then captures a lonely tiger sitting underneath a dry and withered tree in the background and slowly intensifies its movement bringing them in the foreground. The message is simple – this is a world fraught with danger and the tiger is the predator on the civilised world. Any human contact with this ‘other’ world has severe consequences for the urban world as the film shows. The audience is fed with stereotypical notions about tribal sexuality as a menacing force which needs to be restrained, otherwise it wreaks havoc on the civilised society. This ‘othering’ discourse is nurtured cleverly within the narrative: first, by the oral folk beliefs about ghosts spread by the local Bhil tribesmen; and second, by the articulate rendering of some past colonial research work by the Anglo-Indian character played by an Indian actor of American origin, Tom Alter. Bhils are Adivasi residents of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra who were designated the scheduled tribe status only as late as 2001. It means they were still a denotified tribe at the time of this film’s release. The worship of tiger-god as Vaghdev is the central part of their religious beliefs and practices. Thus, the killing of the tiger by Vikram is a frontal attack on the religious core of their existence. But this film does not show the need of conserving the ethnic identity of the tribals so much as it instigates the idea that any association with the tribal world will have its dreadful consequences. In fact, the Anglo-Indian character, who perhaps unites with the tribal world in being equally alien/foreign in the eyes of an average Indian, too meets his death at the hands of the tiger. Even though, he understood and respected the tribal customs and folk beliefs, he has to suffer a dreadful death because of his contact with the tribal world. This film can also be read as suggesting the need to protect wild animals from hunting and poaching. It is significant to note that the Indian Wildlife Amendment Act 1991 came into force one year before the film’s release; this act sought to prohibit all killing of wildlife (except vermin) in Indian territory in the interests of conservation. Part of the film’s message is clearly that poaching is illegal and that strict punishments await trespassers and lawbreakers, but its didacticism comes at the expense of commoditising and exoticising the tribal person and community. And the male body essentially becomes the site of such a project. 117

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Conclusions To conclude, this chapter has striven to explore how animal transformation horror films can be a significant articulation of gendered subjectivities of their times. Without any doubt, all the films discussed above might have other equally valid interpretations; yet, this study shows how these films enter in a dialogue with the audience in a way that film scholarship in India has yet to make a serious critical study of. Animal transformation horror films are essentially a product of their socio-political macrocosmic world. These films have valuable ideas and perspectives to contribute and in the process, they do refer to the social, political, economic and cultural developments of India, sometimes overtly, other times more discretely. One cannot ignore the fact that some of these films are inspired from their Western counterparts, yet the filmmakers have always adapted them to their local settings in the process bringing to light some of the lost indigenous folktales and customs and beliefs. The focus of this study has been more on the male/female body of the protagonist/s who undergo the transformation. However, it cannot be discounted that the other characters in these films, major or minor, male or female, also might have useful critical perspectives to offer to. At times, this chapter examines the role and the usefulness of such characters. But mostly, this study has been faithful to the primary focus of these films: an individual getting transformed to animal and vice versa. And it has been very interesting to observe that while womanto-animal transformation film narratives offer reciprocal gender negotiation dialectics, man-to-animal transformation horror films work within the ambit of masculinity crises.

Note 1 This chapter is partly based on my articles ‘Bestiality, Compassion and Gender Emancipation: The Snake Woman in Hindi Horror Films’, Cineforum, 15: 105–34, 2012 and partly on ‘Shape Shifting Masculinities: Accounts of Maleness in Indian Man-to-Animal Transformation Horror Films’, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia, 12(2): 61–73, 2011. Used with permission.

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4 ZOMBIES AND WITCHES AND THE ANXIETIES OF CULTURE

The zombie is perhaps the figure the modern audience most immediately associates with the horror genre. It is difficult though to arrive at a definition of what zombies are, as they have evolved and reinvented themselves over cinematic time particularly in the Western horror. It has been pointed out that there are ‘three most recognisable stages of twentieth- and twenty-first-century zombie configurations: the classic mindless corpse, the relentless instinct-driven newly dead, and the millennial voracious and fast-moving predator’ (Lauro and Christie 2011: 2). The ‘classic mindless corpse’ derives from the early-twentieth-century Caribbean African oral traditions of working as slaves. The zombie in this etiology is the exploited slave and the white colonial slave–master Kurtz-like also sometimes descends into zombified dispossession of selfhood. The second stage of evolution, where the zombie is characterised as the ‘relentless instinct-driven newly dead’, can be seen in George A. Romero’s films like the cult The Night of the Living Dead (1968). The first phase showed zombies as intrinsically outsiders, coming from a faraway magic land; in the second one, zombification becomes essentially a part of the Native American landscape and psyche. Since the millennium, there has been an explosion of zombie films. These millennial zombies come in all shapes and sizes and are found across various media, from video games to cyber technology. A typology identifies no less than nine types: ‘zombie drone’, ‘zombie ghoul’, ‘tech zombie’, ‘bio zombie’, ‘zombie channel’, ‘psychological zombie’, ‘cultural zombie’, ‘zombie ghost’ and ‘zombie ruse’ (Boon 2011: 8). The zombie is the only kind of horror film figure that has not emerged from Europe; the zombie is very much an articulation of the New World. Though it can be argued that literary representations of zombie-like figures can be dated back almost to the Bible, the actual cinematic zombie made its debut against the backdrop of the colonisation of Haiti by America. One

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of the earliest references to the figure of the zombie comes from William Seabrook who had lived in Haiti: The zombie, they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of lie – it is a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive. (Seabrook 1929: 93) Historically, it was believed that zombies were Haitian slaves. It was believed that Haitian voodoo rituals were also used to punish those who flouted social norms; the same rituals were also thought to demolish the slave’s will power. The Haitian voodoo conundrum has been analysed from two perspectives. First, the dominant American perspective others Haiti as voodoo land and therefore in need of the intervention of civilised America. But it has also been observed: Yet it is worth noting here that, to most Americans, the United States occupied Haiti under the pretense of civilizing it, and a negative image of Haitians and of Voodoo in particular were instrumental in gaining and keeping support for the action. (Kee 2011: 13) The other point of entry to the Haitian world is to see the myth of voodoo as a bulwark against sure colonisation: Positively reappropriated, this allocation of practices conditions an affirmation of Haitian power that, simultaneously, protects Haiti from the inequity of all involuntary occupation of its soil and imposes respect for its sovereignty outside its natural borders – all by means of the fear that zombification instills. (Degoul 2011: 32) But now the zombie has migrated to become the trope paradoxically for the victim of modern globalisation and consumer capitalism. Where the earlier mindset disposed of the zombie as confined only to exotic and flawed Haiti, the zombie is today central to the West as the one who contests stable and static societal structures. The germ of the idea of the zombie is already very much present in central Western theological texts like the Bible: Lazarus rising from the dead is after all much too akin to the zombie’s own return from death. Thus, the zombie as trope cannot be so easily peripheralised by summary banishment to black slave/creole Caribbean/ 120

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African topographies. On comparing the rise of the Lazarus and Haitian zombie myths, it has been observed that If the biblical story is a mythological tale that represents all of mankind, and Haiti gathers its symbol of the resurrection in the image of the zombie, is it not imperative that we re-read the zombie specifically as part of the Western mythological canon and the modern era? The zombie reflects loss of human dynamism for static and dogmatic structures. (Thomas 2010: 8) These contesting and at the same time overlapping histories make it very difficult to accurately and satisfactorily map the figure of the zombie: If we are to understand the significance of zombie culture, understanding audience consumption and response is central because the meanings derived from culture and the means to which they are employed depend on consumers not creators. This lack of audience information renders zombie studies incomplete. (Platts 2013: 555) Zombies are an alien concept for Indian cinema; the earliest zombie films date as late as the 2010s. Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (dir. Tulsi Ramsay, 1972) is a Ramsay film that initially appears to be a zombie film, but it is revealed at the end that the antagonist was only masquerading as a zombie. This chapter discusses both the zombie films: Go Goa Gone (dir. Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., 2013) and Rise of the Zombie (dir. Luke Kenny and Devaki Singh, 2013). The Haitian etiology of the zombie is completely eclipsed in the Indian imagining of the zombie trope. Both films fall into the ‘bio-zombie’ category, as does the recently released Miruthan (dir. Shakti Soundar Rajan, 2016) in Tamil, as per Kevin Boon’s classification: bio-zombies, it is posited, suffer from a condition of paralysis of will due to some biological, natural or chemical elements. In Go Goa Gone, the villain is drugs; while in Rise of the Zombie, it is an insect bite that leads to zombification.

Go Goa Gone The film is set on a fantastic Goan island; Goa itself is considered a tourist fantasy. This island, given its isolation and relative lack of population, is even more desirable in the eyes of tourist seeking to get away from it all. The film tells the story of three male friends and room-mates, Hardik 121

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(Kunal Khemu), Luv (Vir Das) and Bunny (Anand Tiwari), who come to Goa on Hardik’s whim. A rave party on this island goes strangely wrong when they wake up the next morning to find themselves trapped amongst flesh-eating zombies. Haitian zombies were never eaters of human flesh, incidentally. A pair of zombie hunters, prominently featuring a former Delhiite masquerading as a Russian, helps the group return to mainland Goa. The film explicitly designates the Russian mafia as key players in the story of Goa’s disintegration. This disintegration, I argue, is established by the film as inherently the result of non-Indian causes and attributes. The zombie spectacle within the narrative creates a fantastic space for male homosociality to marginalise and monsterise the female gender. In attributing zombieism to drugs, this film pays tribute to the numerous narratives on Haiti that have dominated Hollywood fare. It has often been believed that the state of zombieism was induced among slaves through the administration of potent hallucinogenic drugs. Gino Del Guercio in recounting the experience of Wade Davis, author of the book on Haitian voodoo, The Serpent and the Rainbow, says that ‘Davis thinks it is possible that the psychological trauma of zombification may be augmented by Datura or some other drug; he thinks zombies may be fed a Datura paste that accentuates their disorientation’ (Guercio 1989: 327). While there was always room for doubt about the exact hallucinogen involved, Go Goa Gone on the other hand lays the blame at the door of a particular new rave-party drug that the Russian mafia was in the process of introducing to a captive market. Further, unlike the Haitian drug which was part of the local ecology, the drug in the film is clearly narrativised as a foreign import. Then, where the slaves were forced to consume the drug, the film clearly implicates the zombified victims as voluntary recreational consumers of the new drug that many may even have come to Goa to take. Thus, when the survivors blame Boris (Saif Ali Khan) for the drug and zombie affliction, he justifies his trade by pointing out that everyone voluntarily came to the island for their gratifications. Drug abuse as a theme in Hindi cinema is very rare, with the only popular film that comes to mind being Hare Rama Hare Krishna (dir. Dev Anand, 1971), with the heroine’s hippiedom being roundly outgrown at the end of the narrative. Interestingly, zombies can also be seen as counterparts to the hippies of the 1970s. If the 1970s hippie culture can be thought of as a counterculture of the First World, the Russian mafia, the source of the zombifying drug, becomes the new source of a faux radicalism. However, the difference is that while the former was a critique of the commoditisation and capitalism that are the hallmarks of Western modernity, the latter is at best a destructive influence. The film’s depiction of the Russian mafia has its parallel in the actual world. Contemporary news coverage of Goa is often full of reminders of the 122

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presence of Russian gangsters. In a Times of India report, it is stated that ‘the role of Russian mafia in Goa is no more limited to real estate deals and drugs. It has extended its tentacles into the flourishing flesh trade as well’ (Chari 2013). A Rediff News article states: ‘Goa has become a transit point for drugs in India. With rave parties being the order of the day, there is no way that such events can be held without drugs’ (Nanjappa 2008). Go Goa Gone spectacularises one such rave party that ends with catastrophic consequences for both the drug-givers and the drug-takers. While the mainstream media has concentrated on demonising nefarious Russian gang activity, it has often neglected the role of the Indians associated in these networks. Go Goa Gone brings out this aspect neglected by widespread mainstream coverage. The character of Boris (pronounced ba-ris) represents those sections of the Indian population which have become deeply enmeshed in these networks of illegal activity, including the business of drug trafficking. As the narrative says, he migrated to Russia, where he got involved in the trade, for which he is a (Russian) representative in India. Where mainstream narrativisation of the figure of the male immigrant in the Hindi film is almost always celebratory and features an honourable, patriotic and righteous hero (whether immediately monetarily successful or failing), Go Goa Gone’s figure of the ‘returned’ male immigrant is no patriotic pardesi. Boris is an Indian who masquerades as a Russian; his light skin and his vaguely central Asian features make the masquerade somewhat plausible, but other characters immediately identify his ‘essential’ attributes – the Jat-ness of the Delhi boy that he is gives Boris away. Boris thus as both Indian (returned, dishonourable, unwanted immigrant) and Russian (gangster, drug dealer, unwanted again) is a composite figure whose various attributes make him a sort of zombie. He belongs to a cultural vacuum, in limbo, unwanted by either Second or Third World; it is no wonder thus that this zombie-like loss of cultural identity becomes the source of literally zombifying power thereafter. Boris and his Russian friend Nikolai’s exact knowledge of how to slay zombies clearly establishes their past experience with the impact of the drug they were responsible for selling in the Indian market. The narrative however carefully elides this special knowledge the two possess so as to allow Boris’s ‘Indian’ identity to be recuperated back into the trope of honourable, patriotic return migrant. The film is obsessed with assigning identity to Boris – he is either a bad Russian or a good Indian – but at the same time, the film is unable to accept his being in limbo. Thus, there are value judgements about who is a zombie and these value judgements connect in turn with one’s nationality. Similarly, Goa is an exotic place that to a pan-Indian imagination is a multicultural space as much for Indians as it is for Western tourists. Goa itself thus is imagined in the film as also being a dangerous space of cultural limbo. This effect of cultural limbo is intensified when the action takes place 123

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in an even more remote, ‘unknown’ Goan topography. Goa’s un-Indianness makes it not only delicious and inviting, but also a space where one might be zombiefied, thus estranged from one’s identities. A major portion of the film is located in Goa, but the film does not feature any markers of indigenous Goa. The film as it were is thus working through the paradigm of the pan-Indian imagining of Goa as other to ‘India’. Goa’s associations with the hippie culture of the 1970s, which crystallised this notion of difference from mainstream India, are thus exploited here in a zombifying fashion – Goa here works through what appears to be an ‘Indian’ body but with a zombie psyche, a mindless place as it were. The decontextualisation of the Goa into all place and not space is done through characterising those pan-Indians who flock there as themselves signifiers who signify only alienation. Luv, Hardik and group talk almost entirely in abbreviations and acronyms: ‘WTF’, ‘FYI’, ‘BTW’, ‘KLPD’, ‘FU’ and ‘IMHO’. Acronyms point to deeper meanings, a lexicon underneath the alphabets, but Luv and his friends are apparently empty, meaningless and unwholesome, and Goa is produced as a place that exclusively draws these humdrum, metaphorically zombiefied souls. One aspect of the zombification of these young men is their hyper-macho alienation from women. Hardik, Luv and Bunny form what can be loosely described as a grumpy boys club that faces constant rejection from women. Hardik is a reckless believer in his own powers of fornication. He compromises his professional reputation as a result of an ill-advised effort to seduce a co-worker; the film’s representation of this episode is almost entirely from Hardik’s misogynistic perspective wherein all women await seduction and there is sympathetic male community that envelops men who thus misogynistically seduce women. Luv on the other hand is in love with a girl around whom he builds so many expectations that he gets hurt. Bunny is represented as a ‘soft’ boy who is not viewed as attractive mate-material by the women around. Bunny is asexualised, while Luv and Hardik in their different ways are hypersexualised. Their collective failure to strike meaningful relationships with women is already evident in the film as misogyny through the demonisation of the female gender. While studying the monsterisation of girls via the horror film, it has been observed as follows: The sadomasochistic teen horror films kill off the sexually active ‘bad’ girls, allowing only the non-sexual ‘good’ girls to survive. But these good girls become, as if in compensation, remarkably active, to the point of appropriating phallic powers to themselves. It is as if this phallic power is granted so long as it is rigorously separated from phallic or any other sort of pleasure. For these pleasures spell sure death in this genre. (Williams 1991: 8) 124

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Go Goa Gone’s trip to Goa begins when Luv is dumped by his girlfriend, Hardik proposes a recuperative wild trip to Goa as free young men instead, cashing in on an opportunity that Bunny has to go on work to Goa. Once the drugs at the rave party begin to act and zombies are all about them, the film’s misogyny becomes explicit violence enacted on female bodies. Multiple women are slaughtered by the male trio. Surrounded by three women, the three men portion off targets for themselves based on their own attributes or desires; therefore, Hardik takes the ‘hot one’, Luv is given the ‘pissed one’ and chubby Bunny is given the ‘fat one’. The physical violence involved in the decimation of zombie bodies that happen to be female is not incidental, but central to the film’s decontextualisations. In tourist paradise Goa, it is as if these women are also disposables. The fear of women and consequent gender warfare this trio implicitly embody is literalised and made visible through their struggles with often very strong or wily female zombies. Luv, for example, sees that his cheating ex-girlfriend is herself a zombie now in Goa, where she has come away with her new boyfriend. Zombies from this perspective can be interpreted as a bad memory awaiting elimination; Luv’s repressed insecurity is his implicit inability to be equal to the woman he is with. This inability is laid to rest through his slaughter of other ‘pissed’ girls. Instead of the conventional romantic presentation of the man wooing the woman, the film ends with a woman running after Hardik. This strong, sexually active woman (who he had had sex with the previous night) is for Hardik something that he thinks he should protect himself from. In the context of this film, of course, she is a zombie and therefore Hardik’s need to protect himself becomes self-evident, but implicitly this scene encodes Hardik’s insecurities vis-à-vis strong, sexually active women. The zombie as woman here is thus the vagina dentate literalised. The only surviving woman with this tribe of men is a woman who, the narrative establishes from the beginning, is sexually uninterested in any of them; the erotic woman is thus an unwanted other as well in the postapocalyptic terrain of this film. In contrast to the fear of women is the men’s love and confidence in one another. In fighting the zombies, they agree to watch one another’s back whilst dividing up the female antagonists among themselves. When Luv has been dumped by his girlfriend, Hardik gives him a hug to console him; Bunny walks in on the embrace and comments comically that he knew there was something going on between the two men. This is rendered not melodramatically but in a most mundane fashion, thus making male homoeroticism not unusual, but part of everyday masculine lives. Male homosociality and homoeroticism are not presented as at odds with male hypersexuality or hyper-machismo either. While the three ‘Indian’ male friends and housemates make jokes about their own homosociality 125

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and emotional co-dependences, it is only with Boris and his Russian friend Nikolai that these homosocial bonds become life-determining. Because the choices here have tragic outcomes – Boris’s friend chooses to die for Boris; these homosocial valences have to be read differently. While the ‘Indian’ men can stay happily together, Boris and his friend Nikolai have to be parted by death for Boris to become once more authentically Indian, with ‘no’ ties to Russia left. An analysis of how male homosociality helps structure sociality is useful here: Male-male relations organize and give meaning to the social and sexual involvements of young heterosexual men in powerful ways. Homosocial bonds are policed against the feminizing and homosexualizing influences of excessive heterosociality, achieving sex with women is a means to status among men, sex with women is a direct medium of male bonding, and men’s narratives of their sexual and gender relations are offered to male audiences in storytelling cultures generated in part by homosociality. (Flood 2008: 355) At the same time, the careful expulsion of male homosexuality or male homoeroticism is staged by Nikolai’s sacrifice of his own life when it is evident that he has been bitten by a zombie and is thus about to become one himself. Within the overt narrative of zombification, this sacrifice may be read as an asexual one, of a friend towards another irrespective of gender; at the same time, given that the meanings of friendship are several, it is evident that Boris’s friend is a special friend – the extreme emotions suggests at least a homoerotic relationship exists between the two men – and has to be sacrificed in order to preserve heterosexual masculinity as dominant social order. Homosexual panic is literalised when as a zombie, Boris’s friend attacks Boris; the prominent staging of this male-on-male attack is different from other sequences where zombies attack these survivors because in each of those episodes, the zombies in question were merely ahistoricised monsters without any claims on either our memories or our empathy. Here however, Nikolai, now a zombie, clearly reminds us of when he was not a zombie, was one of us and possibly desired a man; however, in this apocalyptic world, this expression of same-sex directed emotion is also excess, unwanted and discarded immediately. Go Goa Gone’s confirmation of an authentic Indian masculinity is thus premised on men being able to relate with one another but only through homosociality, not through heterosexual feminisation or homoeroticism – both unwanted, zombified expressions of affect. The only woman who tags along is also functionally masculinised by showing her to be sexually uninterested in the men around 126

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her, as well as by showing her to be emphatically capable of firing guns and fighting as equal to the men around her. Male homosociality and masculinity become social models for surviving zombification finally.

Rise of the Zombie If Go Goa Gone depicted zombies in the multitude, Rise of the Zombie is a personalised account of a zombie-in-progress. The film depicts the story of one Neil Parker (Luke Kenny) who is in a live-in relationship with Vini Rao (Kirti Kulhari) in the city of Mumbai. Their relationship is very strange, especially from Vini’s perspective, as Neil disappears from time to time and on average is only present at home four or five days a month. The film tells us the reason for his absence from home is his passion for photography and love for the outdoors. He wanders frequently to isolated forests, such as in Sikkim. On his latest trip, to Lansdowne, he is bitten by an insect; gradually, he turns into a zombie and begins eating the flesh of living beings. At the end of the film, the entire region is populated by zombies. The resistance against the modern capitalist world emerges in the film as a parable in the form of zombies. Just as Haitian zombies emerge in history as structures of resistance against mainland United States domination of Haiti, the zombie in question here represents the angst that is so symptomatic of existence on the periphery of the capitalist economy. In the process of such depiction, the film problematises the notion of the body as a stable entity with a stable set of cultural meanings. The destabilised body then becomes the agent of subaltern exploitation. The primary tussle depicted in the film is the age-old one of wilderness versus civilisation. Neil lives in Mumbai but is so tired of the urban lifestyle that he gathers his emotional and spiritual sustenance from visiting forests. He thus camps in one or the other wilderness seeking peace in isolation as well as in capturing the isolated beauty through his work as a wildlife photographer. Interestingly, though Indians do lead more austere lives than their counterparts in terms of access to many material goods, yet the idea of camping for tourism or personal recreation is essentially one borrowed from the West. Many Western countries impart social security benefits to their citizens; camping or living like a recluse in that context has a different set of meanings altogether. The individual’s freedom there derives from the social security available through social mechanisms, but in a Third World country like India, camping – which is a metaphor for the Bohemian lifestyle in the West – is a metaphor for privilege and luxury obtainable only at a high cost. Neil’s desire to get away from it all and live in the wilderness taking photographs of wildlife, which he is never shown selling to anyone, suggests a lifestyle that is impossible in a nation where social security is 127

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conspicuous by its absence. The Third World’s own burgeoning capitalism today does not allow these non-economic life patterns to flourish, as a result of which Neil is already an anomaly. The zombie thus becomes a pattern of resistance to the Third World’s predatory capitalistic economy. The film racialises zombiedom – alienation from the teeming Third World’s everyday realities – as Western and white. Though the protagonist has been living in India for many years, has an Indian girlfriend and has an Indian father, his identity as a white person is never in doubt. The film thus willynilly forces its audience to consider Neil’s presence as the projection of a Western lifestyle into an Indian context. His otherness is marked in terms of his constant forays into the wilderness, which destabilises the possibility of family: everyone is unhappy with Neil. His girlfriend has already categorically stated that this relationship cannot be sustained in this fashion; his father, a surgeon, laments that he had not paid Neil enough attention when he was younger. Neil’s status as outsider is cemented thus by his being liminal to the intimate sphere of the home, in addition to being an outsider in terms of racialisation relative to the Indian context. Neil’s descent into zombiedom thus disturbingly shows affinities to the descent into barbarity of other racialised, imperialist outsiders like Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Where Kurtz’s project was to find ivory, Neil’s is to find the Eldorado of perfect harmony in a nerve-jangling modern world. This oasis of calm is the undisturbed pristine ecological mystery of the Third World’s undeveloped forests. However, undevelopment is a very transient state. The Third World’s aspirations for development means this heritage will soon be eaten up and worshippers of its mystery, like Neil, will have to keep wandering, looking for a new territory to camp in. Neil’s career and identity as wildlife photographer makes him, like Kurtz, an insidious pioneer figure in the project of colonialism; Neil’s work will after all map out this otherwise unknown mysterious territory and make it a knowable and completely non-mysterious terrain soon. The arrival of a person like Neil is thus the herald of the destruction of the always-already impossible project of keeping some spaces free of the reach of the Western knowledge paradigm. The ardent impossible consuming nostalgia of the imperial map-maker like Neil is thus exposed when it is literalised as zombie predatoriness: Neil eats up all the subalterns of the sweet, non-modern spaces he enters. Once his Western otherness arrives, these spaces are literally consumed. Where most films show fully formed zombies, this film articulates the process of transformation of humans into zombies. Quite often it is assumed that zombies have no minds of their own or that they suffer from mental paralysis that results in the debility of their body, but in the unique presentation of zombification in this film, it is shown that the body becomes 128

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the target of paralysis first. It is thus the body that suffers the brunt of the change; the mind though working loses control from time to time when the body loses control. Remarkably, Neil is able to understand what is happening to him even though the source of these happenings remains mysterious. It all starts with a wound in one of his arms, developing first as a red blister; soon the whole arm becomes cold and dead. The lifelessness of his arm soon transposes onto the rest of the body and this debilitating transformation is followed by hunger for human flesh. Unlike the typical Western zombie who roams about mindlessly and snatches whatever flesh comes his/her way, here the zombie is shown to be waiting like a predator and pouncing on prey, actions that clearly involve mental acuity. At the same time, all this destabilises the masculine body. When Neil comes to Lansdowne first, he immediately becomes the centre of attraction because of his whiteness. People are attracted to him irrespective of gender, but this destabilisation of body through his zombification can be read as the film’s attempt to puncture his white, heteronormative sexual being, for the symptoms the post-zombified body shows can be compared to, as Nasiruddin et al. suggest, that of a rabies-infested animal. Nasiruddin et al. list six symptoms – biting, weakness of body, fever, increased anxiety, hallucinations and restlessness – as common to both the rabies-infested body and to zombiefied human body (Nasiruddin et al. 2013: 809–13). In a strange way, then the white man’s burden has its own share of repercussions: hobnobbing with the uncivilised world returns Neil to an atavistic, completely non-rational space. The Third World is thus a space of peril and danger to the white man; the film thus also anticipates the reading that one needs to ‘cure’ this dangerous and so far uninhabitable world. This in turn means the exploitation of natural resources to remove the various possibilities of infection by irrationality. It has been observed that the species’ fear of infection finds a trope in the figure of the zombie: ‘The zombie taps into deeprooted, ancient fears that extend far back into our hominid lineage and beyond: notably the fear of contagion and the fear of predation’ (Clasen 2010: 9). Nature’s resistance to civilisation seems to be thus confirmed. At the same time, when Neil propagates zombies in the region, the situation thus generated is a case of the white man’s burden being perverted. Neil’s targets as zombie are the subalterns of the ecological heritage region – lower-class males like Thapa and poor girls. Thapa is represented as a faithful servant in another stereotype, this time of hill folk, ministering to Neil’s wants, including providing his sister as substitute when he goes away for a few days. Neil eats up Thapa’s sister, but Thapa does not make the connection and continues to faithfully carry out his servant-like role of fetching food for Neil. Neil also predatorily disposes of other women in the locality. He is invited to a local festive party one evening and there 129

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he gets drunk and befriends a young local girl. The film shows them walking away from the crowd in the darkness, presumably the film wants us to understand that Neil takes this girl to his tent. Next morning, he wakes up and is immediately startled to find a broken human arm which he immediately recognises to be of the young girl. The tilted camera from above focusses on a sleeping Neil under the blanket in a mid-shot. The camera remains steady as Neil finds something under his blanket and sits up. A hand is visible from the corners of the blanket in the same shot. Soon the scene shows three hands as Neil takes out both his hands from the blanket. His hovering hand then touches the third hand and he is immediately startled. An extreme close-up shot then reveals the broken blood-soaked hand. A terrified Neil is poignantly captured with the medium close-up shot. A cut-in shot then intensifies the terror by focussing again on the three hands on the bed. A panic-stricken Neil then comes out of the tent and vomits. The camera then alternates with Neil in the foreground and the background. The film works through the economy of sound. Nowhere is seen the shrieking voices of the characters so common in horror films. Instead, horror here is built through the constant background sound and the silence of the terrified character adds to the eeriness of the scene. The play of light and darkness also serves to increase the terror of the scene. While inside the tent, the mise en scène shows semi-visible light building up the suspense over the broken hand. And Neil comes out and vomits in the broad daylight, signifying his discomfort with the actions he did during the night. Neil as white man then is Kurtz-like in his propensities and appetites; as zombie, the white person as exploiter or imperialist is an unwanted other within the ecologically sacred recreational spaces of the Third World. Like Go Goa Gone, this film too generates zombieism as resulting from an external agency – drugs there, an insect bite here – and articulates the state of being a zombie as the natural result of being an overreacher. Unlike other horror archetypes, the zombie is more immediately a product of modern civilisation. In Indian cinema, the figure of the zombie lacks a cultural history or antecedents outside the immediate: ‘Few will disagree that most of the current zombie buzz is centred round the American postapocalyptic television drama’ (Palande 2015). These films discussed above attempt to build a new, modern cultural history for the zombie, but this lack of a history might be a reason why the source of zombification is depicted in both films as originating in something external. Drugs and insect bites are at two opposing ends of the spectrum: drugs are products of science, while insect bites can be attributed to the atavistic reaches of nature. Thus, rationality and savagery are alike represented however incongruously as part of the etiology of zombification. These unreconciled heterogeneous origin stories are still part of urban legend though – in both 130

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films, the birth of the myth-making process features individuals from urban India overseeing this birthing process. In Go Goa Gone, characters repeatedly stress on the Western origins of the zombie, noting how the Indian horror film only shows vampires and dayans. The film references a Chiranjeevi film where the actor transforms into a zombie mid-dance is actually an intertextual take on the Thriller video featuring Michael Jackson; the zombie legend is thus always articulated as new, not native. At the same time, being new, and thus unexpected, the zombie becomes the ideal archetype for apocalyptic imaginings.

Witches Like zombification, witchcraft too involves the paralysis of mind and body. Unlike zombies, witches have antecedents in history and prehistory; their existence can be traced as far back as the Egyptian and Babylonian civilisations. The word ‘witch’ derives from ‘wicca’ meaning wise one. It is the concept of the witch as evil feminine that has monopolised the lay imagination, despite sufficient historical evidence of the existence of male witches. The figure of the female witch reveals a number of connections to normative conceptions of motherhood and mothering. In patriarchal articulations, ‘The witch becomes the modern idea of a “bad mother”, a greedy consumer who sacrifices children to her own needs and fails to discipline their oral cravings so that they become as monstrously greedy as she is’ (Purkiss 1996: 282). Thus, socio-cultural representations of the figure of the witch in literature and cinema employ witch-hood to intricately type femininities into normative mothering roles. Rumor and gossip are chief vehicles in the transmission of ideas of both normative femininity and its other: Claims and counterclaims about the activities of witches and sorcerers tend to exist in the background of community affairs in the societies where such ideas are held. They flourish in the shadows, fed by gossip and rumour, and emerge into public debate or accusations only in times of specific tension. (Stewart and Strathern 2004: 7) The popular imagination thus uproots feminine discourses about witchhood figure and strategically banishes these to the periphery of society. This trauma of banishment and displacement is experienced in a variety of ways: [Witchcraft] accusations may cause displacement through forced exile or the personal decision to flee from the threat of harm. In contexts where witchcraft beliefs were held pre-flight, 131

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allegations may surface throughout the refugee cycle – during flight, while in a camp or urban refugee setting, during repatriation or once resettled. (Schnoebelen 2009: 3) Witch-hunting therefore is an experience of trauma that is feminised and experienced over different aspects of the life cycle of the accused individual. Though Indian horror films have depicted the figure of the witch as a subsidiary to male supernatural films, two recent films Ragini MMS 2 (dir. Bhushan Patel, 2014) and Kaalo (dir. Wilson Louis, 2010) have centred around this figure. While several countries have banned witch-hunting, India still lags behind in this regard. Laws against witch-hunting were only enunciated recently and there is considerable social lag still. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of the Government of India, between 2001 and 2008, 1,261 cases of witch-killings of women were reported in the country (Singh 2011: 19). Bihar was the first state to come up, in 1999, with laws against witch-hunting. In 2001, Jharkhand established three to six months imprisonment and fine of Rs 1,000 or 2,000 for killing a woman after branding her a witch. In 2005, Chhattisgarh followed with a penalty of five years imprisonment for branding women witches and causing them physical harm. Rajasthan created a draft bill in 2011 that sought a higher quantum of punishment, of a ten-year prison term with a fine of Rs 50,000, if a woman is branded a witch and subsequently dies. In 2013, the Orissa assembly passed bill that seeks to prevent witch-hunting with imprisonment for up to three to seven years with a fine for anyone guilty of witchhunting. The films discussed in this chapter step up their narrative through this very lawlessness and leniency of the anti-witch-hunting laws. Ragini MMS 2 is one of the most crucial Hindi films that have dealt with the subject explicitly. All horror films, by rule of thumb, use some amount of ‘adult scenes’ to improve their saleability and titillate horror. This is especially true of B- and C-grade horror films, but for the first time necessitates a discussion of ‘porror’ (porn + horror) situated within the aesthetics of A-grade cinema. It is the story of an upcoming filmmaker, Rocks (Parvin Dabas), who decides to make a horror film on the subject of the gruesome killings of young people as shown in Ragini MMS, which is both a real film (came out in 2011) as well as an intertextually referenced film within a film here within the plot. Rocks’s USP is that filming will take place in the real location where the murders took place and will involve the blue-film actress Sunny (played by Sunny Leone). Sunny’s presence is also a real as well as an intertextual reference, as Sunny Leone is an American porn star. Midway through shooting, Sunny is possessed by the same witch that had terrorised and killed people in Ragini MMS. One by one, Sunny, possessed by this 132

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witch, starts killing crew members till the witch is finally destroyed with the help of a medical doctor Meera Dutta (Divya Dutta) who was renowned for her interest in occult cases. This film, I argue, links up older traditions of witchcraft by referencing stories of how witches are created with the lives of porn stars, in the process building up a new mythology of witch-hood. The film suggests that adult-film stars, especially female ones, indulge in taboo sexual practices such as masturbation, threesomes, sex with dead bodies etc.; their othering as witches is thus apparently connected to the apparent otherness of their erotic practices. Where typically rural, illiterate women are branded witches and hunted, this film tells the story of a privileged, affluent woman who is targeted for practising witchcraft. Her family house was featured in the Asiatic Society’s archive of prominent British Raj buildings in Maharashtra. The site of these murders is the actual Patwardhan villa built in 1920, located at Dahanu in Maharashtra. Retelling the story of a heritage building thus, the film focusses on the young wife of the Patwardhan scion. The woman, mother of two daughters and a son, is branded a witch and the film captures the different ways in which the branding of women thus takes place. For example, the personal albums and photographs of the people of the household reveal the faces of all the family members except the mother’s, whose face has been routinely defaced in all these pictures. As Dr Meera researches old, archived newspaper reports about the death of the children of this household, she finds to her alarm that the obituary in the newspaper mentions only the children and does not mention their mother at all. The film then goes on to articulate the actual story of this left out woman. It turns out she was very fond of her two daughters, but especially fonder of the younger son. It so happened that one day, the son while playing near a well fell into it; when the body was recovered, such was the intensity of the mother’s shock that she refused to believe that the son had died. Instead, she takes the help of the local village tantrik, who proceeds to dupe her of all her money and makes her believe that her son will come back to life if she sacrifices her two daughters. He tells her to close her eyes and chant prayers; meanwhile, he beheads the two girls with a sword. Handing over the sword to the meditating woman, he flees with all the money and jewellery that she had brought to offer up to the gods. When the villagers arrive, they are aghast to see that the mother had a bloody sword in her hand and the two daughters are dead. The woman’s protests were to no avail; she is branded a witch, tied to a tree and burned to death. From then on, the mother has been haunting and fiercely guarding the family house, killing anyone who comes there. One way of evaluating this woman’s son preference would be to conclude that it is simply interpersonal affection between parent and child. However, it is not so simple. Son preference can lead to female 133

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infanticide even in economically affluent families, as sociological research attests. Reading this mother’s preference as part of her conditioning by male-dominated patriarchal society, the male heir is excessively fetishised as the measure and prize possession of any mother’s fertility. In other words, the fertility of a woman is gauged not in terms of her reproductive ability, but in terms of her capability to produce a male child. It is interesting to note that the actual beheading of the daughters is done by a male sorcerer. Similarly, male agency is behind the creation of this possibility of reinvigorating the dead male child’s body. Ironically, male agency again punishes her by burning her alive when she has fallen into this trap. The mob that burns her is able to do this with impunity because legal strictures against witchhunting are so recent or absent in the immediate social space around these events. It is even possible for the villagers to not consider this a crime at all given that proscription of witch-hunting has not entered social discussion in a serious, extended fashion unlike the issue of dowry deaths, child marriage or the proscription of female foeticide. The spirit of the woman coming back to haunt and possess the house expresses her anxiety about being displaced from somewhere that was hers when she was alive and a mother. Whilst alive, her possession of the house though was lacking in any real power. Now, back from the dead, she is powerful in excess, and as it were satiates her needs and desires for owning the house. The house in this sense becomes the symbol of socio-economic ownership. Alive, the woman was thwarted by patriarchal forces; dead, she subverts those very forces. The supernatural here thus becomes the means to correct the wrongs of the actual world. When the mob arrives at the scene of the beheadings, the woman keeps saying that she has not killed her daughters. In death too, this refrain is repeated by her just before she beheads each of her targets as witch. When one probes deeply into the nature of these killings, the targets of her animus and rage are those whose sexual perversities degrade other women. In one instance in Ragini MMS, she kills a man who is shown tying up a woman to have sex with her. In Ragini MMS 2, a crew member is killed when he is masturbating while watching a clip of this same bondage scene from Ragini MMS on his phone, on the same bed where this bondage scene was shot. While masturbating, he sees the same handcuff on the bed; enacting the same bondage sex by himself – his role as party to the same violation of the woman’s consent that is the key plot of Ragini MMS identifies the practice of masturbation (to a pornographic/adult-film clip) here as perverse violence against women. Rocks, a sexual maniac, also gets killed by the witch. All these sexually violent acts are being conducted on the witch’s property. Her resistance to these forms of violence comes in the form of killing the perpetrators. The witch’s dilemma arises from the fact that while she was 134

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alive, her property rights were precarious (tied to her status as mother of a son) or non-existent (once the son was dead), and now that she is dead, she finds the space she has finally eked out a supernatural claim to also being invaded by another insidious kind of violence against women that women are themselves insidiously either betrayed into or complicit with. In contemporary times, the mantle of witch-hood – seen as social exclusion for perverse female practices – is passed onto the adult film’s female stars. Just as witches in earlier times were othered using various patriarchal justifications, the female adult-film star is branded a ‘loose character’ who will not shy away from using her body in real life much the same as it is used in reel life. Most characters in the film make snide remarks on Sunny’s career choices. It has been pointed out that Porn and horror are obsessed with the transgression of bodily boundaries. Both are concerned with the devouring orifice, but whereas pornography is concerned with the phallic penetration and secretions of sexually coded orifices like the mouth (gaping in ecstasy or pain), vagina, and anus, horror is more concerned with the creation of openings where there were none before. (Pinedo 1997: 61) The images that Sunny is represented through focus predominantly on creating a sexuality for consumption. This new-age witch is portrayed as in possession of an abundance of sexuality. Under possession, Sunny is shown with a protruding tongue, as if to suggest that her tongue would devitalise her male human contacts; at the same time, within pornographic convention, the reference to oral sex is much evident here. As an adult-film actress, Sunny is being demonised; at the same time, as her ability to perform oral sex is being celebrated. Fake orgasms also form an integral part of pornographic culture. In one scene, where Sunny shows a TV actor that she can act in spite of being a blue-film actress only, she chooses to enact an orgasm to depict her acting prowess. In some senses, the film reduces Sunny’s acting skills to her ability to use her body to simulate sex; mainstream cinema, of course, does not always require this overt simulation of sexual intercourse, but nevertheless, the underlying reminder is that all acting is bodily. Sunny is also shown as a sexually proactive woman who initiates sexual acts. The shower sex scene is symbolic of so many pornographic film plots; again, Sunny’s body and person become the receptacles of excessive sexual meanings which are somehow confined to her rather than to the project of cinema itself. At the same time, it is the film director who makes sexual advances to the leading lady, Sunny, whose control over her own body can only be expressed ironically when she is possessed, inhabited by another woman. 135

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Other non-normative sexual practices that are not sanctioned by society are also linked to pornography via the sexual excess of the adult-film star Sunny. When Sunny has just killed Rocks whilst having sex, she is seen by Monali, a frivolous side actress who has been trying to woo Rocks. In real life, Sunny hates Rocks because he disrespects her boundaries and harasses her by courting her against her will; possessed by the witch, however, Sunny has sex with Rocks in order to get revenge. Monali sees Sunny astraddle Rocks and invites herself to a threesome, only to discover that Rocks is already dead and that the woman sitting over him is actually the witch. The film thus establishes that threesome sex is a perversity and only for unearthly creatures. In addition, the notion of ‘woman on top’ is also certified as frightening and traumatising, fatal especially to the man under. In the end, when Sunny (once again possessed by the witch) is tied to a chair, she beckons Meera, Satya etc. to have sex with her. In another instance, when everyone around is playing a game, it so happens that Monali has to kiss Sunny (already possessed by the witch) to fulfil the conditions of the game. The whole scene is picturised as if to show that this witch-possessed Sunny is tempting Monali. A cut-in shot capturing the legs of Monali begins the sensual visual foreplay. A medium shot then depicts Monali looking at Sunny as if in intoxication. The next shot is a medium shot again but this time of Sunny who in a playful demeanour shows a cunning smile. The binary is clearly established in the mise en scène this time: Monali is the hunted and Sunny is the huntress. The background music elucidates this baiting game. A cut-in shot focusses again on the legs of Monali from behind and this time the camera builds up the sexual overtones in the scene by focussing on Monali’s legs in the foreground and the exposed thighs and the partially bare back of one of the girls in the background. The other characters in the scene watch with amazement as Monali almost sashays towards Sunny seductively. The camera at this point focusses extensively on the body of both Sunny and Monali with Monali’s butt in the foreground and Sunny’s partially exposed breasts. The slow tilt of the camera from bottom to the top pits the two women together in the frame with Monali’s back and Sunny’s face facing the camera. The non-normative nature of this sexual liaison gets highlighted when the other characters are shown completely shocked at the display of this female sexual bond. The camera is steady when Monali and Sunny are shown in a liplocked state within the same frame. But throughout this sequence of shots, the mise en scène provides numerous cues to depict that it is Sunny who is the dominant partner and Monali the seduced target. The point I am trying to make is that Sunny the porn star is branded as a witch by suggesting that she has an abundance of sexual energies which will find their natural outlet in porn cinema. Here horror and porn cinema are shown to 136

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be closely linked together; the film as it were tries to portray sex film actors as oversexed products of capitalist prostitution who have to be othered and dislocated into the periphery of society for normalcy to be restored, as it were. The fact that the pornographic film star only engages in nonnormative sexual practices draws upon the strong surrounding contexts of witchcraft and witch-hunting prevalent in our society. Since the ‘porror’ film star is the new-age witch, so the process of witch-hunting her is facilitated using new-age mechanisms. Just as the older witch is trying to fight her displacement from the property, this new-age witch has to resist her othering and confinement into the periphery of the adult-film industry. The fear of witch-hood is propagated by normative socio-political structures malignant. The fight in a sense is for control of the economy, which in both cases remains strongly in the hands of male-dominated society. In the previous case, the mother was an unemployed domestic housewife, who loses control of her emotion and she is punished for her emotional excess. In this case, it is an actress who is looking for a foothold in the mainstream film industry; both the pornographic and horror film industries are firmly male controlled. Thus, the figure of the witch as socio-culturally unacceptable excess is evident in both the old-time witch as well as the new-age porn star in Ragini MMS 2.

Kaalo Unlike the more nuanced portrayal of the witch in Ragini MMS 2, Kaalo portrays a more straitjacketed representation of witch-hood that has the effect of reinforcing stereotypes about witches. In the former, efforts were made to explore how witches were created and to assess the terrible psychic/ supernatural impacts of witch-hunting. Kaalo’s action begins in media res, with a background voice narrating the existence of the eponymous witch, reputed to be an infamous slayer of the female child. It was believed that she wanted immortality and sacrificed adolescent girls to this end. Soon she was caught and executed by angry villagers, but after a passage of time, the villagers believed she had emerged again and was killing people with double the vengeance. As a result, the entire village of Kulbhata is evacuated overnight. Roads that passed the village were also abandoned and transport thus uses a different route across the region. The narrative then comes to the present when a bus full of passengers has to perforce take that abandoned route because of a landslide elsewhere in the desert. The bus also has a young female passenger, called Shona (Swini Khara). The rest of the story is about how Kaalo wants to get hold of this girl and in the process starts killing every passenger till a fellow traveller called Sameer saves her. This film, I argue, presents a very uncritical adherence to normative 137

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folkloric conceptualisations of the witch. The digitised presentation of Kaalo as batwoman and elf as well as witch degenders the figure of the witch by attributing a series of masculine facial characteristics to her. This, I argue, is deliberately done to other the figure of the witch by showing her as not confirming to idealised feminine attributes. Kaalo shows the witch as a non-productive supernatural force who is out to destroy the idealised Indian intimate sphere of the family. Kaalo is conceptualised as the first witch in Hindi cinema to inhabit daytime. The connection between the landscape and the figure of the witch is obvious: her infertility as a woman is related to the barrenness of the desert. Since the film does not advance any history for the creation of this particular witch, it can be safely said that she becomes the prototype for all barren women who have been branded witches in their lifetime. Since the desert economy is largely seen as a redundant one, the presence of the witch in this economy becomes synonymous with the absurdity and wastefulness. The capitalist product-based economy rejects or strongly resists the existence of these non-productive economies and encroaches upon them in an attempt to make them more productive. Sameer (Aditya Srivastav) becomes the human agent of this capitalist endeavour. He comes back from the town bringing a bag full of dynamite with him to blast a small hillock to bring the source of water for borewells. The capitalist economy sees the non-productive ones in the periphery as exotic and dangerous, symbolised by the figure of the witch. An exploration of witch-hood that counterpoints the symbol of the witch with the various meanings of geographic and climatic space is essential here. Modern scholarly explorations of witches have connected climactic changes with the economic exploitation of women therein. It has been argued before that Reluctance to discuss the issue of climactic change may be rooted in the deep-seated prejudice that events in the natural environment are not relevant to human history. An open-minded synthesis of witch-hunting which tries to provide a balanced picture of all relevant approaches including climactic change is still to be accomplished. (Pfister 2007: 66) On the contrary, this film shows that when the villagers evacuated, the place transformed into a desert. In a way, the film suggests that sociocultural emptiness produces climactic barrenness. The barrenness of the witch is responsible for the emptying out of the village and of the production of a climactic change; the witch’s supernatural power is thus presented as environment changing, rather than seeing the witch herself as produced 138

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by the socio-cultural environment around her. Since this witch myth operates in a fixed territory, the bestial, savage desert life is also presented as separate from civilised life elsewhere. When Sameer arrives there with his explosives, he represents the invader into this territory, an imperialist settling new territory once again for civilisation. Thus, the phenomenon of the witch in this film must be read against the grain as an attempt to resist this forcible incorporation into civilisation. Because the film opens in media res, we do not know why Kaalo becomes a witch. Her desire for immortality in fact might be just another myth about her rather than a truthful representation of who she is. The ever-increasing impact of capitalist growth has led to climate change in different parts of the world; Kaalo herself is a body that by definition cannot reproduce and thus is outside of and excluded by the growth of the economy around her. As a non-reproductive female person, Kaalo might well be unwanted within the intimate sphere; this sphere’s effort to other her might have led to its characterisation of her as a slayer of female children. The stereotyping of witches, as Soma Chaudhuri observes, can result from less than ideal material conditions: Most of the accusations stem from diseases or unexplained illness and, because modern health care is not prevalent in the area, the tribals look for a ‘supernatural’ cause for the illness. The majority of the accusations levelled against women were by men. These women had reputations for being quarrelsome or having an evil eye, and they were in some way isolated from the rest of the village by their behavioural or physical characteristics. (Chaudhuri 2012: 230) In the case of the village here, Kaalo may have been isolated because she is presented as someone who has been stripped of all the essences or appearances of femininity. When Kaalo attacks the bus, she becomes visible to the viewer for the first time. Her supernatural self is depicted with much ferocity and darkness: the dark skin colour resembles that of an animal (most likely a bat), burnt face, dishevelled hair, pointed nose, broken teeth and staring eyes. She is shown to be an ugly monster. The frequent closeup shots of the witch’s tongue elongating and salivating at the prospect of devouring Shona enhances her monstrous appeal. The overall presentation of Kaalo suitably elides her feminine attributes. She can be easily mistaken for a male monster, if at all gender can be assigned to a monster. Here thus, lack of obvious physical markers of femininity threatens the cohesiveness of the Indian intimate sphere. The bus itself, it can be argued, is a microcosm of this Indian intimate sphere in the present time. Containing people of various class, caste and regional backgrounds, the bus is both the Indian 139

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nation and Indian family, travelling together through the desert into a nurturing modernity. While there are differences between them, all these travellers unite despite their heterogeneities to fight the supernatural force they are confronted with. The supernatural force disrupts what is the default maleness of the microcosmic India unit that the bus is. All the women on the bus are submissive; the little girl Kaalo has her eye on seems to be the only exception, resisting subsumption into the narrative of the supernatural. When the passengers on the bus come to know that Kaalo only wants the girl child on board the bus, they are all too willing to sacrifice her. The girl, just like the witch, is outside the economy of reproduction; in a sense, it is no wonder that the witch wants to take the child into her own world, as they are so alike in this striking respect. It is also no surprise that the rest of the bus, with the exception of Sameer, wants to give the girl away. An old man to whose care Sameer entrusts the child briefly also wants to give her away, citing weakness; this ‘weakness’ too has to be related to the economy of production/reproduction – the girl is a non-contributor and being thus of no value must be traded for their lives instead. Kaalo thus seems to have a great deal in common with the folk who have ostracised her – both are not above othering female individuals. Within the meta-narrative of Hindi cinema, Sameer’s tough, silent, young, introverted yet soft-hearted aspect suggests the ‘angry young man’ protagonist of the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike most horror films where the heroes have limited parts to play, this being the reason why big male stars are often reluctant to take up this genre, it is Sameer who saves the day. In a way, it can be argued then that it is the nuclear family that the film validates; no one from the bus other than the child and Sameer survive. Further, women are anecdotally always blamed for breaking up the joint family structure; here too, it is Kaalo whose supernatural feminine energy leads to the disintegration of the idealised Indian family’s multicultural intimacies. Sameer reveals himself to be the pioneer of modernity and civilisation when he is the only person on board the bus who refuses to sacrifice the little girl; serving as her protector, he takes everyone to safety. He also has the gunpowder that annihilates Kaalo once and for all. The work of modernity then is overtly to protect the girl child; concurrently, the message is also that the girl child is most vulnerable to the machinations of other women and that the chief protector of the girl child is an enlightened (male) capitalist modernity. Thus, the film is clearly unempathetic to the witch, seeing nothing in common between the damaged femininity of the older woman and the vulnerable femininity of the younger one. Kaalo’s didactic lesson is not that superstition and modernity cannot coexist. Its lesson instead is that globalised modernity will wipe out forms of resistance to its juggernaut.

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5 DO WE FEAR LAUGHTER? The genre of horror-comedy1

Fear and mirth are generally considered to be diametrically opposite human emotions. If fear induces anxiety, mirth generally mitigates misery by allaying tensions. While the former is generally associated with grief, the latter signals prosperity. And yet when they come together in cinematic productions, more often than not, they set the cash registers ringing. Horror-comedy has been a very popular sub-genre of horror in Western cinema with films like Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (dir. Sam Raimi, 1987), Beetlejuice (dir. Tim Burton, 1988), Shaun of the Dead (dir. Edgar Wright, 2004), Zombieland (dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2009) and Fright Night (dir. Craig Gillespie, 2011) attaining commercial as well as critical success. In a chronological study of American horror-comedy from 1914 to 2008, Bruce G. Hallenbeck reveals that unlike ‘straight dramatic horror films’, horror-comedies give ‘permission to laugh at your fears, to whistle past the cinematic graveyard and feel secure in the knowledge that the monsters can’t get you’ (Hallenbeck 2008: 3). While some comedies may contain horrific episodes, it is equally possible that some horror films may induce unintentional laughter and this is attributed to the mode of ‘ambivalence’ that constitutes an integral part of the ‘gross-out aesthetics’ (Paul 1994: 419). The oxymoronic appeal of attraction and repulsion in such films necessitates the dilution of rigid categories of comedy or horror. It has been observed that while comedy in a standard horror movie serves as comic relief, it plays a more dominant role in horror-comedies (Kawin 2012: 203). What separates the ‘acid bite of black comedy’ from the ‘genial joshing of merry comedy’ is the subjective response of the viewer (Hokenson 2006: 252). Thus, what is generally considered to be serious and grave in life can easily border the ludicrous once the feeling of helplessness at destiny’s whims creeps in (Bergson 1900/1940: 59–190). It has been observed that both humour and horror necessarily belong to the realm of socially and aesthetically less desirable premises, as ultimately the clown is regarded as not so beautiful and the monster as not quite human (Carroll 2000: 39). This leads to the 141

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argument that the juxtaposition of both comic and horrific elements in this ‘hybrid genre’ opens up possibilities of narratives that critique the established boundaries of ‘power, gender and sexuality’ (Picart 2003: 191–9). Horror-comedies in Indian cinema defy easy definition. Most horror films produced in Indian languages contain slapstick and burlesque subplots which serve as comic relief. Almost all the Ramsay productions contain these sub-plots and yet neither are they advertised nor consumed as horror-comedies. This is true of the genre of horror-comedy in Indian cinema in general and Marathi films in particular. The 1980s and 1990s saw a flurry of Marathi horror-comedies like Ek Daav Bhutacha (dir. Ravi Namade, 1982) and Zapatlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 1993). This chapter treats the Marathi films Pachadlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 2004) and Zapatlela as case studies of how Indian horror-comedies work through the dialectics of laughter and fear to address how the feudal continues as a structuring principle in many new forms within the so-called modern in a modernising India, as seen from rural Maharashtra. The Tamil film Kanchana: Muni 2 (dir. Raghava Lawrence, 2011) dismantles through this genre the notion of dimorphic gendering; comedy and melodrama unite to produce one of the few films that narrativise life between the conventional normative genders of male and female. These three films taken together allow us to explore the more horrific side of the genre of horror-comedy. The comedic side of the genre is represented by two films, Chamatkar (dir. Rajiv Mehra, 1992) and Bhooter Bhabishyat (dir. Anik Dutta, 2012), both of which are mainstream films in Hindi and Bengali, respectively. This chapter also explores how within the rubric of the horror-comedy, films can be further classified as horrific horror-comedy and comedic horror-comedy.

Horrific horror-comedy: a typology First, unlike most ‘straight’ horror films which start with horror, horrorcomedies usually begin with comic episodes before meandering to the horror plot. This usually involves the presentation of main protagonist/s in a humorous vein rather than the typical grave and serious horrific/horrified character. Pachadlela opens with comedy, depicting the three friends Ravi (Shreyas Talpade), Sameer (Abhiram Bhadkamkar) and Bharat (Bharat Jadhav) who have been transferred to a small village Osadwadi, a microcosmic representation of rural Maharashtra, by the bank they work at. Sameer and Bharat’s late-night journey along deserted roads from the railway station to the bungalow establishes, with its comic effects, the dominant tone of the film. Even though Zapatlela begins with the dreaded criminal Tatya Vinchu (Dilip Prabhavalkar) forcing an exorcist to teach him the mritunjay mantra that would make him immortal, both Tatya and his accomplice are 142

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portrayed in make-up that makes them appear more jocular than dreadful. Both are presented with physical oddities: Tatya is bald with protruding gap teeth and his hunchback companion is blind in one eye. Thus, they appear to be ridiculous caricatures of standard filmic villains. And this sets the tempo of the film till the time the possessed doll starts its killing spree. Second, these films build up suspense on several occasions only to release tension through a comic moment. A more conventional horror film, perhaps with the exception of the Ramsay productions, will constantly invoke and maintain tension through its narrative, hardly allowing viewers relief till the very end. Kanchana’s narrative neatly divides the comedy of the first portion from the harsher drama of the latter half, but more typical horror comedies constantly oscillate between emotions, like Zapatlela between the killing spree of the possessed doll and light-hearted comedy involving the protagonists. Pachadlela also abounds in such instances: on one occasion when the ghosts scare Bharat, he runs straight into a live song-and-dance performance by the local danseuse Soundarya (Megha Ghadge). The film’s narrative thus rapidly shifts from spine-chilling to romantic comedy. Third, though horror-comedies establish clear separation between the worlds of human beings and ghosts, the latter does not show a logic/religious rationale of its own. Unlike the horror film proper where evil spirits usually try to convert victims to their own ideological beliefs either through force or deceit, horror-comedies portray spirits as tied to the human world with no independent existence of their own. Ek Daav Bhutacha depicts the cursed but very helpful ghost who waits for his redemption. The narrative in Pachadlela reveals that the wada the three friends have been housed in is haunted by the ghosts of an Inamdar (Dilip Prabhawalkar), his insane son Babya (Ameya Hunaswadkar) and Kirkire (Vijay Chavan), besides the ghost of Durga (Vandana Gupte) who hovers around a nearby well. The film shifts to flashback mode to reveal that about sixteen years ago, the Inamdar with the help of his trusted assistant Kirkire attempts to deceitfully marry off his mentally deranged son to a local village girl whilst concealing Babya’s mental illness. In the nick of time, Durga manages to inform the prospective bride’s family about Babya’s insanity. The Inamdar manages to escape the villagers’ ire, but they beat Kirkire to death and admit Babya to a mental hospital where Babya commits suicide. The Inamdar, traumatised, suffers a fatal heart attack, but swears revenge before dying, telling Durga that he would avenge himself on her female offspring even after death. The film’s horror-comic effects derive from the different manipulations these ghosts resort to as they try to hinder the wedding of Durga’s granddaughter Manisha, but these manipulations are still located within a family logic, rather than some supernatural spiritual or religious system of beliefs about good and evil. Kanchana is somewhat an exception as the spirts possessing 143

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Raghava are extremely interested in avenging themselves, and their figurehead is the transgendered Kanchana, whose particular gendered situation makes confusion of identity impossible. Fourth, the nature of possession in horror-comedies is also dynamic. For example, in Pachadlela, four ghosts take turns to possess a single body throughout the film. Zapatlela was the first film in Indian cinema to experiment with the possessed doll narrative. Its immediate parallel would have to be Chucky, the murderous possessed doll, in the Chucky series which was very popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Hollywood horror. In Ek Daav Bhutacha, the friendly ghost possesses the body of the male protagonist only to help him and save him from the clutches of evil-doers. In Kanchana, Raghava is possessed simultaneously by several spirits. Thus, the usual locus of the horror film proper, around bodies marked by possession in more fixed ways, is disturbed in the horror-comedy. Fifth, almost all horror-comedies posit the figure of clown, manifested either in the form of a naive human protagonist (Ek Daav Bhutacha) who is about to be possessed or an already-possessed clownish doll (Zapatlela). In Pachadlela, the naif but mischievous Bharat’s body becomes the site of the possession and thereafter of hilarious rioting within the narrative. Likewise, in Kanchana, the figure of Raghava as simpleton, jester and buffoon is in sharp contrast with the unrelieved horror of Raghava when possessed by Kanchana. Sixth, where music and background sound is directed to add to the tension in the horror film proper, the music and special effects in the horrorcomedy is contrapuntal to the tension of the film: thus, films like Zapatlela and Pachadlela feature songs that allay tension generated by the horrific components within the narrative; apart from one song scene featuring the transgendered community’s worship of their god, all the other songs in Kanchana too are reprieves from the tension of the film. Seventh, there is almost always an intertextual reference to a particular horror film or a parody/pastiche of the more conventional horror cinema. Some people are of the view that the horror-comedy’s propensity for parody and pastiche of the horror genre signifies an adequate understanding and knowledge of the horror genre itself (Rayner et al. 2004: 301). For example, in Pachadlela, the character of the fraudulent exorcist Vetale Guruji (Laximantkant Berde) who dupes people by faking ghosts-related rituals parodies the knowledgeable and often arrogant exorcist of a typical horror film. Zaptlela brings to life several associations with possessed doll films. Western horror/thriller cinema has quite a few instances of very popular films based on the ventriloquist doll. The Great Gabbo (dir. James Cruze and Erich Von Stroheim, 1929) was one of the first Hollywood films to portray a ventriloquist and his dummy. Over the years, films like Dead of Night (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer, 1945), Magic 144

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(dir. Richard Attenborough, 1978) and Tales from the Crypt (1950–55) have evocatively used the dummy doll theme to produce horror. Zapatlela initiates the murderous doll trope in Indian cinema. Zapatlela’s immediate inspiration seems to be Chucky of the Chucky series. Eighth, while a ‘more direct’ horror film may or may not have a happy ending, horror-comedies always end happily: Pachadlela ends when Vetale Guruji with his own ill-baked, half-learned expertise helps the young lovers to unite by destroying the three evil spirits. Zapatlela culminates into a happy ending for its characters when the possessed doll is shot at and destroyed. These happy endings deflate audience expectations of horror to instead manage them into more conventional narrative resolutions; while the endings seem conservative, the comedic deflection of ‘problems’ also has the effect of subverting prevailing norms of social status or expectation in the diegesis. Kanchana also ends happily with the promise of a better future for the extremely oppressed transgendered minority. Last, unlike pure horror which aims to scare the audience as well as the characters within the narrative, horror-comedy targets primarily the character/s most times and only the audience sometimes.

Feudal ghost play: Pachadlela Pachadlela allows us to reflect on how the feudal still orders masculine and feminine sexualities. This ordering is evident in four strategic instances within the film’s narrative: the Inamdar’s forceful desire to get his mentally challenged son married, his related attempt to cheat a young village girl into marrying the son, the Inamdar’s ghostly possession of an easygoing young man years later to avenge his failure to achieve this plot and finally, in the Inamdar’s unintended attempt to prevent this young man from marrying a lower-caste dancer. As can be seen from this sequence, all of the feudal overlord’s attempts at control centre around marriage, conventionally a subject of comedy. However, as marriage ties are also used as normative social-structuring mechanisms, the failure to achieve ‘correct’ marriages is the subject of social horror and shock too, particularly if miscegenation or eugenic tragedies are expected. The Inamdar’s hegemonic investment in the institution can be subverted as the genre is comedy, and everyone lives at least in the contemporary generation. At the same time, the Inamdar’s untrammelled power in the previous generation supplies the material for horror. The Inamdar’s desire to see his mentally challenged son married sets the film’s plot in motion, creating tragic predicaments within ‘his’ wada. The theme of madness figures in a very limited way in most Indian cinemas. To take the case of Hindi cinema as example, with the exception of a handful 145

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of films like Khamoshi (dir. Asit Sen, 1969), madness has generally been used to produce stereotyped villainous or comic caricatures. Dinesh Bhugra (2005: 250–6) rationalises such stereotypes as ensuing from the social, economic and political conditions prevalent in India during the production of these films. Films like Sadma (dir. Balu Mahendra, 1983) which depict a mad female protagonist use the gendered cipher of the ‘mad’ female as a vehicle for legitimising the objectification of the female body in addition to legitimising dominant socialisation paradigms as well as violative psychiatric methodologies in the guise of being ‘sensitive’ to the problem (Rowena 2001: 11). These films further tend to advocate cure of such mental disorders through extraordinarily absurd ways: ‘Illness being cured by the tumbling out of dark secrets (Eqqus) or by falling in love’ (Swaminath and Bhide 2009: 245). The Inamdar’s feudal ordering of Babya’s sexuality reinforces insensitive portrayals of mad people in Indian films; his bid to marry him off is a form of paternal abuse that culminates in Babya’s suicide, as is his refusal to seek out treatment for the boy, effectively depriving him thus of medical amelioration of his schizophrenic condition, impeding thus the recovery process. The second instance of feudal ordering, inseparable from the first, is evident in the Inamdar’s manipulative concealment of his son’s illness from his potential daughter-in-law and her family. This in turn can be read as his feudal attempt to order the girl’s sexuality. The Inamdar’s credibility due to his feudal ascendency ensures that the girl’s family agree to the marriage even without seeing Babya. The Inamdar’s lack of guilt for his actions reveals that in the feudal order of things, the ensuing severe curtailment of feminine autonomy is taken for granted, a theme that attains another reflection in our next point, where we see that Babya himself (as a ghost) will be involved in directly molesting a woman. The third instance of feudal ordering is in the Inamdar’s ghostly possession of Bharat in his effort to prevent the marriage of Durga’s granddaughter’s marriage to Ravi. Bharat’s horoscope suggests his susceptibility to possession as he belongs to the manushya gan, and the Inamdar, Babya and Kirkire take turns to possess him in what initially appears to be a lighthearted comic staple. First, when possessed by Kirkire’s ghost, Bharat announces that Manisha is a manglik, leading to Ravi’s recalcitrant parents calling off the wedding. A fight results thus between Ravi and the now nonpossessed Bharat: the Inamdar’s meddling can be read as a deliberate feudal attempt to destabilise the cohesive and united youthful homosociality of the new generation of young men that Ravi et al. represent, which poses a threat to the former’s decadent, less fraternal, feudal world. On the second occasion, Bharat becomes an unwilling medium for the Inamdar and Babya’s incestuous lustful assault on Manisha. Bharat’s helplessness, Manisha’s victimisation by the Inamdar–Babya–Kirkire trio’s vengeful lust and villainy 146

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is evocatively conveyed through a series of close-up shots interposed with rapid cuts in a sequence that begins with a wide shot showing Manisha entering the haunted mansion. The wooden swing, an archetypal horror signifier, moves back and forth assaulting the viewer’s gaze. With a rapid cut, the viewer is transported to the Inamdar’s lustful gaze at the approaching Manisha. This is followed by a close-up shot of a slightly intimidated Manisha accompanied by the pleading voice of Durga’s ghost telling her not to enter the mansion, but inaudible to Manisha. Two more close-up shots follow showing Kirkire and the Inamdar concocting a plan to get hold of Manisha. Suddenly, Bharat possessed with Babya’s ghost jumps to the middle impatiently lusting for Manisha. The Inamdar momentarily takes Babya out of Bharat’s body and the distraught unpossessed Bharat falls on the sofa, showing the audience his trauma. Again the Inamdar’s ghost enters his body and egged on by Kirkire, he and Babya take turns to assault Manisha. The scene renders an incestuous father–son molestation of the female and Bharat by virtue of his possession becomes an unwilling participant in it. This can be read as a feudal homosociality controlling Bharat’s body in its struggle to assimilate the new urban generation into the folds of rural patriarchy. The fourth instance of feudal ordering can be read when the Inamdar unwittingly creates misunderstandings between Soundarya and Bharat. Soundarya witnesses Bharat’s assault of Manisha, but ignorant that Bharat is possessed by ghosts, she accuses Bharat of infidelity. The Inamdar’s exploitation of Manisha creates fissures in the Bharat–Soundarya dalliance that can be interpreted as his (inadvertent?) feudal prevention of the upward-class mobility of the tamashe-wali, Soundarya. Bharat’s white-collar, urban background is very far from Soundarya’s low-caste/class standing as a tamashe-wali. The origin of tamasha and the lavani can be traced back to the feudal era of the Peshwas in Maharashtra. In the post-famine year of 1803, the Peshwa state started earning revenue through the trade of lower-caste female slaves, who were later employed as dancers in the court. The female slaves were then forced to sing and dance to erotic songs expressing insatiable sexual desires to appease the courtiers (Rege 2002: 1041). Thus, lavani was used as a mode of constructing the image of lower-caste women as adulterous. In the later years, lavani became very popular as a part of theatre performances in rural Maharashtra. Tamasha and lavani became integral part of Marathi cinema in the post–Second World War era, when Marathi films specifically began addressing the rural audience through gramin movies (Kale 1979). Most of the lavani singers come from the Kolhati caste and their dholki troupes from the Mahar and Mang scheduled-caste communities. The decline in the arts of lavani and tamasha means that these communities have nowhere to go, nothing to do and as a result they live in utter poverty (Awachat 1980: 1257–9). 147

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The Inamdar’s actions almost destroy Soundarya’s opportunity to gain class and caste mobility. While Pachadlela no doubt can be given other interpretations, this chapter has tried to read it as enabling a critique of feudalism using horror to invoke anger at obvious wrongs and comedy as means of explaining how to carry on with life even when faced with the proof of evil and horror in our own worlds. But then, the film’s pioneering (in Marathi cinema) use of digital technology helps caricature the Inamdar into a straitjacketed symbol of the decadent feudal world of rural Maharashtra. Pachadlela uses obviouslooking, literal computer graphics imaging to represent the ghosts of the Inamdar, Kirkire and Babya for much of the film, taking away perhaps any sympathy that one might otherwise had developed for them if they had only been disembodied voices or distant shadows as in pre-digital-era Indian renditions of such spirits. Further, horror-comedies are often looked down upon as low-budget films aimed at the rural/unsophisticated audience. However, these subaltern texts can potentially turn out to be very subversive in destabilising the status quo. Pachadlela is one such example where the gross inequalities between the feudal hegemon and the oppressed are brought to focus. The quaint mix of horror and comedy serves to increase the potent value of the film as a space that enables a socio-political critique of marginalised masculinities and femininities. Its use of comedy allows the film to address the difficulties of modern Indians within the immediate and the contemporary, while the horrific represents those insoluble elements of the past that persist within the modern. Further, as a film in a regional language, it allows us to see at much closer range and in finer grain what perhaps, Hindi cinema, with its more mainstream ‘national’ ambitions has perforce to ignore in its attempt to create pan-Indian identifications.

Puppets as protagonists: Zapatlela Zapatlela recounts the story of a dreaded criminal Tatya Vinchu (Dilip Prabhavalkar) who in his quest for immortality had forced an exorcist to teach him the mrityunjay mantra. This stands him in good stead as when he is about to die in a police encounter, he uses his talisman to leave his body and possess the body of a doll lying near him. The rest of the film’s narrative is about his persistent efforts to look for a suitable human body to transmigrate his soul in it. Tatya’s spirit finds the body of a puppeteer Lakshmikant Bolke (Lakshmikant Berde) appropriate for possession. However, before it is able to lay its hand on Lakshya, police officer Mahesh (Mahesh Kothare) investigating the case of Tatya destroys the doll and frees Lakshya from its clutches. The film is as much about Lakshya as it is about Tatya. Zapatlela can be read as a commentary on the life of an average puppeteer 148

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in India through the trials and tribulations that Lakshya faces in the film’s narrative. Lakshya’s performance of different roles in his professional, social and domestic fronts – that of a puppeteer, a son, a lover and a friend – can be read as a microcosmic presentation of social ordering of masculine and feminine sexualities. Horror through comedy becomes the site of such social ordering of gender within the narrative of the film. Puppetry-based films in Indian cinema have been few and far between. While dolls have often been featured in many Indian movies in the form of inanimate accessories such as gifts given to children or fond companions of heroines or even time bombs installed in them, only a handful of films can be considered to be based primarily on the themes of puppets and puppetry. One such film is Balraj Sahni and Vyjayanthimala starrer Hindi film Kathputli (dir. Amiya Chakrabarty and Nitin Bose, 1957) that depicts the predicament of a puppeteer who meets with an accident. Interestingly, a few puppet-based films can be classified as horror films. Films like the Marathi Zapatlela and Zapatlela 2 (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 2013), the Bangla Putuler Protishodh (dir. Rabi Kinagi, 1998) and Mantra (dir. Rabi Ranjan Maitra, 2005), the Telugu Ammo Bomma (dir. Relangi Narasimha Rao, 2001) and the Hindi Papi Gudia (dir. Lawrence D’Souza, 1996) and Phoonk 2 (dir. Milind Gadagkar, 2010) portray a doll possessed by an evil spirit out on a killing spree. Zapatlela was the first Indian horror-comedy to not only depict such a theme but also explore the decay of puppetry as a form of entertainment in India. The film traverses three arcs in its narrative: comic, horrific and horrorcomedy. Though these three arcs curve and intertwine on several occasions, comedy seems to dominate the first half of the film, especially when Lakshya, accompanied by the first puppet, makes fun of people around him by exposing their follies and shortcomings. For instance, he is shown satirising the local village head Dhanaji Rao for his corruption during one of his puppet shows organised on the occasion of his felicitation. This would be in keeping with the traditional performative function of the puppeteer. In doing so, Zapatlela invokes the theme of puppets and puppeteers which have been a part of traditional Indian folk entertainment culture. Puppeteers in India have historically donned the role of social commentators raising awareness about different social, political and economic crises existing in the society. The earliest reference to puppet theatre dates back to the Tamil classic Silappadikaaram written around first or second century BC (‘Puppet Forms of India’). A form of folk theatre, puppetry was practised throughout the country but specifically in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bengal and Orissa. Though the roots of Marathi puppeteers can be traced to Rajasthan and Gujarat, such has been the popularity and reach of Marathi puppet theatre that most practitioners of this art in southern states of India like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh 149

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speak Marathi as their mother tongue (Blackburn 1996: 36). Zapatlela articulates the story of Lakshya, a Marathi puppeteer based in Maharashtra. The comic sub-plots in this film logically align themselves to the narratives of Lakshya and the art of puppetry. Irony, wit and satire are integral part of puppetry that targets mostly rural audience entertainment. The setting in Zapatlela is a small nondescript Maharashtrian village, and the comedy that this film indulges in is reminiscent of so many Marathi films of the time that catered largely to the gramin audience. The horrific elements in the film largely oscillate around an American puppet possessed by the spirit of Tatya Vinchu. There are two vent puppets depicted in the film’s narrative: one good and the other bad. While the good puppet, being inanimate, always remains under Lakshya’s control, the Tatya-possessed puppet indulges in its killing spree. The film generates horror through Lakshya’s inability to control this second puppet of his which leads to unintended terrible situations. With the arrival of the Western puppet, his role of a social commentator stands greatly compromised and diminished. He himself is thrown behind the bars, as the possessed doll starts killing people. The cinematic images of the possessed doll either killing Dhanaji Rao with a knife in hand or attempting to rape the heroine have largely been borrowed from Western horror cinema. This film’s insistence in depicting the possessed evil doll as a Western product can be read as the film’s critique of the growing Western influence in the profession of puppetry. This growing influence of the West can largely be attributed to the decay of puppetry in India in the mid-twentieth century. The professional resources of puppeteers took a serious beating with the increasing popularity of film theatres in India (Jonathan 2008). They found it hard to compete with the larger infrastructural and economic giants of the developing film industries. The advent of satellite television further ruined the patronage and employability of these puppeteers (Aravindan 2003). The irony lies in the fact that while some of these puppeteers were often invited to perform at the global stage especially in the 1990s, they kept suffering in their own country (Nagabhushanam 2010). This film was released in 1993, at a time when the Indian puppet theatre was receiving sustained worldwide recognition. Zapatlela is replete with references to the West: Lakshya idolised the great puppeteer Swami Ramdas who is referred to in the film as a very popular figure in the history of American puppetry. He himself wants to go to America, a place where he believes he will get due recognition and financial sustainability through his puppet tricks. The Tatya-possessed puppet that has been gifted to him has also been made in America. Further, as discussed earlier, this film brings to life associations from several Hollywood films like the Chucky series where killer dolls possessed by evil spirits create mayhem in the narrative. Zapatlela in particular deals with ‘vent puppets’ 150

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and ventriloquism. Vent puppets are special types of puppets with moving lips, eyes, eyebrows, necks and other body parts which are manipulated by a ventriloquist. Gradually, puppeteers in India buoyed by Western recognition and demands of the local audience started using Western-manufactured puppets. This led to the gradual erosion in the indigenous aesthetics of puppet theatre in India. Though American puppets served as a crucial subject of curiosity for the audience thereby increasing their popularity, the channel of communication between the ventriloquist and his audience would result in absurd situations. For example, puppets dressed in Western clothes would hardly fit within the cultural mix of the local rural setting which inevitably would form a large share of their audience. Their costumes, all of a sudden, appeared totally disconnected with the cultural and historical continuity of the ethnic population. Lakshya’s initial fascination for the American puppet and his later disillusionment at his inability to control it can be read as the film’s recognition of such a paradox: the modern Maharashtrian audience loves Western puppets, but the indigenous puppet aesthetics loses its valuable cultural significance in the process. This fear of Western infiltration is expressed in the film through horror. The American vent puppet along with Lakshya also becomes the site of horror-comedy in the film. Unlike other types of puppet play, vent puppetry works through the illusion that the puppet speaks on its own, while in reality, it is the ventriloquist who utters dialogues without opening his mouth as he seats the puppet on his lap (Ghosh and Banerjee 2005: 31). Zapatlela derives most of its horror-comedic effects through this trick. This confusion between the real puppet and the possessed one comes out in two contexts in the film. First, when everybody in the film believes that the ventriloquist controls the speech and actions of the vent puppet, while in actuality, the possessed vent puppet goes beyond Lakshya’s control. Lakshya initially thinks that the contemporary American puppets came pre-installed with batteries and a recorded program and were thus able to act on their own. This adds to the horror-comedic effects in the film. Second, Lakshya is unable to convince other characters in the film about his innocence and the misdeeds of the villainous puppet till the very end. Unlike pure comedy and horror, horrorcomedy in the film is not addressed towards characters in the narrative, but only the audience is the recipient. The horror-comedy thus becomes the primary mode of communication between the film and the viewer.

Going beyond gender dimorphism is horrific: Kanchana: Muni 2 Kanchana: Muni 2 narrativises the predicament of the aravanis, the local transgender community of Tamil Nadu. While it is difficult to know the 151

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exact number of aravanis in Tamil Nadu since the census does not include members of the third gender, it is estimated that the state has about 3 lakh aravanis (Sekhar 2008). As is the case with most global cinematic cultures, there are very few representations of transgender communities in Indian cinema. In a handful of films, where they do make an appearance, they are either portrayed as villains as in Sadak (dir. Mahesh Bhatt, 1991) or serve as comic relief as in Amar, Akbar, Anthony (dir. Manmohan Desai, 1977). Even fewer are films like Tamanna (dir. Mahesh Bhatt, 1997), Shabnam Mausi (dir. Yogesh Bharadwaj, 2005), Jogwa (dir. Rajeev Patil, 2009) and Ardhanaari (dir. Santosh Souparnika, 2012) where transgender people are the central protagonist/s. Kanchana is the first Indian horror film to deal with the becoming of a transgendered subjectivity. It is significant that Kanchana is a Tamil film, as Tamil Nadu has been at the forefront of transgender reforms, with an exclusive welfare board, ration cards and the facility for aravanis to get free sex-change operations at state government hospitals (Kannan 2009). Also, quite in keeping with the general tendencies of an average Tamil film, Kanchana addresses chiefly the Tamil milieu, thus highlighting a local flavour of Tamilness in its representation of issues (a difference evident if one juxtaposes this regionality with the more ‘national’ story of a film like, say, Tamanna). I argue that while Kanchana moves beyond the rhetoric of the usual ghost exorcism narrative by instead locating ‘horror’ creatively within the engendering processes of everyday through its engagement with contemporary transgender issues, it nevertheless oscillates between producing stereotypes about transgendered individuals even as it shows how these minority identities are not ‘other’ to Tamilness but very much part of this Tamilness. The film centres on two main narratives: those of Raghava (Raghava Lawrence) and Kanchana (Sarathkumar). Beginning with the portrayal of Raghava and his family, the film establishes Raghava as an unemployed young man whose primary activities are playing with his brother’s children, playing cricket with his friends and rather incompetently wooing Priya (Lakshmi Rai), the sister of his sister-in-law. Though displaced within comedy, the film presents his family’s disappointment with both his joblessness and his irrationality: his fear of ghosts produces certain unadult behaviour such as sleeping next to his mother at night and having her accompany him to the bathroom at night. Raghava becomes possessed during the course of an aborted cricket session with his pals; trying to set up a cricket pitch in an abandoned plot leads to the weather suddenly, dramatically, turning violent, forcing the men to run away. Raghava brings home the cricket kit, now soiled with the blood of the corpse that lay buried in that abandoned field. Soon Raghava starts getting periodically possessed and in these periods, he displays behaviours that are societally coded as effeminate. Concerned 152

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at these departures from his otherwise normatively male-gendered behaviour, his family takes him to an exorcist who forces three spirits out of his body. The spirits then narrate their own stories through the voice of a dead aravani individual, Kanchana, one of the three. This leads to the second narrative of the film, quite different in character from the first; Kanchana speaking through the body of Raghava narrates how s/he was thrown out of his/her house in his/her adolescence after his/her parents are angered by Kanchana’s non-normatively gendered behaviour and desires. A kind Muslim man, Bhai (Baba Antony), who lives with his mentally challenged son, gives Kanchana shelter. Kanchana grows up, and in turn adopts an aravani child Geetha, whom s/he sends abroad to complete his/her medical studies. Meanwhile, Kanchana buys a piece of land to build a hospital where Geetha (Priya) could practise medicine once s/he completes his/her medical education, but the local MLA Shankar eyes that piece of land for his own use and kills Kanchana, as well as Bhai and his son when they try to save Kanchana. The film ends with Raghava’s willingness to allow the possession of his body to serve as the vehicle for the revenge these three seek – the deaths of Shankar and his associates. Raghava’s willingness to allow his possession by these spirits can be metaphorically read as the building of a sensitive community that identifies, acknowledges and fights for the rights of non-normative sexualities – in this case, the transgender community. Since Raghava himself behaves in a manner that can perhaps best be described as the total antithesis of the traditional Tamil heterosexual masculine subject, the plot can justify his bonding with the spirit of the dead Kanchana even as this bonding distorts the usual depiction of the Tamil hero as possessor of an aggressive, in-your-face masculinity. At several levels, the film delivers a very sympathetic depiction of the traumas that the aravani people have had to face in Tamil Nadu (or even India). One such is the trauma associated with the politics of intelligibility. Kanchana is thrown out of his/her house because s/he began to exhibit effeminate mannerisms. The young Kanchana, then marked as ‘he’ by society, tries to argue in his defence to his father that he has read on the Internet that his hormones cause his non-normative behaviour and desires, but as such are beyond his control. This argument is a familiar one, used both by those speaking for gay rights as much as by those who advocate ‘cures’ for homosexuality. The dangers of such biological determinism are indeed very many, but rather than focussing on these very obvious dangers, I only focus here on how the film places technology vis-à-vis the transgendered individual: the transgendered person is not presented as technologically challenged or antediluvian or as a denizen of the realm of superstition and hidebound tradition, but as one resourcefully looking to new technology for explanations. Nevertheless, whether the argument is strategic or essentialist in this 153

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case, it fails: Kanchana is banished from home. But in a way, though the explanation fails to satisfy his father, its failure leads to Kanchana’s ‘coming out’, leading him/her out of ‘his’ home where he would have had to fit into one ‘allowed’ discourse of gender exclusively, to another space where s/he can be a s/he rather than a she or a he. In Raghava’s case, in the earlier portion of the film, much of the comedy centres around how it was impossible not to disrespect a man (like Raghava) so little in possession of ‘masculine’ traits like strength, resourcefulness and bravery. Later his family is even more censorious of his newly ‘possessed’ womanly behaviour, such as his insistence on applying turmeric to his body before bathing or his very public demonstration of decking himself out in a red sari in a sari shop, as these behaviours in a ‘man’ collapse the socially recognised boundaries between maleness and femaleness, and as such, expose the family to the possibility of social dishonour and ostracism. Raghava’s comic and loving household thus is revealed as a space that, like Kanchana’s biological home, refuses in its own way to house someone who departs from gender normative scripts. The film thus ties the debate of transgender to the larger question of prescribed male masculinity. This universalising, rather than minoritising, approach to the question is rather unusual in the contemplations it necessarily opens up for the interested viewer. The benefits of constructing a separate non-normative gender category intelligible to society is a much theorised topic in Western texts on the subject. A section of opinion, including queer theorists like Judith Butler (2004: 3), fears that the creation of an oppositional dichotomy between the socially ‘intelligible’ normative genders and the unintelligible ones will reinforce the hierarchical superiority of the former. Butler argues that instead, normative modes of intelligibility need to be dismantled from the inside to incorporate the more non-intelligible categories such as the transgender. At the same time, others (Halberstam 2005: 153), while arguing against monolithic categorisations, emphasise that the outsider status of the non-intelligible genders helps them to realise their oppositional potential in relation to the more confined boundaries of the normative gender order. Jack Halberstam is of the view that the differences that transgendered people and other subcultures represent will be completely subsumed within liberal humanist politics if not allowed an independent position. While films seldom consistently pursue ideological or theoretical arguments, they nevertheless reveal/reflect upon the societal needs, concerns and issues of their time. It is here that films like Kanchana have a role to play in espousing the cause of society’s subalterns. Kanchana can be seen as falling into this line of argument in its demand for a distinctly intelligible identity for the transgendered individual and community. Kanchana, giving a congratulatory speech for Geetha’s coming first in the state-level 154

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school leaving exams, appreciates the efforts of Tamil Nadu state to create a separate category for people like them – this, of course, is a reflection of reality, as Tamil Nadu is the first Indian state to have officially recognised the transgender community in public documents such as ration cards with a separate ‘third gender’ category. In 2006, the state government passed a landmark order through its Department of Social Welfare that admission in schools and colleges should not be denied on the basis of sex identification. Thus, while the generation of Kanchana could not fulfil their educational aspirations – the young Kanchana had wished to study medicine but discrimination sees to it that s/he cannot gain entry even to schools because of his/her transgender identity – Geetha is able to come top in the school exams. Thus, the film suggests that creating a publicly validated, legally recognised separate identity for the transgender community will indeed help destroy discrimination rooted within gender dimorphism. At the same time, this battle against discrimination cannot be won so easily, as the film shows in its violent rendition of the landownership conflict that ensues between Kanchana and the MLA – that Shankar is a politician is very telling of the film’s awareness of the many slips between the state’s goodwill towards its citizens and functionaries’ actual practices. The structural nature of the conflict between normative gendering versus non-normative challenges to this gendering is telescoped into the fight for possession of land originally bought for building a charity hospital: the harassment that transgendered people generally face in society at large include the pathologisation of those who cannot be accommodated within gender dimorphism. To begin with, many in the medical profession treat transgendered individuals as default carriers of HIV/AIDS, often publically humiliating them by advising them not to indulge in ‘dirt’ and ‘immoral activities’ (Goel and Nayar 2012: 48). Further, on the one hand, even though legislation permits sex-change operations and other medical help to transgendered people in Tamil Nadu, the attitude of doctors is at best indifferent, at worst extremely transphobic and dangerous, generally discouraging sex change and mostly stigmatising those who wish to change sex through surgery as mentally unstable. The film thus gestures to the limitations placed upon transgendered people even within a state where the discourse of ‘recognition’ is already active and somewhat legally entrenched. On the other hand, is the film naive enough to suggest that all transgendered individuals need surgery? I argue that the film does not suggest any such thing, but instead orchestrates the turf war over a potential hospital to force reflection on the overwhelming power ‘science’ and biological determinism have wielded over the trans-community, and shows this community as both aware of this power and wanting a structural stake in this power. So Kanchana’s desire to make Geetha a doctor and to create a hospital where 155

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s/he can work can be Kanchana’s legacy of better medical facilities for the transgendered community: a transgendered medical specialist is more liable to be sensitive to the heterogeneous requirements of the communities. In addition, these professional aspirations underline another of the film’s valuable implicit contributions: the idea that transgendered people can do work other than sex work if only they are enabled. The cinematic medium is very fluid and dynamic at the levels of conception, projection and assimilation. Interpretive techniques assist a cinephile or a film scholar to unpack codes of dissidence that lie within the narrative discourse. For example, Raghava’s making his mother accompany him to the bathroom at night forces reflection on how the social is created and embedded in the codes of who might accompany one to the toilet. While the more banal social proscription of incest is suggested in the vignette of a grown man accompanied by his mother, I suggest we extend our visual arc to that which the film does not show but throws up as a question surely: Is the social not created in its investment in gender dimorphism in the question of who may use public toilets? One ‘should’ be ‘either’ male or female to use these, the correct social answer tells us. But what about transgendered people? Surely they exist? Surely they have bladders too? Of course, the complex issue of accessibility to public toilets for/by transgendered people is not one that even the more ‘emancipated’ West talks about much: the transperson who is not comfortable using the men’s toilet may find that, at the same time, women might not want to share the bathroom with them either. The Chennai Municipal Corporation in 2009 set aside 45 lakh rupees for a pilot project to build three lavatories for transgender people in the city (Sinha 2009). However, the small number of lavatories even in this successful flagship project is telling of the difficulties that lie in the way of a sustained campaign against gender dimorphism. The film’s jokes on Raghava’s fear of going to the bathroom alone are indeed comically gentle reflections of how normative gender and sexual codes structure even something so ‘natural’ and necessary as excretion. If Kanchana raises consciousness about the need to be sensitive to the requirements of the aravanis, it also on several occasions reinforces stereotypes associated with them. One such occasion is towards the climax of the film when Kanchana sings and dances with a local aravani group. It goes without saying that songs are an integral part of most Indian films, both with regard to the narrative as well as the film’s distribution. Songs, more often than not, constitute a part of most film promos and trailers. Songs in horror films are even more vital: Horror film’s repetitious drones, clashing dissonances, and stingers (those assaultive blasts that coincide with shock or revelation) 156

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affect us at a primal level, perhaps instinctually taking us back to a much earlier time when the ability to perceive a variety of sounds alerted us (as a species) to approaching predators or other threats. (Lerner 2010: ix) A similar effect can be seen with the case of one very popular song from Kanchana, though song accompanied by lyrics is, strictly speaking, different from music as pure sound. This song builds up a narrative of its own which counteracts the more enlightened view that the overt diegesis of the film tries to establish: this is a narrative of the transgendered individual as embodiment of dread. The fear of the transgendered person that has traditionally been part of the popular imagination is reproduced in this aural narrative through its exoticisation of the aravanis, shown here in a ritualistic dance performance in the worship of a demonic god on a dark night on the seashore. The mise en scène created is that of a monster night beckoning the evil powers of the demon, the camera with the help of the background score preparing a foreboding tone. The gaze of the camera is repeatedly focussed on the virile monstrous make-up of the transgender group with their unkempt hair oscillating between hiding and exposing the cruel and bitter look in their eyes, emphasising their muscular shoulders and forearms, their whole bodies gyrating to the tune of some diabolical music. The lyrics quite literally abjectify aravanis: Kanchana is described as ‘a lethal man and woman combination’ who will ‘peel and mangle you to extinction’, ‘Like a tempest she billows to exterminate/crackling her knuckles she blows to mutilate’, ‘as you scream and shout your throat hoarse/she will close your chapter with no remorse’. Though this does not disable the film’s overall political commitment, it nevertheless points to disjunctions that are symptomatic of the inconsistencies of the society outside the film’s narrative as well as irreducible complexities generated by the medium of cinema itself. Then, the collective possession of Raghava’s body by the three spirits can be read as the film’s attempt at equating the trauma of the aravanis with that of Muslims and the mentally challenged. Historicising the depiction of Muslims in Hindi cinema is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, because of the fact that the Muslim rulers of Indian states in the past have generously patronised hijras (Nanda 1999: 415), it can even be posited that the film is recreating a nostalgia of Muslim patronage in Bhai’s adoption of Kanchana; but at the same time, one cannot ignore the cinematic meta-history of Indian films since at least the past decade or so, where Muslims are mostly represented in a negative light (Khan and Bokhari 2011: 2). It has also been observed that ‘predominantly, so far, the representation of this minority community in Indian cinema has 157

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remained within the dominant discourse, even in its stereotyping’ (Venkataraghavan 2015). Read in this light, the film’s attempt to equate aravanis with Muslims suggests a perceived threat from the transgendered community to the dominant social order. Again, the film’s attempt to equate the aravanis with mentally challenged people can be read as a direct assault on the existence of the category of the transgender itself, for it would imply that the transgendered person is somehow identical with the mentally challenged individual. Finally, the film completely ignores the sexualities of the aravanis. Nothing is ever said in the film about either Kanchana’s or Geetha’s own sexual desires or capacities for pleasure, focussing instead on the desexualised parent–child dyad, with sacrificial and renunciatory overtones that within Indian traditions almost always imply sexual celibacy. One of the limitations of this film is that it gives in without reflection to the general stereotyping of the transgendered community as asexual when it is not rabidly hyper-sexual – this paradox of the asexual transgendered ‘heroic’ individual is of course the other of the culturally proscribed transgendered person as sex worker and sexually promiscuous. In other words, the placement of Kanchana and Geetha in the ‘good’ spectrum of Gayle Rubin’s pyramid alone renders them worthy of mainstream cinematic depiction. While it might be true that there are transgendered people who are ascetic in orientation, one must reflect on this film’s propensity to make redundant any expression of sexual desire on the part of its aravani characters. The film is happy to place the aravani within the mould of the heroic other provided she or he is celibate, as the celibacy of the transperson makes it possible to ignore the various destabilisations of the heteronormative the rest of the film works very hard to consolidate. Ignoring all the counter-normative possibilities of transgendered desire underlines the film’s own inability to generate a comprehensive critique of sexual dimorphism. The depiction of the aravani community in Kanchana is closely allied to the codes and conventions of horror cinema. The possession by the spirits takes place in an average middle-class family in an urban setting. The urban horror landscape signifies the existence and assimilation of the transgender communities in the urban world of Tamil Nadu. The narrative episodes meander through some classical horror film settings such as the abandoned field where the evil lurking in the form of spirit is hinted at for the first time in the film and the dark night seashore where the transgender community celebrate the ritual worship of their gods. Torture and victimisation taking place in hospitals is a very popular theme in horror cinema. Though Kanchana does not depict abuse and torture inside the hospital, the construction of Kanchana’s hospital and the ensuing killings lie at the very core of the film. Kanchana has the classical horror narrative structure of the victim rising from the dead to extract revenge. The spirit-possessed victim-hero, 158

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the Muslim exorcist, the abandoned adolescent, the mentally challenged child and the murderer politician are some of the archetypal horror film characters that propel the horror narrative forward. The visual iconography of Kanchana is dominated by dark colours like red and black. When Raghava comes back from the haunted field, he discovers that his cricketing gear is soiled with red blood. The numerous killings shown in the film are usually accompanied by the splattering of blood. Black is the overarching dark background in the film, especially when the possession takes place, such as towards the climax when the aravanis are rejoicing in the worship of their gods. The final revenge of Kanchana’s spirit also takes place during the night. Like most horror films, the murderous knife and holy amulets are vital props in Kanchana. A long knife is used by the murderers to kill Kanchana, Bhai and his mentally challenged son. Raghava is given an amulet by the exorcist to prevent him from being possessed again. During the possession episodes, the film abounds in distorted diegetic sounds like that of the hurled tables and chairs and incidental non-diegetic sounds such as big bangs and sudden eerie sounds. The extensive use of high- and lowangle shots along with POV shots helps to build tension during the possession scenes. The transgendered body in Kanchana lies at the core of the film’s narrative and exploratory horror aesthetics. Fear of the transgender in the popular imagination has been harnessed to articulate a dialectical representation of the transgender community in Kanchana.

Comedic horror-comedy: magic, disruption and irony Then, even within the rubric of horror-comedy, some films can be more comedic than horror while others may be more horrific. Films like the Marathi Bhutacha Bhau (dir. Sachin, 1989), the Hindi Chamatkar and Paheli (dir. Amol Palekar, 2005), the Bangla Bhooter Bhabishyat and Goynar Baksho (dir. Aparna Sen, 2013) seamlessly slide into comedy even though the supernatural and ghostly possessions form the fulcrum of their plots. Bhutacha Bhau is the story of a dead man who comes back as a spirit and avenges his murder by helping his younger brother catch hold of his murderers. Chamatkar narrativises the predicament of a former gangster who had relinquished his criminal life only to be killed by his former gang members. The film portrays how the spirit of the slain gangster eventually battles his killers with the help of a young man. Paheli depicts the tale of a ghost enjoying conjugal bliss with a newly married bride, disguised as her husband who had been neglecting her. Bhooter Bhabishyat captures the changing face of the urban Kolkata landscape with its numerous malls and multiplexes and the gradual disappearance of the older ancestral buildings. 159

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Part nostalgic, part satirical narrative reveals the anxieties of ghosts who had taken shelter over centuries in one such old haunted building. Goynar Baksho muses on the significance of jewellery as a metaphor of economic independence for Bengali women of three different generations. The film revolves around a matriarch in a Hindu Bengali family who is so fond of her jewellery that she comes back as a ghost after her death to ensure that her jewellery does not pass into wrong hands. Instead of exploring these films through the prism of horror, it might be more useful to consider them as variants of what Peter Valenti calls in the context of Hollywood cinema: film blanc. A series of films produced in the early 1940s like Here Comes Mr. Jordan (dir. Alexander Hall, 1941) and The Horn Blows at Midnight (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1945) deal with fantasy that culminates in positivity and optimism (Valenti 1978). Most of these films depict human interaction with gods and angels after death and subsequent return to the mortal world for some unfulfilled work/desire. Emily Caston, in an extensive historical survey of the film blanc in Hollywood cinema from 1930s to 2000s, elaborates on Valenti’s assessment and defines this corpus of American films as one in which ‘a saviour with extraordinary powers suspends the ordinary, known, laws of time and space in order to allow one or more ordinary human characters to reform themselves in life changing ways’ (Caston 2010: 1). Such a saviour, Caston opines, could be the ‘radical spirit’ as in Gabriel Over the White House (dir. Gregory La Cava, 1933), the ‘troubled soul’ as in The Scoundrel (dir. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, 1935), the ‘angel in the house’ as in Angel on My Shoulder (dir. Archie Mayo, 1946) and the ‘Christmas spirit’ as in It’s a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra, 1946). She argues that these films along with several others in the history of Hollywood film blanc cinema like Trading Places (dir. John Landis, 1983), The Truman Show (dir. Peter Weir, 1998) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004) could easily be read as reflection of the socio-political happenings/events in the off-screen real America. Comedic horror-comedy Indian films like those discussed above can be considered as the variants of film blanc cinema rather than horror films. Though there are obvious differences between Hollywood and Indian cinema traditions, cinema as a medium also transcends geographical borders at several levels. It is in this transcendence that one can observe similarities between the Hollywood film blanc and non-horrific horror comedies like Bhutacha Bhau or Goynar Baksho. The purpose of these films is not to instil feelings of horror and dread in the minds of the audience, but to depict a world which promises benevolence and fulfilment. Unlike horrific horror-comedies which depict a gloomy and melancholic setting (physical/psychological) for most/some part of the filmic narrative, these films usually present an atmosphere full of happiness and mirth. 160

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What differentiates these films from their more horrific horror-comedy counterparts is that they are never showcased as full-fledged horror material. For example, the title Bhutacha Bhau itself suggests a friendly ghost. The choice of the lead actor, Ashok Saraf, the stalwart comedian of Marathi cinema, as the ghost underlines the film’s comic intent upfront. Posters and promos portraying horrific images are generally the staple of an average horror film. Both Chamatkar and Paheli pointedly did not depict any monstrosity or supernatural violence in their promotional posters. Instead, they showed the usual heterosexual couple in romance trope – Shah Rukh Khan and Urmila Matondkar in the former and Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee in the latter. Bhooter Bhabishyat had an ensemble cast with smiling faces in its promotional poster. In the case of Goynar Baksho, the audience had prior knowledge that it was based on Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s novel with the same title as the film. Thus, the horrific element of the film stood considerably muted. It is generally seen that the horror-comedy films which are more comedic than horrific are usually big banner mainstream productions with big stars. Sachin who directed and acted in Bhutacha Bhau is a big star in Marathi cinema. Chamatkar and Paheli had mainstream actors and filmmakers. Similarly, Bhooter Bhabishyat too had mainstream actors like Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and Saswata Chatterjee. Goynar Baksho was directed by Aparna Sen, a leading mainstream Bengali actress and filmmaker, and had actors like Mousumi Chatterjee and Konkona Sen Sharma. These production houses do not limit themselves to any particular category of audiences and instead want to expand their viewership base. Thus, while it is easier for most small production houses, churning out one horror film after another, to target and limit their viewership to the B-category audience, the bigger ones need to tone down the horrific content in their films to address all categories of audience. Sometimes, this moderation necessitates a total doing away with the horrific content. Thus, films like Bhutacha Bhau, Chamatkar, Paheli, Bhooter Bhabishyat and Goynar Baksho are hardly scary despite having numerous features in the plot that are common to most horror-comedies. Another feature which distinguishes these films from the more obvious horror-comedies is the nature of possession. In these films, possession is not accompanied with the violence that one usually associates with horror genre. The ghosts are very friendly and always shown as playing pranks and mischief on their human counterparts. In a sense, these films are robbed of those moments, otherwise iconic in most horror films, when the ghastly possession of a human body takes place in the narrative. While the friendly ghosts in Bhutacha Bhau and Chamatkar seamlessly move in and out of their host bodies, the ghosts in Paheli, Bhooter Bhabishyat and Goynar 161

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Baksho do not possess and are mostly separate entities by themselves. These films do not depict the bodily violence and distortion that usually accompanies such possessions in the popular imagination. Even in horror-comedies like Zapatlela where the spirit possesses a doll instead of human beings, there are enough evidences of on-screen violence committed by the possessed ghost. But here the friendly ghost attacks only those people who had killed its human form. By the time the ghost attacks the villains, the narrative in most cases would have already aligned an average viewer on the side of the hero/ghost. Thus, ghostly attacks in such cases do not appear to be violent but rather the culmination of natural justice. There is no possibility of a spirit going berserk in these plots and in this sense, the narrative becomes somewhat contained and limiting.

Chamatkar: social anxieties, magic remedies Comedic horror-comedies like Chamatkar work towards the establishment of a particular emotion which cannot be described as pure horror or pure comedy. Different kinds of cinematic texts have also been distinguished: ‘While some genres such as the crime film, science fiction, and the western are defined by setting and narrative content, others, such as pornography, comedy, suspense and horror, are defined or conceived around particular emotional responses’ (Grant 2010: 3). While ‘pure’ forms of horror would seek to establish horror as the dominant emotion and pure forms of comedy would alike seek to locate humour as the central emotion, the comedic horror in Chamatkar focusses on building up a narrative of magic, fantasy and bewilderment. Chamatkar is the story of an erstwhile smuggler, Marco (Nasiruddin Shah) who was killed by his own henchmen when he underwent a change of heart and wanted to leave his profession. After twenty years of accursed confinement within his tomb, his spirit is allowed to help a young man in need. Sundar Shrivastav (Shah Rukh Khan) is a village simpleton, whose simplicity perhaps allows him to hear Marco’s disembodied voice in the first place. While Marco has gone unheard and unseen for two decades, it is the arrival of a country buffoon in Bombay that allows Marco to release himself finally from his earthly commitments. Marco and Sundar unite to avenge Marco against his killer and to save the educational institution Marco’s father-in-law runs from the hands of Marco’s earlier accomplices. Chamatkar uses the narrative of magic and fantasy as metaphors for social critique. India’s advance into liberalisation in the early 1990s is mirrored in the war between the smuggler – who is the archetype of preliberalisation commodity shortages – and the rest of society. Chamatkar’s plot shows Sundar trying to run a small pathshala or village school in rural 162

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India. A friend dupes him of all his capital by dangling before him the lure of a job as teacher in the Arabian Gulf. Dubai at that juncture in Hindi cinema is the haven of the underworld, in contrast with regional cinemas such as Malayalam where Dubai/the Gulf is a distant though real guarantor of livelihoods and immigrant wealth. This film’s preoccupation with the theme of education can be read as referencing the shrinking social sector in the age of globalisation. The withdrawal of the state from the provision of services like health care and education is a well-known and well-documented phenomenon in many liberalising societies including India. This withdrawal is also thought to ‘further exacerbate the already inequitable distribution of healthcare and education services in India’, whose progress in these sectors is also regarded ‘unsatisfactory’ even in relation to other developing countries (Pal and Ghosh 2007: 25). The deepening of existing social inequalities under the transformational processes of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation is evident also in the nature of access to education. With increase in the number of private schools, access to education itself becomes privatised, granted on the basis of economic class rather than in terms of fundamental equal access to opportunity. These sweeping forces of transformation are themselves transformed into horror-comedy within the melodramatic frame of the Hindi film, but it is telling that the chosen genre here is the horror-comedy, not black comedy and not tragedy. It is as if Marco the smuggler, representation of pre-liberalisation India, has to help the liberalising economy for it to stay afloat. Marco’s excesses have to be reversed by his own contrite spirit; where Marco as evil smuggler had exploited and even indirectly lead to the death of several individuals twenty years ago (approximately the early 1970s), Marco as transformed dead spirit wields the wand of generosity over individuals beyond the ambit of the welfare state’s security net. The college that Marco and Sundar collaborate to save is symbolic in how its lease – held by the criminal Marco/his gangster accomplice – if not renewed will provide fresh real estate to a developing city at the expense of the futures of the young and disadvantaged. Marco’s gangster accomplice and future killer Kunta (Tinnu Anand), seated atop a bulldozer and about to raze the college brazenly, tells the female protesters that they are welcome to do sex work. The commodisation of education is thus displaced onto the bodies of women; the withdrawal of the state from its welfare work of providing goods and services can be referenced here in terms of what sociologists call the feminisation of poverty. Another woman character in dire poverty is told by her daughters that their entry into sex work is all but inevitable, but Sundar’s hard work and generosity allow them to get by without having to commoditise their bodies. Thus, the world of Bombay that Sundar enters is one of extreme dichotomy, between the sharp suits of a Marco and the invisibilisation of all who aren’t wealthy enough. 163

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The horror-comedy genre is able to infuse hope in the audience about the transformation afoot in the world because of its employment of fantasy, while the sheer hopelessness of using the realistic convention to depict an already unfair fight is also conveyed. In the era before the dominance of the neo-conservative romance like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. . . ! (dir. Sooraj R. Barjatya, 1994) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (dir. Aditya Chopra, 1995), the social world of films was somewhat broader than that of the affluent, Western-travelled individual. In this space, characters like Sundar represent the Indian Everyman who move out of rural spaces into urban ones in the hope of making good. The everyday immigrant is, however, conned and duped so badly that his only home is quickly a graveyard; the film being a comedy, however, the character lives and quickly becomes the romantic interest of the granddaughter of the principal of a college where he, with Marco’s help, gains a job as cricket coach. Chamatkar shows Sundar breaking the class barriers that would normally have prevented his marrying the likes of Neha; where a kind of class exogamy rule would have operated, the entry of the supernatural in the form of Neha’s cheerful father, himself a reformed patriarch unlike the more commanding ones that anchor the neo-conservative romances to come later in this decade. Horror-comedy is all cheerful transformation of the contours of the nuclear family. A number of romantic films show a poorer bride entering the household of a richer spouse and finally finding a welcome because of her docility and inherent goodness; Chamatkar reverses this operation: here it is the wealthy woman’s line that is renewed by the addition of blood from India’s rural hinterland. It appears that the reshaping of the nation, however, does not reshape female productive labour so much; Sundar’s female counterpart, also Marco’s daughter, is merely an accessory in what is still largely a male transformative project in which women are defined entirely in terms of proximity to the hero-centric narrative as love interest and as other to patriarchal power as victims of prostitution, sexual harassment etc. In an early song sequence ‘Yeh Bichchu mujhe kaat khayega’ (This scorpion will eat me up), Neha is travelling with friends in a women-only rail compartment, which Sundar boards by mistake. While the overt narrative shows Sundar being harassed by a carriage full of women, a closer reading of the picturisation of the sequence shows Neha, for example, sighing and orgasmically heaving at the thought of this strange man groping/assaulting her. The trauma of sexual harassment is thus inverted into a female fantasy of pleasurable sexual violation. This relegation of sexual violence into the space of female fantasy is in keeping with the film’s convention of comedy, but is also a typical Hindi film manoeuvre of asking the right questions but providing the wrong answer. Rather than addressing frontally the question of the place 164

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of women in a patriarchal economy, Chamatkar generates a fantasy woman who is autonomous and forward, capable yet happily subservient. One reason why one does not ask why such a woman is subservient is the film’s major male characters are themselves likeable – Sundar is not an inflexible macho man but a gentle, thoughtful and rather democratic young man; so is Marco as reinvented father figure. However, even if paternal, marital or kinship relations do appear to be more relaxed than in the films of the previous 1980s decade where elopements in the face of violence from family regarding choice of love objects was the main narrative anchor, the neoconservative family can be seen emerging all the same in the film’s fantasy of gender relations, with Neha’s subservience guaranteed to be put to the literal biological reproduction of little children for the village pathshala. In a similar comedic fantasy, the horror of the mafia getting into the game of cricket is expressed via the genial happy Marco’s interference with Sundar side’s cricketing. This ‘help’ merely masks the murky underhand dealings that characterised the sport’s visibility and its new-found home in the Arabian Gulf in the 1990s. Towns like Sharjah and cities like Dubai hosted major tournaments, especially those featuring arch subcontinental rivals India and Pakistan. These matches were often suspected to be controlled or influenced by various betting syndicates, including those sponsored by big-name gangsters who also had made their reputations in smuggling in the decade just previous. Marco’s manipulation of cricket is for a good end in the film – it does save the college – but it leaves several questions unanswered. First, does the film want to suggest that the increasing privatisation of education in real life cannot be stopped? The supernatural agency required to save this filmic college is an admission that this scenario cannot have a real-life counterpart. Second, while international cricket matchfixing/spot-fixing is considered illegal, the contours of comedy legitimises these activities as ethical in addition to making them a happily permissible task in the face of corruption on part of the other team playing. Curiously, the black markets suggested by this kind of fixing are a symbol of continuity between the pre- and post-liberalisation economies. Third, Chamatkar suggests that urban education is privileged in comparison to rural education, which is represented as merely for very small children while it is in Bombay that secondary/tertiary education can be carried out. Further, Sundar is merely a sports teacher in this urban college, not someone who teaches subjects that are thought to be more central to the educational system. These unresolved issues lie beneath the slapstick laughter, burlesque humour and joviality of Chamatkar, twisting out of its comedic fabric clear threads of horror. The film’s use of elements of the supernatural, while they circulate around comedy, nevertheless reveals visions of the grotesque, disturbing the comedy’s otherwise harmonious resolutions. 165

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The present has no future: Bhooter Bhabishyat If Chamatkar uses magic and fantasy to explore the genre of comedic horrorcomedy, Bhooter Bhabishyat makes extensive use of the tropes of memory and nostalgia to evoke horror and comedy. Bhooter Bhabishyat tells the story of how a promoter who tries to buy a heritage building in the heart of Calcutta in order to build a mall is chased away by the resident ghosts. The film depicts these ghosts as belonging to different eras, communities and socio-economic classes, but coexisting as one household. An ad-filmmaker who comes with his crew to shoot in the mansion unknowingly spends the afternoon with a ghost who tells him the story of how the ghosts came together in the first place. At the end of the film, the revelation greets him and the audience that the narrator too is a ghost, but this narrator also leaves behind a purse of money to finance the filmmaker’s dream feature film project. The film, I argue, evokes the past to critique the contemporary colonisation and destruction of heritage buildings which are rapidly being replaced by plush malls and other centres of leisure or entertainment. The film is not an unqualified evocation of the past; history too is critiqued in explicit as well as subtle ways. Within the rubric of the socio-political meta-analysis, I argue that women are depicted as a gender confined within patriarchal domination as defined by each historical period depicted. The use of nostalgia in cinema and postmodern literature has generated many debates. Frederic Jameson considered the depiction of nostalgia through pastiche in films as merely arrangement of the stylistics of the past without necessarily contributing to the understanding of the past. Jameson goes on to argue that nostalgia itself is the logic of late capitalism, ‘in which the history of aesthetic styles displaces “real” history’ (Jameson 1984: 67). Linda Hutcheon, on the other hand, while agreeing with Jameson’s association of pastiche with a false representation of history, strongly argues that irony and parody essentially contribute towards a better understanding of history. Hutcheon describes postmodern parody as a ‘value-problematizing, de-naturalizing form of acknowledging the history (and through irony, the politics) of representation’ (Hutcheon 1989: 94). However, there is only a thin line dividing parody from pastiche. While parody is generally seen as an active critique of the target object, pastiche can also be regarded as a critique, albeit in a more passive sense. When Jameson argues that pastiche is merely a stylistic representation, he tends to invisibilise the agency of the audience/reader. For, this audience itself is not a homogeneous entity, but one that consists of different age groups, of different socio-economic sections and of different genders too. So the text itself, as it were, generates multiple possibilities of critique. While Hutcheon considers parody as depiction of the politics of representation, equally, it can be argued that 166

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pastiche too in its own way problematises representation. Both parody and pastiche and also irony are also necessarily reliant on the functioning of memory: Memory can function as ‘monument’ in the form of commemoration and celebration of a proud collective identity. The function of memory, however, can be that of making us uneasy about ourselves and our history. (Portelli 2014: 43) It is this uneasiness that gets depicted in the evocation of the past in this film. So the representation of the past is achieved primarily through the mode of comedy, but the comic effect is itself achieved through the deployment of the stereotypes associated with each resident household ghost. The ghost of Zamindar Rai Bahadur Darpo Narayan Chowdhury, for example, represents the stereotype of British loyalist, cowardly, cruel and mercenary towards his poor tenant farmers. His loyalty gained him his title and of course his ghost remains loyal even in death: ‘you malik, I golam’, ‘your most obedient servant sir’ is his welcome to the ghost of the dead British Ramsay sahib. The latter is the classic stereotype of the Victorian colonial gent, with his love for whisky, bureaucracy and the music of empire. Another resident ghost, Bhoot Nath Bhaduri, from East Bengal when alive, comes to West Bengal as a refugee after the 1942 riots. Deforestation has now rendered him homeless and when he comes to the bungalow, his fondness for the hilsa fish from the Padma in Bangladesh pits him against the ghoti Darpo Narayan’s love for chingdi (prawns). The 1940s decade is also represented by ageing actress Kadalibala film actress, who is wooed by a filmmaker whose betrayal leads to Kadalibala’s suicide. The decade of the1970s finds its icon in Naxalite and revolutionary Biplab Dasgupta, scion and heir of the mansion, who speaking of himself says ‘it will be generations before biplab (revolution) comes to Bengal’. Biplab is killed by the police in a staged encounter. Similarly, centuries ago, Khaja Khan, who fought in the Battle of Plassey, also gives up his ghost in strife, as does Brigadier Yaudhajit Sarkar, awarded the Dharamveer chakra posthumously for his martyrdom in Kargil in 1999. The muscle power of Kolkata in the form of rickshaw pullers from the hinterland is represented by Atmaram Paswan from Darbhanga zilla; quite tellingly, he meets his end while asleep on the pavement – a young, rich and reckless man drives his SUV over sleeping pavement dwellers. Calcutta’s cultural elite’s dilemmas are represented by Pablo Patronobis and Koyal. Pablo, aspiring musician and offspring of an ambitious engineer and a doctor, forms a band regardless but only manages to sell thirteen CDs, and the depression sends Pablo into a drug-induced 167

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death. The same generation sends in another suicide, this time the lovelorn young daughter of a famous industrialist. Koyal’s father doesn’t want her marrying Sam Gonzalves, her gym instructor; he bribes him to go away to Australia, the chosen place of exile for the city’s Anglo-Indian community. Koyal, however, unknowingly holds out for him and kills herself. All these characters create nostalgia that is pastiche, parody and irony. In fact, the boundary between the three is wafer thin and yet the cumulative effect is a wholesome critique of each generation. The past over here is not presented as an ideal replacement for the present. The story is as much about the present as it is about the past, which is clearly indicated by the title – Bhooter Bhabishyat or the future of the past. The title suggests a cyclical relationship between past and present, and nostalgia and memory connect the two. Nostalgia also becomes a vehicle for expressing subjectivities that are otherwise dismissed in various ways. It has been asked previously: What about social identities and groups? Why discard nostalgia only as a commercialised history? Why limit it only to the social, political and cultural contexts? Why not talk about sexual politics? (Radstone 2007: 129). This film achieves such a conversation about sexual politics for example in its representation of Kadalibala. As a singing star in the 1940s, Kadalibala’s worth was measured in terms of her ability to sing and simultaneously present her body as desirable. However, with the arrival of the talkies and also with the passage of time, her desirability recedes; in other, status changes from desirable commodity to inferior commodity in no time. The vulnerability and sheer fragility of her identity as actress enters this film’s self-referential engagement. Bhooter Bhabishyat is as much about making a film as it is about ghosts; thus, Kadalibala’s lack of power as a female presence in filmmaking is foregrounded along with her obvious competence and confidence. At the same time, the deadly personal setbacks she encounters in life that cut short her professional life as well are echoed in Koyal’s story, which is set in the present, several decades later. While the men are all hard working or creative, killed in struggle or fighting injustice or by accidental overdose (Pablo), it is the women who are delineated exclusively in terms of the body – ageing for the actress and excessive commitment to the fiction of true love for Koyal – and as committing suicide as a result of perceived failure at intersubjective relationships. Among the non-ghosts, the young people of the present day, again, it is Ayan Sengupta who both encounters the ghosts and has big dreams; Rinka, his assistant, is a flirtatious lightweight who is presented as uninspired by anything other than desire for Ayan. The denouement features a bride burnt to death for dowry – Laxmi, the dead wife of the Marwari promoter – as dancing her way to revenge; again, despite their powers, even ghosts apparently have to use the body of the woman in order to attain their unearthly ends. A cleverly presented mix of mujra and item 168

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song shows her avenging herself as well as seeing to it that the promoter is chased away from the property by the ghostly company. Even within the non-corporeal realm that the ghosts move in, the physical is the dominion of feminine identity: Koyal and Kadalibala not only talk about makeovers, but have also already danced part of an item number earlier. The film makes a clear-cut distinction between horror and comedy, reserving its most horrific episode for the ‘real’ villain of the film. The promoter Bhootoriya is a Marwari; traditionally, the Marwari is stereotyped as representative of commodity fetishism and commercialisation, in contrast to the apparently less mercantilised values of the Bengali mainstream. The Marwari in an uncritical way thus becomes representative of the takeover by capitalism of the city of Calcutta in terms of this film’s diegesis. His rapaciousness and venality are emphasised by his having brutally burnt one wife to death. In representing him as the herald of the coming commercialisation of Calcutta, the film suggests that he and his ilk are the true horrors that lie beneath the liveable, placid surface of this great colonial city. The film presents several layers of access to commerce. Ayan is an ad-filmmaker and thus one who promotes consumerism; the various middlemen who help engage the old mansion for film/television suits help produce static notions of stately houses again for leisure consumption by audiences. Ayan, while talking to Biplab, admiringly notes that his idol Satyajit Ray was not only himself an ad-filmmaker but also a votary of commercial cinema; Biplab the revolutionary himself is confident that his film notions are highly saleable. Commoditisation and commercialism is thus all pervasive, not confined only to the Marwari. The latter, however, is dangerous because he appears to have a monopoly on capital. Bhootoriya’s superior control and access to vast sums of money and other kinds of capital, including the monopoly on the labour of his employees, represented by the speech-impaired character, makes him particularly dangerous because this translates in turn to monopoly on representation. Without Biplab’s radical grant of gold coins to Ayan, it is impossible that Ayan’s film on the ghosts’ struggle to find shelter can be made at all. Bhootoriya’s success in turn would have meant the ghosts would have been altogether exiled from their ownership of their pasts. Ayan’s interface with Biplab, however, upsets this mercantilisation of the past, present and future. However, the invocation of the supernatural in order to express these claims to historicisation, representation and subjectivity is indicative of the helplessness of the average-living common individual to lay claim to precisely these things. It has been stated that Every time evil was stopped in its tracks or a soul was released from the power of an ancient curse or a voodoo spell, peace was made on a cosmic or metaphysical scale. In one sense, death could even 169

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be embraced, and the rituals and myths by which it was embraced were public and communal. (Stone 2001) The genre of horror-comedy is one such means of embracing death, of making metaphysical peace; Bhooter Bhabishyat explicitly shows how this embrace of literal death is made sense of in the shared living arrangements of the large Calcutta house. But living in a heritage building in Calcutta is after all a wait for the inevitable – the commercial development of the ‘real estate’ will translate into apartment buildings, malls or other commercial properties that are worlds away from more organic expressions of urban living.

Conclusions ‘Whereas comedies often focus on amusing anecdotes, horror films dwell on the more frightening aspects of one’s past. Of course, horror films make liberal use of black comedy, disclosing the bond between the two genres’ (Walters 2004). The genre of horror-comedy emphatically underlines this bond. Though the distinction is not watertight, there are specific characteristics one might attribute to horrific horror-comedies and to comedic horror-comedies. The first category, as the above discussion helps establish, is heavily centred around individuals. In this sense, this kind is closer to the ‘straight’ horror film. Nevertheless, the figure of the individual does serve to organise critiques of society. Thus, Pachadlela is about feudal Maharashtra, Zapatlela’s puppet protagonist is able to express anger and extract revenge denied to more conventional persons and Kanchana’s union of horror and comedy is able to give narrative space to the transgendered person’s fight for survival. The category of comedic horror-comedy is not centred around one individual protagonist, but instead around an issue that is considered through a dispersed series of protagonists. Chamatkar is about a ghost and a simpleton’s combined efforts to save an education institution, while Bhooter Bhabishyat is a political satire on the gradual replacement of the heritage Kolkata with a mall Kolkata. The former category centres around protagonists who are all uncomfortable with societal definitions of their bodies; all the protagonists are misfits in their own way and prone to extremely debilitating kinds of othering. However, comedic horror films on the other hand reinforce gendered stereotypes even though their focus is on the critique of some or the other social ill. Further, the former category has also typically explored indigenous and subaltern communities, while the latter category has anchored itself around urban and cosmopolitan

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frameworks. The genre’s use of comedy though unites both categories in guaranteeing ‘happy endings’, itself a guarantee quite different from the ‘straight’ horror film’s more deliberate focus on undiluted horror.

Note 1  This chapter has been developed partly from my articles ‘The Horrific Laughter in Pachadlela: A Study of Marathi Horror-Comedy’, Comedy Studies, 4(2): 187–194, 2013, available online: www.tandfonline.com/ doi/abs/10.1386/cost.4.2.187_1; and partly from ‘Let the Ghost Speak: A Study of Contemporary Indian Horror Cinema’, The Unseen Century: Indian Cinema, 1913–2013, 5(1): 1–24, 2014. Used with permission.

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6 THERE ARE NO GHOSTS, ONLY GHOSTLY TALES Indian horror and the ‘uncanny’

One of the important ways of producing cinematic horror is through the use of non-supernatural means. Variously classified as ‘mystery’, ‘suspense’, ‘slasher’ and ‘psychological’ films, the ‘uncanny’ sub-genre of Indian horror films is a prolific one. The basic structural template of these films is that they maintain the climate of the supernatural throughout and it is only in the denouement that this supernatural is dispelled through rationalisations that seek to erase all that was past. This chapter focusses on such films and is thus in one sense the very antithesis of the horror discourse that this book has generated so far. The word ‘uncanny’ in itself encodes a sense of unfamiliarity and estrangement: Without a doubt, this word appears to express that someone to whom something ‘uncanny’ happens is not quite ‘at home’ or ‘at ease’ in the situation concerned, that the thing is or at least seems to be foreign to him. In brief, the word suggests that a lack of orientation is bound up with the impression of the uncanniness of a thing or incident. (Jentsch 1906: 2) This lack of orientation jolts the normative structuring of personality. The uncanny brings into the everyday the fear of the unknown. The matrix of the known versus the unknown has largely been explored with analytical tools like psychoanalysis, as the expression of the repressed. An uncanny experience occurs either when repressed infantile complexes have been revived by some impression, or when the primitive beliefs we have surmounted seem once more to be confirmed. Finally, we must not let our predilection for smooth solution and lucid exposition blind us to the fact that these two classes of uncanny experience are not always sharply distinguishable. 172

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When we consider that primitive beliefs are most intimately connected with infantile complexes, and are, in fact, based upon them, we shall not be greatly astonished to find the distinction often rather a hazy one. (Freud 1917–19: 249) The expression of these repressed ‘infantile complexes’ subverts the everyday desire of the conventional both at the level of the macrocosmic society and the microcosmic individual. This deviation of the routine, if not explored through supernatural presences, is largely rationalised through problems of behaviour. The distance between interior and exterior selves has often been expressed via disorder, illness and medicalisation: Thus psychologized, the uncanny emerged in the late nineteenth century as a special case of the many modern diseases, from phobias to neuroses, variously described by psychoanalysts, psychologists, and philosophers as a distancing from reality forced by reality. Its space was still an interior, but now the interior of the mind, one that knew no bounds in projection or introversion. Its symptoms included spatial fear, leading to paralysis of movement, and temporal fear, leading to historical amnesia. (Vidler 1992: 6) This is very evident in many horror films when women/men are shown displaying a sense of disorder, chaos and hysteria. For the purposes of this book, I will be limiting myself to Tzevetan Todorov’s definition of the uncanny. Though largely aimed at the resolution of literary genres, the idea of the uncanny that Todorov employs can also be used to explore the cinematic uncanny. Instead of the reader, the ‘hesitation’ appears for the viewer and for characters within the narrative. While analysing the process of the rendition of the uncanny, the concept of the ‘hesitation’ between choices is important: ‘The fantastic, we have seen, lasts only as long as a certain hesitation: a hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceive desires from “reality” as it exists in the common opinion’ (Todorov 1975: 41). Though the initial impression produced in such narratives is of the supernatural, the resolution, in Todorov’s own words, meanders to the ‘uncanny’ rather than to the ‘fantastic marvellous’. At the story’s end, the reader makes a decision even if the character does not; he opts for one solution or the other, and thereby emerges from the fantastic. If he decides that the laws of 173

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reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we say that the work belongs to another genre: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that the new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvellous. (ibid.) The hesitation between fantastic and uncanny is a valuable one for the viewer too; the pleasures of film viewing and its terrors too await on these hesitations. The choice between supernatural and uncanny is visible in a number of films: the Malayalam Manichitrathazhu (dir. Fazil, 1993); the Hindi Mahal (dir. Kamal Amrohi, 1949), Bees Saal Baad (dir. Biren Nag, 1962), Gumnaam (dir. Raja Nawathe, 1965), Woh Kaun Thi? (dir. Raj Khosla, 1964), Ho Sakta Hai (dir. Wilson Louis, 2004), Kucch To Hai (dir. Anurag Basu and Anil V. Kumar, 2003) and Bhool Bhulaiya (dir. Priyadarshan, 2007); the Bengali Hanabari (dir. Premendra Mitra, 1952), Kuheli (dir. Tarun Majumdar, 1971) and Manush Bhoot (dir. Ajay Sarkar, 2006); the Marathi Ek Ratra Mantarleli (dir. Shriram Lagoo, 1989) and Pathlag (dir. Raja Paranjpe, 1964); the Kannada Marma (dir. Sunil Kumar Desai, 2002), Apthamitra (dir. P. Vasu, 2004) and Aptharakshaka (dir. P. Vasu. 2010); and the Tamil Avana Ivan (dir. S. Balachander, 1962) and Chandramukhi (dir. P. Vasu, 2005). The focus of this chapter is two-fold: the uncanny is explored through the psychological horror film like Manichitrathazhu, Akam and Woh Kaun Thi?, and the slasher horror film like Hanabari also utilises the suspension or moment of ‘hesitation’ between fantastic and uncanny to create space for gendered negotiations. These gendered negotiations centre around anxieties about maleness for male protagonists, while desire is the focal point for female protagonists. Male anxieties are further rendered within the narrative as justified by other external factors. In Akam, for example, the male protagonist meets with an accident that leaves his face badly scarred; in Woh Kaun Thi?, the protagonist battles the web of deception thrown around him by conspirators. The male protagonists, as it were, are always rendered sympathetically by portraying them as victims of uncontrollable external forces. In Manichitrathazhu, the female protagonists are seen grappling with their own inner selves. These films suggest that the ‘malady’ lies within rather than without. This interiorisation of the problem displays a general stereotyping of women as unsure about themselves, as individuals yet to comprehend or understand themselves. Further, while the language of masculine crisis is an articulate and empathetic one, only hysteria symbolises crisis for the female. What unites these films is a sense of unhomeliness. In Manichitrathazhu, the affected female protagonist 174

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has a home but the search for homeliness creates complications, as the narrative suggests. In Akam, the meaning of home is transformed forever for the male protagonist once he loses his looks following his accident. In Woh Kaun Thi?, the male protagonist’s notion of home is destroyed by his forced marriage to a woman he mistakes for an apparition. Hanabari is a narrative of the haunted, feudal home. This chapter studies the search of homeliness that these films, produced in different eras and in different film industries, narrativise.

Manichitrathazhu The Manichitrathazhu in the film of the same name is the ornate lock that separates a contemporary Malayali household from its feudal past wherein concubinage and the subjugation of alien women was a mundane fact of existence. The story begins, however, in the contemporary when a young couple, Ganga (Shobhana) and Nakulan (Suresh Gopi), arrive in the latter’s ancestral homestead. Nakulan is out all day at work and Ganga is mostly at home amongst women who have not seen as much of the world as she has. However, her sense of being unhoused and alien is quite powerful and she finds identification with the concubine Nagavalli who Nakulan’s ancestor had kept against her will in one of the inner chambers of the grand homestead. Ganga’s identification with Nagavalli figures in the film initially as possession – other characters think she is possessed by the spirit of the dead dancer – but in the end, it is revealed to be a dissociational psychological disorder by the visiting psychiatrist who is a friend of Ganga’s husband. The initial placid narrative is not displaced by violence or hysteria as much as it is by practical jokes carried out seemingly by a ghostly presence. However, soon, the intensity of the outbreaks mounts, commensurate to the intensity of strategies of surveillance and management imposed by the psychiatrist, Sunny (Mohanlal). Ganga’s dissociational disorder is depicted at the end as having been cured by nothing more than one massive performance where she as Nagavalli is allowed to behead ‘Sankaran’, who to her deranged mind is none other than her husband. The psychiatrist together with an exorcist stages this beheading such that Ganga/Nagavalli thinks that she has killed Nakulan/Sankaran when in fact it is a stuffed creature that she beheads. This beheading, however, literalises the rage and animus felt by Ganga towards Nakulan; Nakulan is Sankaran in this vision, but the film’s visualising – and allowing the female protagonist to visualise – the companionate husband, with whom she has made a ‘love marriage’ as no different from the feudal patriarch begs a raft of questions. In the larger context of Malayalam cinema then, must Ganga be understood as a misreading of the veettamma, or housewife figure, whose thrifty, sobriety and 175

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absolute docility in the face of trials is valorised headily in film after film? The figure of the veettamma is one that is created within Malayali modernity as the locus of feminine aspiration; however, it can be argued that the discourse of the veettamma carefully splits the woman who is at the heart of Malayali heteronormative nuclear familiality from the tharavaattamma or female head of the matriarchal household. Where the tharavaattamma is a woman in whom both symbolic and economic authority vests, the veettamma is merely the symbolic centre of gravity stripped of any economic power. The veettamma as compliant, junior figure within the heteropatriarchal family unit that is the Malayali aspiration to form upon the remains of the feudal tharavad is a figure that is at once aspirational and problematic for Malayali women. She is an aspirational figure because of her anchorage in the narrative of modernity – the veettamma is seen as modern, educated and thus progressive, scientifically capable of deciding what is good for her family; at the same time, having had to forgo the tharavaattamma’s social and economic authority for notional status within the ‘modern’ script must be seen as indexically figuring in a film like Manichitrathazhu. Ganga as housewife without anything to do thus becomes a murderous force for Nakulan, the husband who personally is kind and empathetic if anything, but who symbolises for Ganga those forces that wrench from her the sustenance she needs to thrive. The woman, Nagavalli, whom Ganga models herself on, hailed from Tamil Nadu; with her accomplishments – she is a fine dancer and musician – she is quite unlike the domesticated veettamma in training or in aptitudes. Ganga’s own veettamma persona has to be totally abandoned via violent dissociational seizures for Ganga to be able to access the world of dance or music that Nagavalli has ready recourse to even amongst the Malayali aliens Sankaran has imprisoned her amongst. Ganga as veettamma is thus not only artistically inert but also psychically so, coming back to life only as the fiery other to the veettamma – the artist, female but untied to conventional monogamous marriage. Ganga’s socialisation is such that she can only access this ‘other’ woman through immense psychological violence. Ganga thus gains from the ‘sick role’, wherein she is someone other than who everyone wants her to be; predictably then, she is cured by making her so healthy that she forgoes desire for the sick role. At the end of the film, a compliant and very vulnerable looking Ganga expresses when asked her identity as ‘Ganga Nakulan’, thus signally that she is now the very veettamma whose discourse was so unacceptable to her. However, her traumatised, almost limp body and vacant eyes suggest that this drained woman is not the real one; uncannily, the film shows even as it restores rationality that the rational is the horrific place for women. The uncanny – masquerading as the supernatural – serves as a space for expressing female desires. Only on watching the film multiple times do we 176

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know that her various states of possession are to be interpreted merely as treatable psychological desires; our first decisions – that she is indeed Nagavalli – when considered against our new awareness that she was not so much possessed as possessing herself of a more powerful role thus disturbs the viewer/ audience’s notions of normality for female protagonists. Dance becomes a metaphor for the rebellion against the patriarchal family. The aesthetics involved with a traditional form like Bharatanatyam is shown here as creating chaos in the body of the woman. Tradition, as it were, becomes a mode that represents hysteria; modern family is shown as needing to be protected from the hysteria in order to survive. Thus, the needs of the woman – to have recourse to traditions in which dominant, or resistant, women are available at least in representations – are shown to be at odds with the idealised companionate couple and consequent nuclearised modern household that the man, and other men, legitimise. At the same time, Ganga’s performance of Bharatanatyam, not a more Malayali form like Mohiniyattam, becomes expressive of a new interpretation of Nagavalli’s ‘alienness’. Ganga does not view Nagavalli’s Tamilness as negative; instead, the possessed Ganga views Nagavalli’s otherness as personally empowering her and placing her beyond the reach of immediate patriarchal forces. Ganga as the Tamil-speaking dancer is hardly intelligible to her insular Malayali family; Ganga as modern young woman who has lived in Calcutta and who is shown to be also from a less traditional household is equally alien to the other relatives who reside in the household. Ganga’s otherness is a source of happiness to her, while it is the fact that she will soon inhabit the sameness, the everydayness that is chilling and alienating; Ganga as Nagavalli resists thus the everyday flow of life of the household. She refuses to be the ‘good wife’. What will she be? Would she rather live in the more intense absorptions of a two-person household? The film ends with the young couple leaving the homestead to do exactly that, but the limp ‘cured’ Ganga does not offer a happy prognosis of that new reality. It appears that the hesitation between supernatural and the rational is a powerful interrogation of the consensus reality of seamless female incorporation into heteropatriarchality. Ganga as cured woman does not resist it; yet, Ganga as dangerous patient was far more interesting to us. How shall we as audience reconcile ourselves to this delight and pleasure in that which is not normative, not idealised, not ‘healthy’? When Ganga’s madness is shown to itself be perfectly rational, the film succeeds in having us reflect on the dangers of the consensus realities of inscription into preordained gender roles: In Manichitrathazhu, the physically abjectified Ganga, but not a fully abjectified ghost, breaks the rules and codes of the patriarchal society of the Madambi palace, and hence, she becomes the ‘Other’ of the dominant ideology, and here, it is the male-centred 177

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society. She is visualized as hysteric with bizzare sound like a ghost, and daunts all the members of the family. (Niyas 2010) The uncanny is also rendered as a space for male voyeurism. When Ganga as Nagavalli dances, she performs in the part of the palace that is earmarked for such spectacles. Sunny and Nakulan spy on her from up above, from the balcony enclosures meant for women in the feudal past to watch the spectacle from without themselves becoming consumable spectacles for the male audience downstairs. Thus, Sunny and Nakulan, while voyeurs, are being positioned as emasculated men in that in this mis-generated spectacle, they are being forced to hide like women in order to keep their heads. The viewer is also taught, as it were, that the spectacle that greets their eyes – of a woman going bad – will also greet the viewer’s eyes if he is similarly not careful elsewhere. What Nakulan and Sunny see is a powerful dance performance where female erotic energies are given a free, even wild range with no confining masculine checks in sight. When the liberated body of Nagavalli cavorts on-screen, the dissolve to the long ago past is signalled by period-style rendition of the dance spectacle; where the immediate is depicted, we see a more pathetic spectacle of a Ganga dancing but with her makeup on the verge of coursing down her face, somewhat dishevelled and confused unlike her selfconfident alter ego in the stylised rendition of the past. Nagavalli is a perfect consumable spectacle, all beautiful dancer, satisfactory entirely to the eye of the viewer as ‘healthy’ if alien to the Malayali enlightened project with her non-monogamy, her rebellions etc. Ganga on the other hand is presented as struggling unwisely; her pulsing advance into a sharper collapse is signalled by how the men mount even more surveillance on her. It is thus argued: But we also see in the film the relentless attention and probing of the camera, to penetrate into the woman’s psyche as it were, in order to look for hidden traces of the ‘dangerous’ polyandrous past, inimical to the man in the modern marital relationship; and soon enough the hidden ‘devil’ of the past is located in the woman and exorcised. The camera that frames the beauty and innocence of Shobhana as Ganga frames her as the devilish Nagavalli as well, as the film hurtles towards its climax. So this woman-centrism of the Malayalam film need not be read positively as the woman-centrism of the language-region, but rather as a sign of gynophobia. (Nikhila 2010: 73–4) Under such totalising scrutiny, the woman is bound to collapse and so she does. When she reawakens, she is indeed exorcised of the ‘devilish 178

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Nagavalli’ and is now ‘Ganga Nakulan’ instead. Ganga as Nagavalli would be a literal husband-killer; Sunny as male psychiatrist diagnoses the problem – Ganga really wishes to kill Nakulan, not Sankaran – and devises the solution, allowing her to kill Sankaran in her frenzy will bring down her rage towards Nakulan. Nakulan is saved from his fate by the good offices of another man, who in turn is helped by another man (the traditional exorcist), suggesting how male homoeroticism and male homosociality both can be socially prescribed strategies for the containment and subversion of feminine critiques of patriarchal subordination. Both psychiatrist and exorcist understand that the origin of the problem is the nature of the male–female relationship; of course, they work towards the containment of the woman once the diagnosis is made. The film thus positions modern science as an instrument to uphold normative family: Psychiatry emerges as an arbitrator healing the female schizophrenia and the concomitant unrest within the family. There is a recognition of suppression and repression, forcing women to the precipices of sanity, but the institution of psychiatry is safely relied upon to reintegrate her into the community, thus legitimising the holy family. (Sreedharan 2010: 87–8) The family thus made holy is the heteronormative couple of Ganga and Nakulan, whose survival is posited not only on their successful exit from the feudal world’s more dispersed familial arrangements, but also on the persistent continuance of male homoerotic/homosocial connections that assist in policing patriarchal dominance in the new unit. The uncanny in Manichitrathazhu is thus a space wherein female identity is engendered and stabilised. The generation of acceptable female subjectivity, via the persons of female protagonists like Ganga and Sreedevi, must be understood as a didactic process of teaching the Malayali audience about the kind of feminine that is acceptable. Sreedevi (Vinaya Prasad), who would have been Nakulan’s intended bride in the traditional arrangement if she had not had an inauspicious horoscope, is shown at the end to agree to marrying Sunny, validating the idea that all women must be finally placed in fixity within marriage. However, the trauma and the violence of such bridals is seen in Ganga’s story.

Akam Where Manichitrathazhu details the new marriage in the immediate postglobalisation Malayali homestead, Akam is a study of masculine crisis in immediately contemporary urban Kerala. Ganga’s body was the focus on 179

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the unravelling of normative scripts in the former, while it is the male body that lurches into irremediable disorders in Akam. Where Nakulan thought his wife was possessed by another woman’s ghost, here the male protagonist, Sreenivasan (Fahad Fazil), thinks his wife is a yakshi. Akam is in fact a modern adaptation of Malayattoor Ramakrishnan’s psycho-thriller novel Yakshi, published in 1967. Yakshi lore is complex and fluid; the female vampire is in fact the dominant kind of vampire: ‘Interestingly, females have a numerical advantage among vampires. The Arabian ALGUL, ASWANG and DANAG of Philippines, the Russian Eretica, the Scottish BAOBHANSITH, Portuguese BRUXA, Irish LINHAUM-SHEE and DEARG-DUE, the Malaysian LANGSUIR and the Libyan LAMIA are all female vampires!’ (Sumodan 2006). The pervasive and apparently omnipresent nature of yakshi mythologisation makes Sreenivasan particularly susceptible to it, Akam suggests. His susceptibility is a gendered phenomenon, as the yakshi’s prey of choice is menfolk. It has been observed that While the Yaksha and Yakshi in North India is the good type, note specifically that the Yakshi folklore in Kerala folklore is not always the benevolent kind, she is actually a blood thirsty woman (usually wronged before her death by an upper class man = so her soul is not resting in peace and is constantly out to take revenge on these men), who can take the form of a lovely lady with a fantastic figure and lure you into her arms. (Maddy 2010) The yakshi is thus the predatory feminine, all vagina dentate, out to destroy masculine and maleness by her sheer presence. Akam is a smart, subtle reimagining of the yakshi legend. Sreeni meets with an accident that leaves half his face badly scarred. The twin halves of his face – the burnt out shell and the human-looking half – are often not seen in the same frame, suggesting that the film wants the viewers to reflect on Sreeni’s own doubleness as a man and an apparently rational person. An office flirtation with Tara (Shelly Kishore) appears to be going the right way when Sreeni crashes the car; Tara stops speaking to him thereafter and Sreeni too goes into a shell especially given the physical trauma. It is then that he meets Raagini (Anumol). Raagini’s entry into Sreeni’s life is almost fantastic: she comes up to him in a deserted multi-storey building site where he is the architect and lone person present at that late hour and asks for a lift. Her apparent forthrightness and mystery immediately trap Sreeni in the hesitation that Todorov describes. Is she a flesh and blood woman or a spirit? For what flesh and blood woman would wander the street at that late hour looking for a ride? She asks to be dropped off at the beach; she refuses 180

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to be walked to her door and Sreeni is left wondering if the woman is real at all. Suggestive of a mermaid, Raagini’s exit on that opening meeting reunites her with representations of alluring feminine spirits who devour men, who destroy them by luring them on. The background sounds of the ocean and seabirds along with her floating gait and billowing saree all set up the image of the femme fatale. Her beauty and charm is strongly in contrast with the ugliness and crudity of Sreeni’s appearance and behaviour now. Her striking appearance, however, immediately signals for the viewer that she has done a beautiful act in loving the disfigured Sreeni. However, her beauty of mind and person prove to be too much for Sreeni himself, though they suddenly get married. Sreeni’s neighbour, who is married to a woman several years his senior, confides in him that his wife is pregnant; though no one tells Raagini, she somehow seems to know too. Sreeni suspects that his wife will eat up their neighbour’s unborn baby and when the latter has a miscarriage, he announces his suspicions to his male friend. Raagini as baby slayer suggests parallels with the Buddhist mythological demoness Hariti, who stole a baby each night in order to feed her own 500 children. Hariti is thus a cannibal and a mother both, predatory and maternal alike. These contradictions have been outlined thus: Iconographically, Hariti looks like any yaksini iconologically, her identity was in the eye of the beholder. The possibility that Hariti could be taken prima facie for a local yaksini, a translocal Buddhist, or even a great bodhisattva, coupled with her widespread inclusion within monastic architectures [shows that the figure of the yakshi is both adored and feared, in addition to being everywhere]. (Cohen 1998) Sreeni’s marriage to Raagini appears loveless. In one of the opening scenes, Raagini is shown coming up on Sreeni from behind to embrace him but as he moves closer to kiss her, the film for the first time shows the blackened side of his face. Though there is no withdrawal by the woman from this face, there is a moment’s literal hesitation from both of them and the moment passes. Thereafter, there is no passion from Sreeni’s side towards Raagini, which contrasts with his earlier relationship with Tara in which the pair of them are constantly shown in sexually suggestive situations, making space for intimacy everywhere. Unlike the eager Tara, Raagini is enchanting and slightly out of reach; her gorgeousness makes for the uncanny in this film. Sreeni and the audience alike find themselves asking, how can such a gorgeous woman love him? Raagini’s origins are shrouded in mystery. Since we don’t know till the end what her family is like, what kind of house 181

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she lives in and other such mundane details, it is easy for us to think along with Sreeni that she is a floating spirit without earthly moornings. Her free-spiritedness is suggested by her fearlessness: she is courageous enough to ask a stranger for a ride late in the evening, to go with him to his house briefly on their first ride together, to walk by the beach late at night instead of being dropped to her door and to take in a late night movie on her own. In other words, Raagini punctures notions of femininity as unable to access public space. Yet, the uniqueness of challenges to the masculine monopoly on these spaces and liberties is such that the viewer is, like Sreeni, caught in the hesitation too: if Raagini can puncture consensus realities of what is good for human women, perhaps she is a supernatural woman. Normative thinking thus aligns viewer and Sreeni in the same conservative mould: we conclude that she can only get away with these liberties because she is not liable to the same kinds of disciplining as a flesh and blood woman would be. Thus, the viewer is like Sreeni, a site of anxiety about what the real place and freedoms of the female subject should be. Unlike the placid but eager and available Tara, Raagini also has an unapproachability: she is not a transparent young girl possibly experiencing love, desire or powerful emotions for the first time. Instead, she is a woman who, we find out only when Sreeni does and are as surprised as he is, has already once been married and has separated from her husband because he chose to believe rumours about her chastity. This is a retelling of the Sita story, to take off one obvious suggestion; rather than be eaten up by the earth, Raagini moves on to make another life in another city. Sreeni is very troubled by the lack of relatives to whom blame can be ascribed or to whom a wife can be returned; their marriage perhaps crumbles all the more easily because no one other than friends and neighbours intercede for Raagini and they are all deterred by Sreeni’s barely veiled insinuations that she has seduced them too. Sreeni’s suspicion that Raagini is a yakshi thus extends to her sexual behaviour with other men too. How he feels is beautifully captured by the camera in a scene where, on their return home from a rainy night, he investigates why her footwear is not wet. Raagini apprehends from behind the nature of his curiosity and out of frustration remarks that she is indeed the yakshi he has been imagining her to be throughout. The mise en scène suggests that she is dizzying him, but the woman’s own dizziness punctures his imaginative cocoon. Initially, the camera shows her as a towering figure in a medium close-up shot, in alignment with Sreeni’s viewing her as a monstrous ‘other’. The next shot, which is again a medium close-up shot, shows Sreeni genuinely perplexed sitting on the ground aghast with wide open mouth. The next shot is a wide shot with a steady stationary camera capturing the entire living/drawing room. Sreeni is sitting stupefied on the floor in the left-hand side of the frame, while Raagini swirls 182

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around defiantly till she herself is dizzy and crashes against the wall. The general brightness of the room with plenty of lights in the background is juxtaposed with the dark emotional foreground. Raagini’s untied dishevelled hair covering almost her entire face makes her face invisible despite the bright lighting. Her untied hair is not just symbolic of her liberty as a woman, but is also symbolic of her own routine temperament. She is moving around in circles which to Sreeni confirms his fear that she is running circles around him. In the previous scene, she is seen in the rain, without an umbrella, looking for Sreeni who has not come home like he should have. Her obliviousness of the rain suggests once again her apparent insulation from social conventions. However, in this scene described above, Raagini speaks of her frustration with these speculations. Hardly does the femme fatale show her distress at being so typed. This scene is crucial and spirited in its de-objectification of the spectacular woman, in showing her rage and her powerlessness at being thus objectified and destroyed. The film ends with a scene suggestive of an interpretation of the Hamlet–Ophelia relationship in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Sreeni at this best friend’s behest goes to Raagini’s village to patch up with her. They appear to be getting along in the course of a conversation that brings them to the edge of a pond that is a traditional ecosystem feature in many parts of Kerala. The surface of the water is covered with all manner of flora including lotuses. In a move that takes us by surprise, Raagini goes deeper and deeper into the water, like a yakshi or a mermaid perhaps would, appearing to choose yakshi-dom over her marriage. However, moments later, reality is restored to us when Sreeni’s friend arrives to reinterpret this scene: we realise that Sreeni has actually drowned Raagini by pushing her into the water. What we have been seeing all along was merely Sreeni’s version of events, wherein he is the victim/survivor of a traumatic castrating woman’s persistent attacks on him. Sreeni’s friend’s appearance shows Sreeni’s selffashioning of himself and his representation of Raagini to be both pernicious, deranged lies. Raagini now is conclusively established as the victim of domestic abuse and male stereotyping of femininity. The isolation of the marriage with Sreeni has proved to be so total as to lead to her death. Further, Akam’s introspection on the nature of Sreeni’s trauma has also conclusively established that normative maleness is a schizophrenic place wherein male subjectivity lurches between hallucinations and wherein male agency is a litany of successive acts of insidious and terrifying violence. Sreeni successfully translates a flesh and blood woman into a ghost; this ghosting is a metaphor for how patriarchal violence can literally disembody women. Akam’s cinematic experience provides a powerful theorisation of gender violence in conventional male–female relationships, from the violence done by a boyfriend like Hamlet to a young girlfriend like Ophelia, to 183

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the domestic violence, abuse and battery committed on wives in the name of sexual chastity, be it in the case of the Ramayana’s Sita or in umpteen dowry deaths, to the stories of rape, assault and molestation of women on the grounds that they are not ‘good women’. Sreeni’s justification for killing Raagini is that it was self-defence, that she was trying to kill him; she is a yakshi after all and thus more powerful than him in his imagination. Her alleged mythical power is, however, too weak to trounce his powerful social domination of her; she dies after all and he survives, continuing to hallucinate as he has all this while. Akam powerfully embodies patriarchy itself in the diseased, controlling, unreliable Sreeni. Establishing that such a patriarchal body (and body politic) is uncurable, Akam unlike Manichitrathazhu is suggesting that there is no recuperation or healing within the iniquitous gender relations that current normative gendered scripts provide us. The viewer is not entirely convinced by Ganga’s ‘cure’ in the other film; here, however, Akam is bleakly pessimistic about the outcomes of allowing status quo about gendered violence: more innocent women will be killed.

Woh Kaun Thi? In Manichitrathazhu, Ganga’s recovery from the ‘madness’ of possession is constructed entirely in terms of her fitness to continue married life; the duties she must return to are exclusively the intimate duties of marriage. Further, women’s madness is presented as inexplicable, as hysteria, without any ‘solution’ in the plot. However, in Akam, one of the encouragements offered to the mentally ailing protagonist Sreeni is that he has an excellent career as an architect to return to. In Woh Kaun Thi? too, the project of male health has similar inducements in addition to the right to claim inheritance of property. In other words, where the normatively defined able or healthy female body and psyche will consistently be returned to the heteropatriarchal household, the male body once declared able and healthy will return to its apparently rightful space in the public sphere. In this film, the protagonist Dr Anand’s (Manoj Kumar) family has a medical history of mental illness and madness. There is also a property inheritance clause wherein if he is found to be mentally unstable, his right to inherit would be forfeited. We learn this only at the very end; the entire film is based around Anand’s enemies trying to establish his madness so as to deprive him of his right. Themes of madness, disease and humour can play a major role in articulating the hesitation between the supernatural and the uncanny. Consensus realities are often challenged and made unstable by situations pertaining to madness, disease or absurd humour; Woh Kaun Thi? explores the thin line between madness and rationality, showing how ‘madness’ is a creation not exclusively of scientific objective assessments of 184

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sanity, but of sociological factors including economics. The film opens with Anand encountering a woman in a white sari while he is driving his car on a stormy night. Seeing the woman alone, he offers her a lift, which the woman accepts. She asks to be let off at the cemetery. The woman’s behaviour is sketched as eerie throughout the scenes she is in. First, she is able to navigate when it is so windy outside that Anand is unable to see anything in front of him. Then, the moment she enters the car, Anand’s windscreen wipers stop moving. Further, when speaking about how she is able to roam around fearlessly, she says, ‘mujhe insaanon se darr nahin lagta’ (I do not fear human beings), and also things like ‘mujhe khoon achcha lagta hai’ (I like blood), suggestive of vampirism. One night, the doctor is called to attend to a patient who turns out to be the same woman, now dead. Meanwhile, Anand’s own girlfriend is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Cajoled by his mother to get married, he finally gives in and marries a woman he shows no interest in seeing. To his utter shock, on his wedding night, he sees that the bride is the same woman, Sandhya who he had met on that stormy night and who he had later declared dead on a patient call. The rest of the film follows Anand’s attempts to convince the people around him that his wife is a spirit and not a living woman. In the end, it is, however, found that his wife had a twin sister who was engaged by a conspirator, Ramesh (Prem Chopra), to prove that Anand’s property could be usurped by him. The film derives its uncanniness when Anand seems to be convinced that his wife is a spirit while others around him are clueless. Conventional horror tropes like a white sari clad apparition wanting to go to a cemetery, dark stormy nights, abrupt mechanical failures like the car’s wipers jamming up, dilapidated mansions where one cannot fathom what lurks, mysterious phone calls and above all a woman of mystery in the horror/noir style build up this sustained atmosphere of the uncanny. Dialogue like ‘bahu ke bahane na jane kya le aayi, iska nateeja na toh tum janti ho na main’ (I don’t know what you’ve brought home on pretext of a bride, neither you nor I can guess its consequences) is Anand’s angry outburst at his mother for her having chosen him a bride. His avoidance of his new bride might be a consequence of his having lost his girlfriend and then having been married off suddenly thereafter. Unlike Sreeni in Akam who is practically terrified by a strong seductress, Anand here is shown to be at peace with the Westernised Seema (Helen) when she was alive and equally enchanted when in the song sequence ‘Lag jaa gale’ (Embrace me) the woman who is now his wife sexually invites him. Later we come to know that this woman was not Sandhya, but her twin sister. Metaphorically, an explanation for how Anand, who is so frigid with his equally cold and distant wife, suddenly gets enamoured in the space of a single song can be sought in his own sexual pleasures: he prefers the femme fatale perhaps. A passing mention of Anand’s sexual anxieties 185

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have been discussed in the past: ‘Woh Kaun Thi? has real Gothic overtones to it with cemeteries, “haunted houses”, doubles, vanishing people, haunting songs, and the husband’s sexual fear of his wife’ (Dwyer 2011: 134). Unlike Sreeni in Akam, Anand’s anxieties stem from his inherent passivity, a typical feature of the actor Manoj Kumar extradiegetically, expressed by that classic image of a face covered by the palm, full of emotion but unable to express it. One of the consequences the film shows of Anand’s response to these uncanny elements is his inability to concentrate during surgery. A colleague stops him in time from committing what might have been a major mistake in an operation. But nowhere are these inconsistencies coherently explained; his rational eloquence is connected to his being able to perform his social duty as a doctor. The male anxiety here becomes as it were a social, public anxiety; whereas in Manichitrathazhu, this anxiety is a female hysteria confined to the innards of family. In other words, Anand’s cure would involve a grand male social project, for his madness would impact the lives of those he would cure as a doctor. Thus, society’s investment in curing Anand is the greater as his health is valorised as a social need, while the cure of the woman in Manichitrathazhu is privatised, individualised and rendered effectively minimally necessary to society. In other words, Anand is irreplaceable and therefore no cost will be spared to restore him to health. A Ganga on the other hand is a substitutable object; if she is unresponsive, she will be dispensed with. This then begs the question, does the uncanny then have different meanings based on gender? Madness thus has a different meaning based on one’s gendering; the rational female self is then clearly differentiated from the rational male one in terms of social meanings. One of the grand male projects in Woh Kaun Thi? is to locate and stereotype female characters; inability to do so can also be explained as the cause behind Anand’s ‘madness’. Where female characters in films of this kind are typically thought of as being possessed, here Anand’s introspections are much more dignified and he is presented as being able to maintain his bodily integrity. Any possession typically is represented through the violation of the integrity of the body: the male body is here presented as grandly still in charge of itself. It is instead the woman’s body that is the locus of change and scrutiny; on the one hand, there is the sexually desirable femme fatale and there is her other, the docile housewife. Since the audience does not know that both types are not the same woman but are, in terms of this film’s plot, two different women, there is an element of fragmentation and perforation of consistent bodily presentation for the female protagonist, Sandhya. It has been observed that Most double roles involve playing the look-alikes in dramatically different styles, partly to differentiate the two and partly to 186

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provide the star with an opportunity to step out of his/her stereotyped image. What is new about the formula in Woh Kaun Thi, however, is that the twins are not differentiated in any way – not in appearance, not in personality, not in presentation. . . . Thus the evil twin gets to enact ‘real’ emotion, for example, in the song sequences Lag ja gale, as the good one does in Aap kyun roye. The good twin, on the other hand, gets to smile mysteriously, even suggestively, several times for no reason. (Bhatt 1991: 61) Further, since the viewer is clueless that a good–evil pair of women is involved, the oscillation between seductress and good girl has the same impact on us as the sight of a female body possessed by a spirit would have had. We are unable to fathom how Sandhya can be both seductress and sati savitri. Normative discourses that organise feminine body presentation and styling articulate women as one or the other, never both; hence our discomfort with the character of Sandhya and our sense that she must be supernatural is thus produced from our discomfort with the idea that different modes of organising femininity may exist within the same bodily compass. Thus, as viewers, our moment of hesitation finds us making the same choice as Anand: we decide that since ‘real’ women must be either good or evil, we decide like Anand that Sandhya is certainly a vampire whose predatoriness is signalled by her ability to marshal different styles that we take as expressive of intrinsic character. Once again, we must remember though that it is the crisis male interiority – fear of descent into schizophrenia – that is expressed through ascribing supernaturalism as an explanation for discordant feminine bodily/erotic presentations. The star image of the actress Sadhana benefited from these discordances: ‘Sadhana enjoyed stardom as much as she enjoyed the title of “mystery girl”, conferred on her by the press after she churned out super-hit suspense thrillers such as Woh Kaun Thi? (1964), Mera Saaya (1965) and Anita (1968)’ (Srivastava 2013); but within the film itself, the character Sandhya’s life story is instead shown to be under extreme duress – threat, suspicion and neglect – because of the unacceptability of this discordance to her spouse. Woh Kaun Thi? further establishes that men are essentially straight – they are either all good like Anand or all bad like Ramesh – where women are essentially strange – like Sandhya, who is both waif and wife. Consistency then becomes a male attribute and inconsistency a female one; the paradox here is also that Ramesh’s conspiracy is attacking Anand’s ability to present a consistent front to the world. However willy-nilly, it is the woman character who is put on trial in order to verify if the male protagonist is sane or not. Thus, the authenticity of maleness is verified and sustained by means of the 187

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trail by ordeal of female characters. Anand just by virtue of being male is able to cast doubt upon his mother’s competence in making matrimonial decisions for him to the extent that we are made to wonder if she knows how to distinguish between flesh and spirit (‘bahu ke bahane na jane kya le aayi’). His social seniority as a man trumps his mother’s seniority of age here. Later, when his doubts about Sandhya are proven to be completely unjust as she is flesh and blood and merely has a twin sister, his sanity is still salvaged when the film valorises his rescue of the good girl heroine as heroic. His heroism in the denouement thus wipes out all his earlier indiscretions, and he is never put on trial for having questioned rationality or for having abused Sandhya in a sustained fashion through his questions about her nature.

Slasher films One dominant form of the uncanny films has been the slasher sub-genre, especially in Hindi cinema. One of the consequences of the traditional strict censorship of Indian cinema was the production of so many slasher thrillers, which though projected a sense of supernatural through the narrative, resolved in the end through the figure of the mysterious slashers/killers. In keeping with the prolific Western industry output of slasher films, Hindi cinema has also generated a number of such pictures. Some instances, over time, are Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi (dir. Vishram Bedekar, 1970), Shaitaan (dir. Firoz Chinoy, 1974), Andhera (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1975), Haiwan (dir. Ram Bano, 1977), Aur Kaun (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1979), Red Rose (dir. Bharathiraja, 1980), Saboot (dir. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay, 1980), Sansani (dir. Irshad, 1981), Telephone (dir. Tulsi Ramsay and Shyam Ramsay, 1985), Khooni Murdaa (dir. Mohan Bhakri, 1989), Kucch to Hai (dir. Anurag Basu and Anil V. Kumar, 2003), Sssshhh . . . (dir. Pawan Kaul, 2003) and Ho Sakta Hai (dir. Wilson Louis, 2004). A typical plot outline for slasher films includes the general hysteria created by a series of murders, a cop either undercover or otherwise will be involved in investigating these and he will inevitably fall in love with the main female suspect or with the chief female victim. Female characters have mostly very limited roles in the ‘male investigator’ genre. The entire presentation will be one of surreal supernatural atmosphere though the climax will inevitably generate a very rational explanation for the serial crimes. This explanation is presented entirely through the capture of the serial killer. These slasher films have traditionally been very popular with teenaged audiences. Usually, such slasher films do not give much scope for character development. Rather, the action is strictly confined within the plot structure; it is as if the resolution is already decided when the filmmaker/story writer conceives the plot and all action is streamlined towards 188

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this culmination of the narrative. As a result, characters are mostly divided between what E.M. Forster would call ‘round’ and ‘flat’ characters. Since the focus is not so much on character development, usually such films are multi-starrers where each ‘star’ has a limited pre-defined scope of action. Indian slasher films are, however, somewhat different from the Western genre, which, as Carol J. Clover observes, sees most films ending with the survival of the ‘final girl’. Clover’s study of 1980s and 1990s Hollywood films shows that this ‘final girl’ is androgynous and that her androgyny allows audiences, including the male segment of the audience, to identify with her. Usually in such films, the killer, though not a supernatural entity, is miraculously kept alive in several sequels. This superhuman killer is unusually stronger than its human counterparts. In the Indian scenario, the picture is completely different, for there is no question of a ‘final girl’ survivor. Though female characters do survive in the end, their survival is heavily dependent on male agents, usually the hero. The question of the heroine’s androgyny also does not arise in the context of most Indian slasher films. Then, the superhuman killer is not a supernatural entity, but is instead like any other human counterpart. Whether young male audiences identify with characters or not yet awaits sustained scholarly research too.

Hanabari Premendra Mitra’s Hanabari is perhaps the first example of what can loosely be called the ‘slasher film’. It is a typical tale of an old haunted mansion in rural West Bengal, into which a family that was living in Burma moves. The family consists of an old retired uncle, two nieces and an even older maidservant. As soon as they move in, the young girls especially see a gorilla-like figure breaking in through a window. Other characters also make other sightings of this figure in the narrative. The police along with a detective dressed as a beggar, an old acquaintance of the family and a middle-aged painter form the rest of the cast. At the end, it is discovered that the middle-aged painter, Shrimanto Sarkar, had hired a man to regularly dress as a gorilla to scare people away from the entire vicinity. It is further discovered that he had also killed the original occupant of the house, a smuggler who had buried treasure somewhere in or around the house. Shrimanto Sarkar, it later turns out, was himself an associate of the smuggler who had wanted the treasure for himself. In one sense, this film can also be seen as a precursor to the later animal transformation horror films which themselves would make significant impact on the viewing audiences of coming years. Hanabari, I argue, uses the dominant genre of detective fiction to marginalise female voices and to limit itself to explore the crisis of masculinities. The uncanny used in this film thus becomes a repository of 189

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masculine anxieties both projected inward within the individual characters and outwards towards the social. It is interesting to observe the genesis of crime thrillers in Bengali cinema. The immediate parallel is with Bengali crime fiction; this is an era heralded by none other than Mitra himself, who was a major writer of crime fiction, some of which was adapted into movies. The borrowing of elements from literature is thus evident in almost all his films. Hanabari was both written and directed by Mitra. This was also a time in which modernity was creeping into the popular culture of Indian, with Bengal being no exception. This modernity was made visible by the movement from Bengali Jatra to All India Radio and cinema as more important sources of cultural entertainment. Bengal at one time was no doubt the centre of Indian cinema; in the early years, most artistes involved either directly on camera or backstage were from Bengal. Before the Partition of Bengal and the origin of Dhaka as the centre of a parallel Bangladeshi cinema, Bengal was seen as the nerve-centre of Indian cinema. While explicating the evolution of modern crime thrillers like Kalo Chhaya (dir. Premendra Mitra, 1948), Kankal (dir. Naresh Mitra, 1950), Hanabari and Maraner Pare (dir. Satish Dasgupta, 1954), it has been argued that ‘by staging an enigmatic and contentious return of the irrational within a rationalist paradigm, these cinematic fabulations clearly undertook a negotiation between premodern and modern universes’ (Sarkar 2009: 144). The crime thriller was that genre that interfaced these emerging public cultures. At the same time, Bhaskar Sarkar shows that the negotiation was freighted in one direction: ‘However, in most cases, the gothic or supernatural element would turn out to be a hoax, thus reinstating the validity of logical discourse and indicating a desire for modernity’ (ibid.). The crime genre thus privileged rational explanations over the pre-modern past’s investment in the supernatural. It has also been pointed out that this development of crime fiction/thrillers could be linked to how censorship gradually gained ground: ‘The proliferations of crime thrillers were coterminous with ongoing transformations in the discourse of censorship at the national level’ (Chatterjee 2010: 141). According to Subhajit Chatterjee, while censorship promoted a certain aesthetics of cinema, some filmmakers deliberately came up with adult cinema as deliberate resistance to such censorship practices: The stratified method of control opted by the new censorship regime gave rise to a set of creative responses on aesthetic and promotional practices of the era. Archival evidences clearly suggest the growth of a broad category of ‘adult entertainment’ to compete with the range of sensational amusements. (ibid.: 142) 190

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It is thus no coincidence that ‘adult’ cinema – films with an adult certificate – grew alongside of the popularity of these thrillers. Horror/crime thrillers were seen as forbidden pleasures and the carefully orchestrated percolation of this particular type of adult entertainment reveals the existence of a gamut of subterranean resistant discourses. One of the limitations of the detective/investigative thriller form is the dominance of male discourses. While it might seem unfair to bring in such a stabilised notion of male privilege to such a nascent discourse as cinema at that time, the postmodern deconstruction of such texts becomes a paramount need to understand significations. The detective genre itself was resisting the existing categories of the devotional and social films that had dominated the early stages of the Indian film industries. In this sense, the film gives us valuable insights into cinematic practices of the time. The uncanny presentation of a gorilla-like figure in Hanabari, for example, is a strange juxtaposition with the god-like figure in devotional films. Whether this contrapuntal pair is deliberate or not is beyond the scope of this thesis, but the fact that such a pairing is presenting itself cannot be done away with. The characters in Hanabari cannot be identified as atheists; yet within the narrative, there seems to be a deliberate ostracisation of characters who are God-fearing. In keeping with the tradition that is maintained in horror films today, of having a subaltern figure diagnose the presence of the supernatural, here too we have an old lady whose initial response to her nieces’ narrative of the existence of a gorilla-like figure in their vicinity was to immediately invoke the supernatural explanation. The grand patriarch of the household too does not believe in ghosts; in fact, he uses a rifle to protect himself from such intruders: clearly since rifles cannot protect one against ghosts, the patriarch thinks there is something other than supernatural beings at work. The nieces having been visibly immediately impacted by this gorilla-like figure still continue to live in the premises and keep up afternoon sojourns in the vast, unkempt, uncharted, ruined backyard of the house. The police initially washes its hands off the case by claiming that police jurisdiction does not extend over supernatural entities, but quietly makes a re-entry into the investigation when empirical evidence from the site shows that there is human involvement. While all other characters remain dubious about supernatural agency, Shrimanto is the only character who is convinced about the total absence of the supernatural here. Shrimanto here then represents the modern individual who has either come totally out of the clutches of the superstitious past or is trying to come out of these. The fact however remains that it is he who is found in the end to be the culprit. Where Bhaskar Sarkar believes that this film validates modernity over pre-modernity, the heterogeneous voices that this film generates on the subject cannot be simply distilled into that 191

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one conclusion. After all, it is the atheist who is found to be unethical and guilty of murder. If on one level the film shows that the existence of ghosts is only a figment of the imagination, then on the other level by attributing the role of the villain to a completely atheist, rational character, the film is working through the dialectics of modern and pre-modern without entirely establishing the modern as right. The uncanny becomes the site of such dialectical discourse. The detective figure is very much part of Indian popular imagination, whether it be James Bond, Poirot or Satyajit Ray’s ‘Feluda’, but these iconic figures are male; there is hardly an iconic female representation that occupies the place of ‘detective’. This film too generates discourses that are male dominated, wherein rational problem solving is a male attribute. The male detective figure fits in with the archetype of the male wanderer (such as in Tennyson’s Ulysses), centred around the articulation of a very public self. In Hanabari, almost all the characters involved in this fact-finding mission are male: the policeman and constables; Srimanto, the male painter and conspirator; the grand patriarch uncle; Jayanto, an earlier acquaintance of the family also joins forces; and finally, the police detective who is a central protagonist. All these characters have a courtly attitude towards the women; their unifying ideology is that all women need to be protected against such a violent entity. However, what seems to be such an overpowering male-dominated discourse is undercut by the two nieces of the old man – in moments of self-reflexivity, the nieces, particularly the younger one, bring up references to detective fiction several times. In one such self-reflexive moment, the younger niece says that she knows people with beards are found guilty at the end of most fictions. Such dissident female discourses within the meta-male project of problem solving shows women to be reading detective fiction and in a sense equipping themselves with how detective work is done, suggesting then that detectives may learn their skill rather than be born with that skill on account of their birth into the correct gender. Of course, these discordant notes of dissidence are miniscule within the dominant male hegemony within the narrative. Further, within the male narrative too, there is the discordant note of the kind of masculinity that is found guilty – the culprit in the film is a reclusive and artistic man. The artist as fickle, as able to get into the grey as much as the black and the white – intellectual in other words – are tropes of masculinity that are coloured as dangerous. This notion of the male intellectual as the culprit will in the coming decades of the 1960s and 1970s be turned upside down in the Left’s heyday. Till then, in the popular culture’s ideology, a reclusive and artistic masculinity is unwanted, but the instrumental, muscular, no-nonsense masculinities of the other male characters are validated. The uncanny in Hanabari is expressed through this figuring of 192

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artistic intellectuality; the artist and intellectual is the unwanted other for the operation of society on a proper basis, the film seeks to show. The figure of the intellectual is further vilified when Shrimanto is shown to be ill-treating his servant by denying him his share of the potential booty. It has been observed about the American slasher films of the 1970s and 1980s that ‘with few exceptions, the killer is overtly asexual, aside from the brief bouts of voyeurism which tend to precede the murders’ (Rockoff 2002: 5–6). The killer in the narrative is a trope for two men: first, the exploited servant who carries out the actual killings; and second, the intellectual figure who manipulates the servant into these killings. Both are asexual figures; the servant’s sexuality is suitably elided and the master’s is barely discussed or presented as sexuality. In fact, the cursed house is itself an emblem of barrenness and the absence of sexuality. Rumours abound that several families who had inherited that house over a period of several years themselves perished. The earlier occupant referred to in the film is also shown to be an old smuggler with apparently no family. The current occupants too are hardly a normative family; the two nieces and an uncle are very different from the typical nuclear or extended family unit expected. But the two women are the direct targets of the assailant, as if to suggest that their presence is a threat to the prevailing climate of asexuality. At the climax of the film, the two nieces are suitably married off: the elder niece will marry Jayanto, the relative of the old smuggler, and the younger one will marry the police investigator. Thus, the mode for dispelling the uncanny is to suitably couple the women. The house is thus refashioned from its initial gothic asexuality to a perfectly heteronormative residence via these marriages.

Conclusions This chapter has no intention of defining the uncanny. It has borrowed from Todorov and other theoreticians on the uncanny; but instead of entering into the self-defeating process of attempting to define the uncanny, the chapter explored the uncanny through certain visible or invisible moments in these films. First, the discourse of the uncanny is the discourse of anarchy, chaos, breakdown of order and suspense. Whether the character is male or female, the nodal point of the contention is the inability to comprehend. In the films discussed above, the incomprehensibility resides in the hesitation between the supernatural and the rational world. Second, the uncanny becomes the character trait of the individual/s under consideration. The individual is trapped within the discourse of the supernatural and the film narrative’s primary job seems to be the eradication of the supernatural element from the character’s mind. Third, the uncanny is also 193

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expressed and understood on the basis of gender. If the individual experiencing the uncanny is a female one, as in Manichitrathazhu, the intended discourse becomes that of the hysteric. If the individual is male, as seen in Akam and Woh Kaun Thi?, then the discourse of male anxiety endorses a particular type of masculinity as normative. The uncanny becomes, as in Hanabari, the mark of the isolated, reclusive intellectual/artist unwanted to society because of the evil he harbours. Next, the uncanny is pitted against the notion of a normative family. In Manichitrathazhu, the family’s incipient breakdown because of the woman’s hysteria is averted by ‘curing’ the woman in order to re-house her within heteronormativity. In Akam, despite the male character’s aspirations, the normative nuclear family is never set up and always remains unstable. In Woh Kaun Thi?, the uncanny becomes the reason for the lack of pleasure, eros and fertility within the hetero-couple. In Hanabari, the uncanny is evicted by making an asexualised male its bearer; this person’s non-admittance to the normative family secures the latter. Finally, if the uncanny is expressed or understood in the form of a separate character within these films, this character is the character of the ‘house’. In Manichitrathazhu, the house’s secrets ravage the modern couple newly arrived within it. This house need not necessarily be an ancient or feudal one: in Akam (which literally means inside), the male protagonist’s unusual idea that his wife is a yakshi culminates in his paranoid assault on her with a hammer and a stake. If he had succeeded, the house would have been a place of interment for the (now dead) wife; the house here is a location for the abuse of women, an ever-refreshed space within which continuing intimate abuse takes place. In Woh Kaun Thi?, the old mansion within the premises of the cemetery seems to be the genesis of the supernatural that threatens to tarnish and corrode the hero’s own home. In Hanabari, as the title suggests, the house itself is haunted and must be un-haunted in order to make it habitable. The dominant discourse of the uncanny then is ‘there are no ghosts, only ghostly tales’.

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EPILOGUE Fear, are we there yet?

As this book has shown, Indian horror cinema is too vast to be represented by a simple definition, unlike most Western horror cinema. There are many regional cinemas that ferociously contest the notion of a national cinema. The sub-genres that this book has considered or evolved are not static and watertight, but fluid. For example, the category yakshi can fall into both the vampire sub-genre as well as in the witch sub-genre; to problematise things further, yakshis can also form the subject of a religious film that has nothing to do with horror. In this context, an entity like the yakshi has no Western equivalent. This book has not considered science fiction, reincarnation films and goddess-possession films. Though these films might contain elements of horror, the focus of these films is such that it dilutes the emotion of fear. In goddess-possession films, characters within the film may be momentarily afraid of the unnatural occurrence, yet the audience is typically pre-prepared by the marketing of these films to understand that the unnatural is a vehicle for the divine. Sex, a vital element of the horror film, is also mostly absent in the religious genre. Science fiction films in India are few and far between and have not yet generated a corpus worthy of detailed exploration. The premise of most horror films is the direct and indirect contest between science and religion; thus, within the edifice of the science fiction genre, the contest becomes unequal when scientific rationality is the matrix. Also, the cause of any unnatural happening within science fiction is almost always manmade, eliminating any need for the supernatural, almost; in most horror films on the other hand, the agency of man is heavily curtailed or circumscribed. Unlike horror films where horror seems to originate from an evil or unethical act, reincarnation films might show no such cause and effect logic; protagonists are reincarnated as if by accident and the reincarnated soul does not create monstrosity or horror. Supernatural violence is also often not caused by the reincarnated; the emotion of horror is thus heavily restrained if not lost altogether. 195

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However, this book is not focussed on a simplistic combat between some unified, homogenised, unreal monoliths called ‘Western horror’ and ‘Indian horror’. Apart from anything else, there are tropes and images in Indian films that are heavily drawn from the West. This research is therefore not interested in a naive or simple antagonism between Indian and Western cinematic treatments of horror, even though divergences between the two, where interesting, have been pointed out. At the same time, acknowledgement must be made that Western theoretical apparatuses and frameworks have been extremely useful in arriving at readings of many, if not all, of the texts above. Similarly, cinema studies and cinema itself in India has debts to Western sources that may be productively studied and acknowledged. This book has focussed on the indigenous as well as innovative tendencies of Indian horror cinema, a focus necessitated because the other lens employed here – the socio-political lens of gender – is one that needs to look at local, regional and native specificities for its import or failure to be correctly recorded. One of the major challenges that this book faced was the accumulation of statistical figures related to film production and reception, especially with regard to non-Hindi films. While Hindi films always had a dedicated trade guide to reveal the figures of a film’s performance, the study of nonHindi films does not have such a resource to hand. Much archival research in the area of non-Hindi films is unfortunately circumscribed by several challenges, such as, sometimes, the unavailability of the film itself. It is difficult to determine the actual reasons behind the non-compilation of data. While some like P.K. Nair (2012) have argued that the fly-by-night producers were never interested in maintaining records, others like Theodore Baskaran (2012) say that this might have been done out of a deliberate desire to hide profits and keep currency within the black market. Also, the audience reception theory will not work for films that have been released in the past, as it is one thing to watch these films on DVD/VCD and comment upon them and absolutely another thing to have had theatre experience of these films. Audience reception theory thus has specific challenges with regard to older films. The availability of proper subtitling has also been a major issue.

Fragile bodies One of the first conclusions this book comes to is that the body is no longer a stable entity. The basic premise of many horror films is the violation of the body. These films also typically document the collapse of the body thereafter. The self-maintaining body is in many ways the basis of subjectivity and interiority. Clearly defined bodily boundaries help to define discrete 196

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human personhood and thereafter agency, including caste-, gender- and class-specific forms of agency. Within the horror films that we have discussed this far, however, the collapsing body has had explosive consequences for these categories. In Pillai Nila (dir. Manobala, 1985), the female child’s body becomes an incongruous site for the expression of adolescent/postpubescent female eros. In Jaani Dushman (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1979), possession makes it impossible to separate the human body from the animal body; the very basis of homo sapiens is erased and exploded when rational masculinity is seen to be in crisis, raging as pure id, consuming human (female) flesh at will. At the same time, in human-to-animal transformation horror films, the man-to-animal transformation is quite different from the woman-to-animal transformation. In the former case, the trauma of transformation is very public, very visible and comes in for much discussion amongst those who see it. In the latter case, there is no noticeable record of the impact of the transformation at all. Thus, it appears that a woman’s transformation into anything else is not worth recording and is also expected within social parameters of bodily integrity. Horrific possessions create markings on the body, such as in the case of the transgendered Kanchana’s possession of Raghava’s masculine person in the film Kanchana: Muni 2 (dir. Raghava Lawrence, 2011); these markings perforate the lines between the genders, specularising the unliveability of lives that do not fit into dimorphic genders. Reconfiguring the body is, however, not easy; in Vayanadan Thampan (dir. A. Vincent, 1978), it is eternal bodily stability that is Thampan’s desire. As a vampire-in-training, Thampan’s desire is never to age; however as a human being with an ageing body, Thampan is found out when his bodily desires get the better of him. The body becomes site for voyeurism by both characters within the film as well as the audience. Its transformations are no longer discreet, soberly managed within privatised economies of personal care, but are directly presented, often apocalyptic public spectacles. The male body’s violation and transformation is anchored in terms of caste, class and sometimes religion; while in the case of the violently transformed female body, questions of personalhood and survival come uppermost: in Gehrayee (dir. Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje, 1980), or even in Nagin (dir. Rajkumar Kohli, 1976), it is the woman’s ability to live as functional creatures that is threatened immediately. Under these circumstances, the body is not idealised. No particular body type is extolled. Even if bodies are showcased as beautiful or desirable, as the bodies of the hero/heroine usually are, these very bodies might next be deconstructed through the act of possession by supernatural forces. The total loss of control over the body (in the case of the zombie, for example) can also come about, demolishing all notions of individual will or agency. Unlike the Western vampire film, which makes the vampire’s body beautiful and very appealing in 197

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a conventional way, Indian films overall have gone in the other direction, preferring to keep the vampiric body rugged, unaesthetic looking rather than conventionally attractive. These various bodily instabilities, idiosyncrasies and insecurities force one to consider the processes that go into the production of our ‘normal’ everyday bodies. A major part of our bodily privilege as ‘normal’ individuals is gained through our being ‘able’-bodied; this implicit ableism is also exploded violently in the horror film when one’s ownership over one’s body, one’s very ableness to control the body is sabotaged in an inconsistent, whimsical fashion. Being bodily disabled thus, characters are cast into a limbo that their mundane ableness does not permit them to enter. Disability thus is how the horror film allows us to examine otherness: for example, the mentally ill girl in Gehrayee, the witch in Kaalo (dir. Wilson Louis, 2010) and the transgendered person in Kanchana are all instances of unwanted bodily performances. In some ways, the body is given an attention that its normality elides in the mainstream film. For instance, in a film like Gehrayee, the young adolescent girl’s entry into pubescence comes in for direct comment, even if momentarily. The barrier of taboo is taken down and in many ways, the audience is prepared, even expects such a liberty. Bodily secretions like blood, which in mainstream cinema is shown as an abhorrent spectacle, are here romanticised because they are permitted within the generic convention, as is the case with, say, the vampire film. Deliberate bodily distortions like protruding tongues or teeth that are like fangs signal the sexually active feminine; their literalisation as the vagina dentate are the horror film’s way of discussing the male fear of castration. However, the horror film’s own patriarchal undertow is always evident in how the vagina dentate themselves are created. Horror in this sense seems to emerge from a foundationally problematic relationship between the genders. The castrating female is herself a male fantasy (or a male nightmare) whose existence legitimises violence against women. The spectacle of the vagina dentate consuming men is thus offered up to the audience in a carnivalesque fashion; once the film is ended, conventional gender relations, characterised by the subjugation of the feminine, can be restored in place of the woman-on-top spectacle of the horror film itself. However, films like Nagin also contain the threat of the vagina dentate by narrativising the vagina dentate themselves as elicited by threats to the bodily and psychic integrity of a chaste woman/wife. Thus, within the heteroromance, the spectacle of the horror-stricken body is merely a momentary interruption and one that strengthens this hetero-romance. However, this momentary eruption of the body as out of control, independent entity should be fetishised by our reading practices into an opportunity to examine how bodily stabilities establish and police heteronorms. 198

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Horror and sex Any research on the Indian horror film will be incomplete without the mention of Mohan Bhakri and Kanti Shah, two prolific horror filmmakers. For over two decades, they have turned out films that combine horror and sex in nowhere near the aesthetically pleasing fashion of the more mainstream horror filmmakers. Their targets were viewers in rural areas and in the satellite towns of big cities. Most of their films gave enough returns for them to enter their next production ventures. Technically, their films were very inferior, the plots in most of these films had any coherence and characterisations were pathetically inconsistent. These films employed little-known actors of their times with limited histrionic ability. At times, if the filmmakers were lucky, they had the luxury of employing failed stars or stars who had waned. These films would now and then offer critiques of the normative socio-political and sexual tensions of the outside world. For example, whereas in mainstream cinema the shower scene would inevitably focus on the female body, here one might see the male body thus revealed. Various incestuous relationships that are not even suggested in the mainstream cinema would find their way into these films. A study of these films is not possible within the scope of this present work, given their massive range and number. The films discussed in this book thematise horror and sex in sometimes controversial but valuable ways in relation to the absence of such thematisations in more mainstream genres. Both horror and pornography deal with bodily excess; it is but natural then that these two modes would come together to depict violations of bodily integrity. Most horror films are considered soft-porn films and this connection between pornography and horror is suitably dealt with in Ragini MMS 2 (dir. Bhushan Patel, 2014) where a porn star expresses her anxieties and struggles to become part of a mainstream film project. While most horror films depict sex with horror, this film actually narrativises porn stars and the process whereby the horror film draws in audiences through the explicit use of sex. Taboo sexual practices are the staple of horror films. The theme of incest is a common one in vampire films. In the films discussed above, father–daughter incest breaks the normative structures of the family. The incest happens non-consensually – under a spell – where the victim/daughter has been hypnotised or is illinformed about her parentage. Thematically, father–daughter incest that is non-consensual challenges the normativised Oedipal family model where the erotic axis is represented as between mother and son. The overtones of rape and violence in the father–daughter incest theme call our attention to the structuring of eros within the space of the (nuclear) family. The idea that the daughter can be sexually violated by her own father (under 199

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whatever guise) is not a theme that gets articulated; sexual violence within the founding script of the nuclear family is thus a theme that the horror genre suggests has immense consequences for the structuring of family. The nuclear family withers and dies away, or survives in attenuated, nonnormative forms. These survivals are often recounted as trauma, but within the traumatic memorialisations, new considerations of family can also be seen emerging. Under the garb of polite society’s discourses, which ignore the sexuality of children, the family is presented as a space where only adults have sexual lives or experiences. In a film like Pillai Nila, however, the young child’s singing erotic songs that were earlier sung by her father’s lover who has now died has the eerie effect of generating an examination of what the ‘correct’ age to experience eros is. Unlike mainstream films where the impact of children being ‘sexual’ is always masked by cuteness, the horror film has the luxury of showing the disturbance of adults at this as horror. Sexual practices that are not monogamous or heterosexual are also depicted, though the price for representation is demonisation. In Ragini MMS 2, the porn-film star’s willingness to be the ‘woman on top’ is shown to be fatal to the director who also wants to seduce her; the film shows her to have been possessed by a witch when she straddles the director to kill him. Similarly, her willingness to be polyamorous is the result of supernatural possession rather than individual volition; lesbianism too is thrown up as a possibility only when the woman is inhabited by the same supernatural feminine. Thus, non-heterosexual, bisexual and especially non-monogamous practices are condemned even as they are represented; however, their incidental appearance in the larger horror narrative also has the effect of making them somewhat mundane. The horror film thus can normalise even while abnormalising various kinds of non-normative sexual practices. At the same time, Ragini MMS 2 presents the act of voyeuristically consuming pornography as itself dangerous to that consumer – the character in question dies watching a porn clip on his mobile. He is killed at the same location where the clip was filmed against the will of the woman who is seen in the clip. Further, the character who is shown masturbating is an ungainly, portly figure, suggesting that men who are less than ideal of body will not find anyone to have ‘real’ sex with. Vayanadan Thampan narrativises the pleasures of the pimp – by definition, a pimp does not have sex with the women he procures or prostitutes. Showing Thampan to be ecstatically surrendering women to his master (the devil-god) to further his own advance into immortality, this film suggests tabooed pleasures are experienced by the pimp who successfully procures women for others. The female sex worker, on the other hand, is ghosted as is the case in Talaash: The Answer Lies Within (dir. Reema Kagti, 2012). Only as a ghost does she 200

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return to avenge herself through the agency of a flesh-and-blood policeman who ‘sees’ spirits on account of his own emotional traumas. Both of them are hard at ‘work’ trying to uncover a difficult case; however, it is the man’s labour that is material and the woman’s is non-corporeal even though her profession – sex work – is so entirely bodily. Taken together, the corpus of films studied through this work has engaged with, questioned and sometimes destabilised normative fashionings of the erotic and the sexual.

Class and caste identities The ghosting – invisibilisation – the female sex worker in Talaash has corollaries in how the lower castes are constantly subalternised in the narrative economies of most of the films studied here. Invariably, in every film, it is the lower-caste/class individual who correctly identifies that the supernatural is at work when things begin to go wrong. However, the contribution of the lower folk in providing the correct diagnosis of the problem is resented by those above them. Many of these films enact a contest between the upper and lower classes/castes as a contest between rationality on the one hand and emotional excess on the other; modernity versus regression, and as change versus conservative, fatal stasis. Class and caste are markers that are marshalled only in relation to male characters within the horror film. The class angle is foregrounded in many ways, out of which two are most significant. First, the upper-class, genteel folk look upon the lower classes as encroachers on their private space. Discrimination based on this class perspective is hegemonised as the normative socio-political pattern of existence. Thus, in Bhoot (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 2003), the poor watchman of the building is never presented in totality but as demonised signifiers, first, as having been a participant in the killing of the young woman whose ghost now lurks the building and second, by constantly intruding into the privacy of the same young woman. Female sexuality is thus intruded upon by the lower-class male, if the film is to be believed. In films like Jaani Dushman, the existing feudal hierarchy presents the lower-class population under its control as a fragmented, disjointed, unwieldy mass incapable of providing leadership or community coherence. This is advanced as the logic for the perpetration of the existing feudal status quo; failure to clinch this is evidenced as crisis of masculinity and of the male body. In Chemistry (dir. Viji Thampi, 2009), the girls who are sexually abused and commit suicide belong to the lower rungs of society; the girl who comes back to haunt the living is the daughter of a truck driver. The film seems to suggest that the use of technology is best kept to the upper echelons of society and only carefully administered to the lower ones, for it is a mark of the truck driver’s excessive love for his daughter that leads to his gifting her a mobile phone. 201

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This gift, generated through much hardship for the father, is the catalyst for the tragedy in the film; the loss of a daughter thus is premised upon access to technology granted to her. The lower classes are also homogenised as resistant to change: witness Baswa’s resistance to the modernity of the factory that the patriarch Chennabasappa envisions as the new destiny of the land that Baswa looks after. Baswa’s presentation – in physical appearance as well as in terms of dialogue – suggests emotive excess as characteristic of the lower castes/classes, while rationality and composure are hallmarks of the master races. The profession of puppetry in Maharashtra, as in other parts of the country, is the preserve of economically underprivileged castes; Zapatlela (dir. Mahesh Kothare, 1993) narrativises the puppeteer and the act of puppetry as absurd, nonserious and unproductive, negating thus the rights and existence of this marginalised art and its proponents. Caste markers, unlike class identifiers, are typically invisiblised or silenced through much of the representations discussed in this book. A careful study, however, will reveal that while invisibilised, caste markers are still being mobilised in the production of horror. All the films, for example, that depict the snake-charming communities are by definition representing either denotified or schedule caste/tribe groups. Yet, this representation is achieved through suppressing the caste marginality of these groups. In Nagina (dir. Harmesh Malhotra, 1986), the snake-woman, who is also a tribal girl, is initially refused entry into the royal family household because of her inferior caste position. In the film itself, her lower-caste status is signified by characters discussing her ‘unknown’ origins, suggesting that her caste standing is so inferior as to be unknown to interact commonly with their peers. When towards the end the evil tantrik is reformed and pleads with god to give the snake-woman a manush yoni, this plea can be read as an attempt to mainstream this lower-caste woman by giving her a form, an identity that will be acceptable to her upper-caste lover; the plea for a yoni suggests that the girl will soon be a mother. Exogamy in this narrative is thus legitimised by ensuring upward-caste mobility for a lowergrade creature (lower-caste person/snake) so as to suggest that social status quos are intact. In the older Punnami Naagu (dir. Rajasekhar, 1980), the snake-charming community is demonised by attributing to them ‘villainous’ practices such as the feeding of snake venom to little babies; these parenting practices are presented as irresponsible and antisocial, with the judgements being presented exclusively from positions outside this community. Caste mobility is ensured for the women of this group though; Naagalu’s (very fair-skinned) sister is able to marry the Brahmin, civilising protagonist, while Naagalu’s own erotic interest in a (fair-skinned) educated girl leads to his own ultimate extermination. The fair skin of the 202

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women – both the upper- and the lower-caste ones, along with markers of civilisation like education or compassion for upper-caste individuals as opposed to villainous adherence to lower-caste group values – connotes the women’s readiness for mobility into an upper caste at the expense of their own lower-caste group. Thus, loyalty to one’s caste group is the fatal preserve of the male, while hypergamy is presented as a desirable value and end for lower-caste women. Similarly, in the newer Punnami Nagu (dir. A. Kodandarami Reddy, 2009), it is nowhere explicitly mentioned that devadasis mostly belong to the lower castes of society; instead, the film both obscures the caste identity of the woman whose sexual labour is misappropriated by the upper castes and presents her as in turn also fighting against other lower-caste people who are shown to be pillaging the forests. In one sense then, the caste war is misrepresented as being fought exclusively between the lower castes; where in reality, while women within a lower caste might fight against men of the same caste on gendered issues, there is much evidence of the common political plank of caste unity surviving these internal disputes and engagements. However, in showing the lower-caste woman as willing to migrate upward and outward in order to set up stable homes with (typically) upper-caste men, many of the horror films discussed here do normativise the (Indian) family as typically upper caste.

Precarious homes The terrain of the horror film is also the space of crisis for the (Hindu) family thus established. Horror plunges the intimate sphere into multiple kinds of instability that it cannot easily recover from. In every Ramsay film almost, even if the unwelcome supernatural force has Hindu antecedents, the ‘cure’ is a great deal more eclectic: often, Christian crosses or Muslim pirs are necessary for the exorcism of these forces, thus immediately jeopardising the notion of the self-contained, self-sustaining Hindu household. The inadequacy of this idealised Hindu household’s resources is too often not explored outside of the Ramsay genre, but very often, this household’s religious needs have to be met through or supplemented by modern equivalents for religion, such as psychotherapy. In films where this Hindu household has already morphed into the ‘modern, secular’ one where the protagonists are still default Hindu and bear identifiably Hindu names despite engaging in no overt Hindu practices initially, once crisis strikes, these very protagonists are also shown seeking solace in arcane occult religious practices, such as tantric worship in Gehrayee, astrology in Bhoot and so on. Next, these homes are also nuclear homes; in a film like Kaalo where the public bus was the space of the nation and the trope for the extended family, the crisis leads to the disintegration of this 203

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microcosmic idealised joint family. The survivors are the male parent-figure and the child in Kaalo; in a film like Bhoot, it is the erotic couple, however troubled, as is the case in Manichitrathazhu. In films like Gehrayee, Nagin and Jaani Dushman, the emergence from the feudal, through characters’ efforts to cast off traditional/feudal obligations to those inferior to them in that hierarchy, is what occasions the horrific crisis. Again, the process of creation of the small, compact nuclear family home is represented as a traumatic event, memorable, yet very unhappy. Typically, this home is also a modern, rational space towards which the happy couple may walk to once the crisis is resolved; yet, these films are unable to make these resolutions so clearly. Homes thus are not recuperative spaces, but occasions for fresh crises, especially for masculinity. Rather than see the home as viably structured around the Freudian Oedipal hierarchy between parent and (male) child, the various homes these films fashion show that the Oedipal story of inheritance from father to son is itself flawed and that these inheritances are intensely problematic. Many of the films considered here feature a house – a physical structure – with its own story to tell; these houses have often survived the test of time, but the families within them have been dismantled or otherwise destroyed. Sometimes the threat to the house is from external factors, otherwise from deep within the families that inhabit them. The process of how to inhabit a house becomes part of the horror story; in Bhoot and Manichitrathazhu, for example, the young Indian (Hindu) couple is just setting up home in a new space, material as much as psychic. Unassimilated troubles within the couple as well as the impossibility of their survival as only a married couple in a society where other affiliations count and are sometimes overpowering are expressed as psychic anxieties. The neo-conservative romantic couple at the centre of the modern nuclear home is at odds in a sense with the older Oedipal son/heir to the father’s inheritance who held together the joint home. The collapse of this Oedipal model is a welcome relief too when alternative stories for how to imagine home are generated, but equally often, the horror narrative is unable to provide an adequate nuclear-family substitute for the overpowering father’s role. A case in point is Gehrayee, where the patriarch’s ‘children’, themselves adults in formation, while resistant to the patriarchal authority of their autocratic, yet rational, father are victims of the lack of alternatives to the dominant Nehruvian model of rationality he embodies and visits upon them. At the same time, the home as the province of Hindu heteronorm is jeopardised when female homosociality and female homoeroticism in the form of a female spirit possessing another woman, or also expressing desire for a third woman through such possession. In Bhoot, the possession of one woman by another expresses as female homosociality that finally avenges rape; the fact of bodily possession, 204

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however, traumatises and marks the body of the living middle-class woman so strongly that survival becomes punishment. Thus, Bhoot inadvertently shows life within a modernised patriarchal nuclear household as dependent to be impossible, unsurvivable for the female psyche; the bored housewife is possessed and in a sense rescued from her fatal boredoms. At the same time, as one woman avenging another, Bhoot’s female characters reveal cracks in the facade of the safe consumer spaces that Indian women in urban centres are perpetually being invited to buy into. On the funnier side of course, in horror-comedy, the ghosts find themselves destabilised and homeless when ‘development’ comes closer to them, revealing the supernatural to be as much affected by change and context as much as other less powerful entities. Bhooter Bhabishyat’s (dir. Anik Dutta, 2012) tongue-incheek rendition of the nature of ‘development’ in modern-day India is, however, a sobering fable as it tells us that homes – those markers of the intimate sphere – are so frail as to be unable to now support ghosts too. The dehistoricising and alienating personal impact of modernity’s progress is a horrific parable.

Exploited ecologies The meagre resources available for modernity’s progress are perpetually and violently contested for in these films. Whatever ecological resources survive are viewed as the secular, modern, rational Indian man’s burden so to speak; in fact, the conceptualisation of nature itself as ‘resource’ betrays the mindset of exploitation of nature that underwrites the project of a modernising India. Areas that are to be territorialised thus are presented as mysterious, exotic and dangerous. Their potentials for horror are thus a function of how necessary they are to the project of modernisation. In Gehrayee, there is a direct connection between the sale of the forest the patriarch’s family has always had and his daughter’s possession by the spirit of subaltern people displaced by the sale. Chennabasappa wants a soap factory to be established where there is now a living, singing forest of trees and other sentient creatures. His desire to commoditise the land is a decision that the film shows him to be making practically in isolation, without having consulted either other (subordinate) family members like wife or children, or the workers and caretakers of the piece of land itself. The commoditisation of the land generates immediate emotive protests from the latter group, for whom it is not merely a livelihood but also a ‘mother’, but Chennabasappa goes ahead regardless of his decision’s impact on the subalterns. His daughter’s later possession and apparently non-rationality must be read as critiques of her father’s project of development at all costs. In her late teens, she is in a sense also an object that her father may dispose of 205

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as he so wills; the film does show him sanctioning electroconvulsive therapy for her against all opposition, hers as well as her mother’s and brother’s. The film allows us to identify the daughter’s disorder as connected to the ‘disorder’ that would be precipitated if land rights were different; Baswa would never sell the earth that has fed him after all. The daughter’s lack of agency is thus very similar to the lack of agency experienced by the lower-caste/class male characters through the film; these characters are so totally violated that survival with their subjectivities intact becomes itself an impossible project. A film like Go Goa Gone (dir. Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., 2013) goes to the other end of the spectrum, showing the project of Indian modernity to be threatened from the outside – by drugs, especially recreational ones, sold by foreign mafias. The young people in the film are much too vacuous to notice that it is their own presence in Goa that undermines and destroys that region’s ecological integrity. However, the apocalyptic nature of the combat that the film depicts alerts us to the very real tensions between tourist Goa and the ‘other’ Goa, if indeed there is still one. Within the modern Indian imaginary, a place like Goa is the perfect recreational paradise; however, the exploitation of nature for the creation of such paradises is shown to be non-event in the interiorities of the participants, despite the apocalyptic consequences for all. Nature is projected as the monstrous other in capitalist economy’s imaginary. Unoccupied or unterritorialised ‘empty’ spaces quickly become canvases for a new kind of internal colonialism; this other has to be quickly streamlined for human occupation and speedily entered into the mainstream of civilisational work. In Hisss (dir. Jennifer Lynch, 2010), the female serpent, also a human woman, is played by an Indian actress, while the scientist who wants to literally milk her venom to create an anti-cancer drug is played by a white actor. The racialisation pattern here is one of native resource/Western science. The film here presents India as the mighty, mysterious, exotic place at the periphery though within the field of vision, of Western modernity. Hisss’s use of the mode of the fantastic enables it to keep this exotic other uncolonised; the serpent is able to fulfil her quest, the evil scientist is defeated. Unlike the sombre, even mournful Gehrayee, Hisss’s use of fantasy allows it to advance an alternative to the indigenised, Western-derived model of ‘development’. However, this film is the exception; film after film continues to represent via horror the assimilation of indigenous heritages and livelihoods into the onward march of a homogeneous globalised culture. As in Gehrayee, the modern Indian’s horror comes from the realisation that s/he is also out of touch with his/ her native heritage; in other words, shock and horror are generated from the awareness that there is no prior, no outside left beyond this homogenised global culture that we are all in the process of creating. Films like 206

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Nishi Trishna (dir. Parimal Bhattacharya, 1989) present the rural hinterland as the place of horror for cultured but still naive urban sophisticates; the monster (rural) is destroyed though and everyone safely returns to the urban space where they do not have to deal with the contaminations of superstation or aggressive non-rationality every day. Films like Rise of the Zombie (dir. Luke Kenny and Devaki Singh, 2013) show the collapse of this narrative of return – the city dweller who seeks solitude in the ‘countryside’ will never return for he has become a zombie. Instead, his malaise – zombification – spreads all over the countryside too. The horror film thus critiques the easy dichotomy of rural/urban, city/country and civilisation/savagery. However, it is revealing that horror is created in all these instances by showing us how badly equipped we are – as secular, modern Indian subjects – to deal with the freight of the past as well as by revealing that there is no other to the claustrophobic spaces of modernity we already inhabit once this exotic outside is revealed to be a space that can be violently pushed away or therapeutically put aside. The comedic horror films like Chamatkar (dir. Rajiv Mehra, 1992) suggest that the rural and urban can relate in a non-violent, productive way. The country buffoon does make it to the city and survive there; the diegetic resolution promises that he will return to make good on his dream for a school in the village, but because the preoccupations of the narrative are with surviving of the city, there is no representation of the alternative imagining of the rural. In fact, most of these films fail to represent rural life altogether except as seen through the city. Thus, horror emerges from the attempt to territorialise and commoditise the non-urban/rural/forest space to make it useful, of value, within the capitalist economy of the city. The use of technology in many of these films contributes to audience alienation from the non-urban/rural/forest space too. Films like Kaalo for example use digital technology not only to imagine a witch but also to signify her home – the desert; Dracula 3D makes use of 3D technology to suggest the horrors of vampirism; Hisss uses computer graphic imaging to produce a snake whose fearsomeness is in keeping with Hollywood’s mega-snakes, like Anaconda. Where earlier films like Junoon (dir. Mahesh Bhatt, 1992) and Nagin used real animals – like the tiger or the snake – thus making the horror both real and mundane, the literalisation and excess of many contemporary films alienates the viewer. The literalisation of the fear of the snake for example is done by making the snake larger than several people, taller than a building etc. When a real snake is instead shown on the screen, the metaphors are all unspoken, unimaged on the screen but imagined and thought by the viewer – the slim, slimy creature we see on the screen not only engages our feelings of terror, but also our recognition that these creatures are also part of nature, of the very material worlds around us. 207

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Severing the vehicles of horror from this quotidian natural landscape has thus had the effect of displacing our ability to feel fear; rather than immediate fear, these literalisations of fearfulness simply generate alienation and ennui. Sometimes, the use of the digital technology can monsterise and ‘other’ the target subjects even more extensively. In Kaalo, the witch becomes even more demonised and de-feminised through the use of the digital technology. Conventionally, witches have been ostracised on the pretext of their ‘lack’ of femininity. The technological reproductions of the witch myths further endorse this stereotyping. Thus, in this sense, the use of technology can be understood as one of the agencies through which the modern-day patriarchy survives and extends its discourse. This is further articulated in another way in films like Chemistry. Chemistry was the first horror film in India to have articulated the perils of the MMS technology. But in showing the teenage school-going girls as victims of sexual abuse through the use of the MMS technology, the film suggests that the misuse of this technology will harm more the female gender and the technology needs to be censured by masculine structures both at the level of the private and the public.

Conclusions This book concludes with the submission that what makes horror films different from other mainstream cinemas is the way these issues are brought up for discussion. Even while they reinforce stereotypes in their resolutions, ample opportunities for deconstruction of these stereotypes are present in the course of the reception of these films. The specific work of the horror is the grotesquerisation, or monsterisation, of ‘normal’ bodies and their encounters to destabilise comfortable categories and question the normative as well as notions of progress/modernity – with this pre-modern, if not primitive, alienating of the body and its normal functions. The function and effect of horror is what destabilises all notions of the normatively gendered and sexed body.

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Appendix ANNOTATED FILMOGRAPHY OF HORROR FILMS IN INDIA

This survey lists Indian films of the horror genre made since Independence. Hindi, Malayalam, Bangla, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films have been considered here. This filmography is not an exhaustive one though every effort has been made to include as many films as possible from August 1947 till August 2016. While care has been taken to provide as much information about these films as possible, sometimes it is difficult to access VCDs/DVDs details of some of these films. In some cases, the production houses initially release VCDs/DVDs, but afterwards these totally disappear from the market so much so that it is impossible to trace their existence, even to the point of being able to ascertain the year of release. In other instances, production houses have not released VCDs/ DVDs for their creations. Next, this list does not take into account films that are merely dubbed from other languages, however remakes have been listed here as discrete productions. And last, this list includes a few films whose VCDs/DVDs have not been released at the time of this book going to press.

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Year of release

1948

1948

1949

No.

1.

2.

3.

Hindi

Bangla

Tamil

Language

Vedhala Ulagam. Directed by A.V. Meiyappan. Perf. T.R. Mahalingam, Padmini, Pandari Bai and Lalitha. AVM Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2008. A precursor to genuine horror, this film unites the mythological with the fantastic. Psychological exploration, characteristic of later films like Mahal, is almost completely absent here. The central character is a prince who makes the voyage to the demon land to rescue his father, whom he has never seen and who has been trapped these last two decades as a result of his own failed quest to liberate the world of the horrors of fantasy land. This film earns its just place as a precursor because it marshals a number of archetypes that later films will use productively to create horror where this one, at least to present viewers, only produces a flavour of the fantastic: the goddess Kali, demons who appear and disappear at will, human beings transmuted suddenly to stone etc. are some of the horrors deployed; love and steadfast devotion win the day in this film with only gentle violences. Kalo Chhaya. Directed by Premendra Mitra. Perf. Sisir Mitra and Dhiraj Bhattacharya. India: Angel Digital, 2006. One of those films made in Bangla where the crime thriller is synthesised with horror genre in its rudimentary form. A detective investigates the murder of a village landlord. Mahal. Directed by Kamal Amrohi. Perf. Madhubala and Ashok Kumar. Bombay Talkies. India: Friends, 2009. VCD. The first genuine horror film in Indian cinema. Unlike Vedhala Ulagam, this film explores the interiorities and subjectivities that are constituted in response to the onslaught of horripilation. The female protagonist, who is the gardener’s daughter, fears that she is too poor and too ugly to catch the fancy of the foreign-returned male protagonist, inheritor of the ancestral Mahal. She masquerades as ‘Kamini’ the femme fatale who proves to be the undoing of his feudal inheritance. The horror in this film stems from Kamini’s self-projection as a ghost and Ashok Kumar’s total belief in reincarnation.

Film

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1958

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Hindi

Bangla

Marathi

Bangla

Bangla

Bangla

(Continued)

Kankal. Directed by Naresh Mitra. Perf. Malay Sarkar and Dhiraj Bhattacharya. Madhuchakra. India: Angel Digital, 2006. VCD. The spirit of the murdered female protagonist comes back to haunt her killer. One of the first instances in Indian horror cinema where a skeleton is shown reanimating itself. Jighangsha. Directed by Ajoy Kar. Perf. Bikash Roy and Manju Dey. Chayanika Chitra Mandir. India: Angel Digital, 2011. Another Bangla detective genre brushing with the horror genre. Hanabari. Directed by Premendra Mitra. Perf. Dhiraj Bhattacharjee and Bipin Mukherjee. India: Big Home Videos, 2011. DVD. Set in an old mansion, it describes the notorious plottings of a killer who masquerades as a ferocious monster to drive away people. It can be seen as a precursor to many of the Ramsay movies of the 1980s with horrific monsters. Vahininchya Bangdya. Directed by Shantaram Athavle. Perf. Sulochana and Vivek. Chitra Sahkar. India: Fountain Video (date of release unknown). VCD. It is a very early treatment of horror theme. The entire film is not about horror, but the horrific element surfaces towards the climax. The female protagonist dies and is cremated along with her golden bangles. Strangely, nothing happens to the bangles. And a girl was born on the very day exactly after one year. She was considered to be the reincarnation of the dead female protagonist. Maraner Pare. Directed by Satish Dasgupta. Perf. Ajit Banerjee and Dhiraj Bhattacharya. India: Angel Video (date of release unknown). DVD. The genre of crime thriller is wedded to the genre of horror. Madhumati. Directed by Bimal Roy. Perf. Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala and Johnny Walker. Bimal Roy Productions. India: Shemaroo, 2010. VCD. A tale of reincarnation depicting the love story of the hero and the heroine in which the unfulfilled union of the two in some past birth is realised in the present life. Available records suggest that this might be the first film to depict the appearance of a ghost/spirit in Indian cinema.

Year of release

1960

1961

1962

1962

1963

No.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Bangla

Bangla

Language

Khudito Pashan. Directed by Tapan Sinha. Perf. Soumitro Chatterjee and Arundhati Devi. (Production company unknown). India: Angel Digital, 2009. VCD. The film is an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Hungry Stones. An urban, educated, rationalist and civil services passed male protagonist is troubled when he encounters spirits of slain people in a haunted palatial mansion in a village. Teen Kanya. Directed by Satyajit Ray. Perf. Chandana Banerjee and Anil Chatterjee. India: Big Home Video, 2008. DVD. Satyajit Ray’s adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s story Monihara in which a woman, lusting after jewellery while she was alive, returns from her grave to take back jewels from her husband. Bees Saal Baad. Directed by Biren Nag. Perf. Waheeda Rehman and Biswajeet. Geetanjali Pictures. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, the film describes the struggle of the male protagonist as he tries to defend himself from a killer out to avenge his sister’s death. The sister had been raped by the protagonist’s grandfather. There is a horrific projection of a woman as a ghost throughout. Tower House. Directed by Nisar Ahmad Ansari. Perf. Ajit and Shakila. Desh Productions. India: Friends Video (date of release unknown). VCD. The story is built around the presence of a secluded tower where it is observed that many people commit suicide by jumping off the tower at nights when an eerie voice of a woman singing dominates the night. Bin Badal Barsaat. Directed by Jyoti Swaroop. Perf. Biswajeet and Asha Parekh. Uttam Chitra. India: Shemaroo, 2009. VCD. A rich estate owner falls in love with a gypsy woman but marries another woman. The gypsy woman’s father curses his entire family that whenever a male from the family marries, his wife will die within a year.

Film

1964

1964

1964

1964

1965

1965

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Hindi

Hindi

Marathi

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Kohraa. Directed by Biren Nag. Perf. Biswajeet and Waheeda Rehman. Geetanjali Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. The female protagonist marries only to discover that her husband was already married to someone else who was no longer alive. But her spirit pursues her. Woh Kaun Thi?. Directed by Raj Khosla. Perf. Sadhana and Manoj Kumar. Prithvi Pictures. India: Ultra, 2009. VCD. A suspense thriller in which the male protagonist is haunted by an apparition of a woman whom he first meets in a creepy old mansion and who later turns out to be his bride, whom he marries without seeing her before the marriage. Hitchcockian, the plot rests on the assumption of the apparition. Bhargavi Nilayam. Directed by A. Vincent. Perf. Prem Nazir, Madhu and Vijaya Nirmala. Chandrathara. India: Harmony, 2009. VCD. Based on Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s novel, it narrates the story of a writer who rents a spooky house in a village. There he encounters the spirit of a murdered girl and writes down her story. Pathlag. Directed by Raja Paranjape. Perf. Bhavana and Kashinath Ghanekar. (Production company unknown). India: Neelam Audio and Video Inc. (date of release unknown). VCD. Story of how a male protagonist copes with the death of his wife and then her resurfacing in the form of a spirit/imposter. Gumnaam. Directed by Raja Nawathe. Perf. Manoj Kumar and Nanda. Prithvi Pictures. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Eight strangers after winning a contest find themselves marooned on an island. Gradually, the contestants begin to die one by one under mysterious circumstances. Bhoot Bungla. Directed by Mehmood. Perf. Mehmood and Tanuja. Mumtaz Films. India: Ultra, 2004. VCD. Self-reflexive on the genre of horror films, this suspense thriller derives its sustenance from a ghostly bungalow in which strange things happen and create an eerie atmosphere.

Year of release

1966

1967

1967

1968

1968

1969

1971

No.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Mera Saaya. Directed by Raj Khosla. Perf. Sunil Dutt and Sadhana. Raj Khosla Films. India: Shemaroo, 2003. DVD. Remake of the Marathi Pathlag. Anita. Directed by Raj Khosla. Perf. Manoj Kumar and Sadhana. Raj Khosla Films. India: Shemaroo, 2008. DVD. Resurfacing of the male protagonist’s dead wife in the form of a lookalike creates eerie situations. Paathirapattu. Directed by N. Prakash. Perf. Prem Nazir and Sheela. Movie Crafts. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The female protagonist is murdered. The spirit of the girl then rises from the dead to assist the CID in capturing the killer. Padunna Puzha. Directed by M. Krishnan Nair. Perf. Prem Nazir and Sheela. Jaya Maruthi. India: Saina (date of release unknown). VCD. The female protagonist is murdered and her spirit is believed to be sighted by the assailant/s. Yakshi. Directed by K.S. Sethumadhavan. Perf. Sathyan and Sharada. Manjilas. India: Wilson Videos, 2011. VCD. The male protagonist starts suspecting that his wife is a yakshi who wants to attain immortality by killing him. Urangaatha Sundari. Directed by P. Subramaniam. Perf. Sathyan and Rajasree. Neela. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A couple fall in love and marry. The female protagonist then encounters a spirit which turns out to be that of her husband’s former wife. Ek Paheli. Directed by Naresh Kumar. Perf. Feroze Khan and Tanuja. (Production company unknown). India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. The spirit of a girl who committed suicide twenty years ago comes back as the male protagonist buys a piano which she was closely attached to in her lifetime.

Film

1971

1972

1972

1973

1975

1975

1976

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

Hindi

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Bangla

(Continued)

Kuheli. Directed by Tarun Majumdar. Perf. Biswajeet and Sandhya Roy. (Production company unknown). India: Angel Digital, 2009. VCD. A caretaker employed to look after the daughter of a wealthy widower encounters what she feels to be an apparition. Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche. Directed by Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Surendra Kumar and Pooja. Ramsay Films. India: Friends Video, 2010. DVD. This film is noted for two things: one, that it was the first of so many successful horror films made under the Ramsay banner; and two, available records suggest that this film introduced the zombie trope to the Indian horror cinema. Aadhyathe Katha. Directed by K.S. Sethumadhavan. Perf. Prem Nazir and Vijayasree. Chithranjali. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A writer visits a house in a village for tranquillity that would enable him to write. There he comes to know of a lady who lived in that house and had committed suicide. Soon he starts being haunted by that lady. Kaadu. Directed by P. Subramaniam. Perf. Madhu and Thikkurissi. (Production details unknown). India: Shree Video Tronics (date of release unknown). VCD. A tribal girl is killed by one of the city men visiting the village. Her spirit then haunts him. Chandanachola. Directed by Jeasy. Perf. Jose Prakash and Manavalan Joseph. Rekha Cine Arts. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The female protagonist dies and her spirit appears in the dream of the woman who seduced her husband. Kuttichaathan. Directed by Crossbelt Mani. Perf. Adoor Bhasi and Sreelatha. Navodaya. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A village is torn apart between those who believe in ghosts and those who do not. Some strange happenings take place and the CID is called to investigate. Nagin. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. Perf. Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Jeetendra, Reena Roy, Rekha and Mumtaz. Shankar Movies. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. A multi-starrer film portraying the revenge of a female snake on a group of people who had killed her male counterpart.

Year of release

1976

1976

1977

1978

1978

1978

No.

35.

36.

37

38.

40.

41.

Appendix (Continued)

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Marathi

Malayalam

Language

Yaksha Gaanam. Directed by Sheela. Perf. Madhu, Sheela and Adoor Bhasi. Apsara Combines. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The protagonists return to their native village to sell off their ancestral property. But they encounter supernatural forces there. Ha Khel Savalyancha. Directed by Vasant Joglekar. Perf. Dr Kashinath Dhanekar and Asha Kale. Modern Movies. India: Big Home Video, 2009. VCD. An uncle of the heroine, in order to usurp family property, tries to play upon his young neice’s fear of ghosts, the result of her own childhood impetuousness that leads to the death of a lower-caste servant in the family homestead. Jadu Tona. Directed by Ravikant Nagaich. Perf. Ashok Kumar and Feroz Khan. Shankar Movies. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Another movie inspired from The Exorcist which describes the possession of a girl by an evil spirit and the exorcism carried out by a tantrik. Darwaza. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Imtiaz Khan and Anju Mahendru. Ramsay Productions. India: Times Video, 2006. VCD. For generations, fear had been lurking behind the mysterious door. Lisa. Directed by Baby. Perf. Prem Nazir and Jayan. Dhanya. India: Harmony Videos, 2012. VCD. Conflict between rural and urban worlds showcased through horror. When a black cat falls upon a village girl, she is suddenly transformed into an urban woman. Vayanadan Thampan. Directed by A. Vincent. Perf. Kamal Hassan and KPAC Lalitha. Sri Vigneswara Films. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Perhaps the only Indian-language horror film in which father and daughter unwittingly fall in love with each other. The context for this Oedipal shock lies in the Dorian Gray like Vayanadan Thampan’s quest for immortality and eternal youth, for which he strikes a Faustian bargain with a dark spirit who is to be

Film

1978

1978

1978

1978

1979

1979

1979

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Bangla

(Continued)

propitiated by the provision of a virgin at stipulated intervals. The protagonist is undone when several affected families in the region get together to redress the wrongs done to them by the Thampan who has been abducting their young women over several generations. Lalkuthi. Directed by Kanak Mukhopadhyay. Perf. Danny and Ranjeet Mullick. Peacock Films. India: Angel Digital, 2010. VCD. A detective is hired to investigate a case of murder in a palatial mansion. Aayiram Jenmangal. Directed by Durai. Perf. Rajnikanth and Latha. Pallavi Enterprises. India: Golden Cinema (date of release unknown). VCD. The female protagonist is possessed by the spirit of a girl who was in love with her husband while she was alive. Later, she was murdered by an evil person. Sigappu Rojakkal. Directed by P. Bharathiraja. Perf. Kamal Haasan and Sridevi. K.R.G. Productions. India: Movie Land (date of release unknown). DVD. Reminiscent of slasher genre, the film describes the story of a male protagonist who harboured a pathological hatred for women. He would seduce them and later kill them. Jaganmohini. Directed by B. Vittalacharya. Perf. Narasimha Raju and Prabha. (Production company unknown). India: Volga Videos, 2003. VCD. In some past birth, the male protagonist had betrayed a woman. In this birth, her spirit tries to attract him. Jaani Dushman. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. Perf. Sanjeev Kumar, Sunil Dutt and Jeetendra. Shankar Films. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. A multi-starrer film in which a spirit possesses the body of an old male protagonist, who then starts killing newly wed brides on their marriage day. Agni Vyooham. Directed by P. Chandrakumar. Perf. Shubha and Sukumaran. Sree Rajesh Films. India: Saina (date of release unknown). VCD. The narrator of the story turns out to be a ghost. Kalliyankattu Neeli. Directed by M. Krishnan Nair. Perf. Madhu and Adoor Bhasi. Sunitha Productions. India: Horizon, 2011. VCD. Story narrativising the yakshi, reincarnation and revenge themes.

Year of release

1979

1979

1980

1980

1980

1980

No.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Tamil

Language

Neeya. Directed by Durai. Perf. Kamal Haasan and Sripriya. Sri Chamundeswari. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. Remake of the Hindi Nagin. Naa Ninna Bidalaare. Directed by Vijay. Perf. Ananth Nag and Lakshmi. Chamundeshwari Studio. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2007. VCD. The spirit of a dead girl, who was madly in one-sided love with a boy and later died in an accident, comes back to haunt the boy. Gehrayee. Directed by Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje. Perf. Padmini Kohlapuri and Amrish Puri. Avikam. India: Shemaroo, 2007. VCD. One of the first Indian versions of The Exorcist in which the spirit of a village servant possesses the body of an adolescent female protagonist to take revenge on her father who had raped his wife and also sold off their ancestral lands looked after by him. The film can be read as a scathing critique of the consumerist approach of modernity. Guest House. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Premnath and Vijayendra Ghatge. Ramsay Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The disambiguated hand of a murdered male protagonist takes revenge of his murder. Karz. Directed by Subhash Ghai. Perf. Rishi Kapoor, Tina Munim, Pran and Simi Garewal. Mukta Arts. India: Shemaroo, 2008. DVD. It is a story of revenge and reincarnation with the murdered male protagonist taking rebirth with another face to avenge his murder. Phir Wohi Raat. Directed by Danny Denzongpa. Perf. Rajesh Khanna and Danny Denzonngpa. Prithvi Pictures. India: Ultra, 2008. VCD. The female protagonist has regular nightmares and things really turn for bad when the nightmares begin to come true.

Film

1980

1980

1980

1980

1981

1981

1981

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Telugu

Tamil

Malayalam

Hindi

(Continued)

Saboot. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Navin Nischol and Vidya Sinha. Abbasi Bros. and The Bharat Pictures. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Unhappy business negotiations lead to a series of murders. But the question lurking throughout the film is whether the murderer is the spirit of the slain businessman or a human killer. Shakthi. Directed by Vijay Anand. Perf. Jayan and Seema. Sudheera Enterprises. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Two men in search of a bungalow have an encounter with the ghost of a dead person. Moodu Pani. Directed by Balu Mahendra. Perf. Shobha and Pratap K. Pothen. Raja Cine Arts. India: Jayam, 2011. DVD. The male protagonist is shown to have a visceral hatred towards any prostitute that he met. So much so that he would end up killing them. A slasher genre reminiscent. Punnami Naagu. Directed by Rajasekhar. Perf. Chiranjeevi and Rati Agnihotri. AVM Productions. India: Volga Videos, 2004. VCD. A gripping tale of a snake charmer who is transformed into a cobra every full moon night and starts biting women. Chehre Pe Chehra. Directed by Raj Tilak. Perf. Sanjeev Kumar and Rekha. Captain Productions. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Loosely inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dahshat. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Navin Nischol and Sarika. Ramsay Productions. India: Friends, 2008. VCD. A doctor working in his private laboratory turns into a monster when his wife injects an animal serum in his body. Ghungroo Ki Awaaz. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Vijay Anand and Rekha. Navketan International Films. India: Shemaroo (date of release unknown). VCD. The male protagonist rescues a girl from a brothel and brings her to his home. But soon, he starts being haunted by her lookalike.

Year of release

1981

1981

1981

1981

1982

1984

No.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Marathi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Hotel. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Navin Nischol and Rakesh Roshan. Vision Universal. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. People out to supervise the construction of a hotel begin to disappear one by one. Kudrat. Directed by Chetan Anand. Perf. Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna and Vinod Khanna. Trishakti Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. Deals with the theme of reincarnation as both the male and the female protagonists discover that they were lovers in their previous birth and could not marry. Mangalsutra. Directed by Vijay B. Perf. Rekha and Anant Nag. (Production company unknown). India: Eagle, 2006. DVD. Another Exorcist spin-off in which the spirit of a dead girl possesses the body of the female protagonist and wants to kill her husband. The husband finally reveals that this dead girl had a huge crush on him and unable to get him, had committed suicide. Sannata. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Vijay Arora and Bindiya Goswami. Ramsay Productions. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. The main protagonists try to investigate a series of murders taking place in a hill station. Ek Daav Bhutacha. Directed by Ravi Namade. Perf. Ashok Saraf and Dilip Prabhawalkar. Ulka Film Industries. India: Golden Plaza, 2008. VCD. Horror and comedy come together as the film depicts the pairing of an innocent school teacher and a cunning spirit which was cursed for separating lovers. Purana Mandir. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Mohnish Bahl and Puneet Issar. K.R. Enterprises. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2006. DVD. The birth of the monster Saamri of the Ramsays horror. Saamri rises from the dead and starts taking revenge from the family members whose ancestors were responsible for his death some 200 years ago.

Film

1984

1984

1984

1984

1984

1984

1985

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

Hindi

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

(Continued)

Pyasa Shaitan. Directed by Joginder Shelly. Perf. Kamal Hassan and Joginder Shelly. Hargobindha Films. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Desiring everlasting youth, the male protagonist worships the devil. The devil grants him his blessings on a condition. Manasariyathe. Directed by Soman Ambatt. Perf. Mohanlal and Zarina Wahab. (Production details unknown). India: Wilson Videos (date of release unknown). VCD. The male protagonist objects to a drunkard creating mayhem in his family. The next day, that drunkard’s corpse is found in the protagonist’s house. Sreekrishna Parunthu. Directed by A. Vincent. Perf. Mohanlal and Balan K. Nair. Ragam Movies. India: Harmony, 2008. VCD. The story of a family renowned for possessing secret magic powers. The film depicts the difficulties that the protagonists have to undergo to become worthy recipients of these magical powers. Enakkul Oruvan. Directed by S.P. Muthuraman. Perf. Kamal Hassan, Manorama and Shobhana. Kavithalaya Productions. India: Movieland (date of release unknown). DVD. Remake of Subhash Ghai’s Karz with a few changes in the plot: the male protagonist is already married when he starts having visions from the past. 24 Mani Neram. Directed by Manivannan. Perf. Mohan, Swapna and Nalini. Thirupathiswamy Pictures. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. The female protagonist has the power to foresee future and sees that her sister is being brutally murdered and that she too would be murdered. The family could not trace the body of her sister. The struggle begins. Nooravathu Naal. Directed by Manivannan. Perf. Mohan, Vijayakanth and Nalini. Thirupathisami Pictures. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Ability to foresee is the main thematic exploration. Inspired from Eyes of Laura Mars and in turn inspired from Madhuri Dixit’s 100 Days. 3D Saamri. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Rajan Sippy and Aarti Gupta. T.S. Productions. India: DTS (date of release unknown). DVD. Saamri rises from the grave and causes mayhem.

Year of release

1985

1985

1985

1985

1985

1985

No.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

Appendix (Continued)

Tamil

Tamil

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Trikal. Directed by Shyam Benegal. Perf. Leela Naidu, Naseeruddin Shah, Neena Gupta and Soni Razdan. Blaze Film Enterprises. India: Eagle, 2003. VCD. Set in Goa in the early 1960s in the backdrop of the liberation movement, Benegal crafts a spine-chilling horror film when the spirit of a deceased local Indian chieftain communicates to the aristocratic family about the wrongs committed by their ancestors. Pillai Nila. Directed by Manobala. Perf. Baby Shalini, Radhika and Mohan. (Production company unknown). India: Raj Vision Video (date of release unknown). DVD. The male protagonist is pursued madly by a young lady for love and marriage. Unable to accept rejection, she commits suicide. He marries another woman. Her spirit then possesses the body of his young daughter. Yaar? Directed by Sakthi-Kannan. Perf. Arjun and Nalini. Kalaippuli Films International. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown). DVD. A boy born in strange planetary alignment grows up to be an evil power bringing apocalyptic disaster.

Cheekh. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Raza Murad and Madan Puri. M.K.B. Films. India: Priya, 2009. VCD. Mysterious killer on a killer spree. Haveli. Directed by Keshu Ramsay. Perf. Rakesh Roshan and Marc Zuber. (Production and VCD/DVD details unknown). An undercover cop tries to catch a serial killer on loose. Telephone. Directed by Tulsi Ramsay and Shyam Ramsay. Perf. Shatrughan Sinha and Parveen Babi. Ramsay Films. India: Friends, 2006. VCD. Story of a mystery killer haunting everybody by phone.

Film

1986

1986

1986

1987

1987

1987

1987

1988

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

Hindi

Tamil

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Telugu

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Nagina. Directed by Harmesh Malhotra. Perf. Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor and Amrish Puri. Eastan Films. India: Eagle, 2008. VCD. Story of a female snake taking rebirth in human form to avenge the killing of her male partner. Tahkhana. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Hemant Birje and Aarti Gupta. Ramsay Productions. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2009. DVD. Property disputes within a feudal family result in murders within the family. Black magic and monster take centre stage as a search for the hidden treasure begins twenty years after these murders. Kashmora. Directed by S.B. Chakravarthy. Perf. Rajendra Prasad, Sarathbabu and Bhanupriya. Ushodhaya. India: Manisha, 2007. VCD. Mantric and tantric cosmic powers battle to protect the female protagonist from possession by an evil spirit. Dak Bangla. Directed by Keshu Ramsay. Perf. Marc Zuber, Rajan Sippy and Swapna. Ramsay Productions. India: Time Video (date of release unknown). VCD. A mummy comes back to life in a haunted palace and causes mayhem. Khooni Mahal. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Raj Kiran and Shoma Anand. M.K.B Films. India: Bombino (date of release unknown). VCD. A monster is awakened accidently by a group of people. Veendum Lisa. Directed by Baby. Perf. Nizhalgal Ravi and Shari. Asha Creations. India: T-Series, 2011. DVD. Sequel to Lisa. Lisa, an NRI, is murdered by her lover’s friends, but without his knowledge. Her spirit possesses the body of her lover’s wife and avenges her murder by killing her murderers. My Dear Lisa. Directed by Baby. Perf. Nizhalgal Ravi and Shari. Bhavaria International. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). VCD. Tamil adaptation of the Malayalam Veendum Lisa. Bees Saal Baad. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. Perf. Mithun Chakraborty and Dimple Kapadia. Nishi Productions. India: Moser Baer. 2008. VCD. A spirit claiming to be the wife of a male protagonist from a previous birth wants to take him back to her own world. A battle ensues to prevent her from doing so.

Year of release

1988

1988

1988

1988

1989

1989

No.

89.

90.

91.

92.

93.

94.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Bangla

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Kabrastan. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Hemant Birje and Kamna. M.K.B. Films. India: Nupur, 2007. VCD. Adultery leads to murder, which in turn leads to unleashing of the evil spirit to avenge the death. Veerana. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Jasmin and Hemant Birje. Om Sai Productions. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2009. DVD. A witch and a vampire play havoc in a female protagonist’s life owing to a generational feud between the vampire and the ancestors of the concerned family. Woh Phir Aayegi. Directed by B.R. Ishara. Perf. Rajesh Khanna and Moon Moon Sen. Indus. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. The spirit of a dead woman possesses the body of the female protagonist to avenge her killing. Karoti. Directed by Ajoy Banerjee. Perf. Robi Ghosh and Debraj Ray. India: Angel Video (date of release unknown). VCD. One of those typical low-budget Bangla horror films that border on soft-porn category. The film depicts a traumatised spirit's revenge against the brutality committed on her. Khooni Murdaa. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Deepak Parashar and Sripradha. M.K.B. Films. India: Priya, 2007. VCD. An obsessive male lover pursues a female protagonist before he is killed. But then, the spirit of the dead rises and haunts her and people who killed him. Nache Nagin Gali Gali. Directed by Mohanji Prasad. Perf. Meenakshi Seshadri and Nitish Bharadwaj. Neesha Manish Arts. India: Eagle (date of release unknown). VCD. An evil sorcerer separates two love-making snakes. They take rebirth as humans to avenge their murder.

Film

1989

1989

1989

1989

1989

1989

1989

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

101.

Marathi

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Nigahen. Directed by Harmesh Malhotra. Perf. Sridevi and Sunny Deol. Eastern Films. India: Eagle, 2008. VCD. Sequel to Nagina, it presents the story of the next generation of the snake-woman who has to save both herself and her husband from the clutches of a powerful tantrik. Purani Haveli. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Deepak Parashar and Amita Nangia. Sarvodaya Studios. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2006. DVD. A gripping tale of horror in an abandoned mansion recently bought by new people. Sau Saal Baad. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Hemant Birje and Sahila Chaddha. Aarti Pictures. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. A monster wants to bring his lover back to life. Adharvam. Directed by Dennis Joseph. Perf. Mammootty, Ganesh Kumar and Parvathy. Manthraa. India: T-Series, 2010. VCD. The central male character turns his considerable accomplishments to black magic to avenge his lower-caste mother’s and his humiliation at the hands of upper-caste feudal lords in a Kerala village. Kalpana House. Directed by P. Chandrakumar. Perf. Kapil Dev and Divya. Super Film International. India: Wilson Videos, 2010. VCD. The spirit of a dead girl comes back to haunt the male protagonist who had a relationship with her before his marriage. The house becomes the epicentre of horror. Nishi Trishna. Directed by Parimal Bhattacharya. Perf. Prasenjeet and Moon Moon Sen. S.B. Films. India: Angel Digital, 2009. VCD. One of those rare occasions in Bangla cinema where the figure of a vampire is shown. The protagonists go to a village mansion which is haunted by a vampire. Bhutacha Bhau. Directed by Sachin. Perf. Sachin and Ashok Saraf. Nandini Films. India: Golden Plaza, 2008. VCD. Horror and comedy intertwined in a big way as the film shows how a male protagonist accused of murder, which he did not commit, tries to prove his innocence. In this, he is helped by a friendly ghost.

Year of release

1989

1989

1995

1989

1989

1990

1990

No.

102.

103.

104.

105.

106.

107.

108.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Kannada

Telugu

Tamil

Marathi

Language

Ek Ratra Mantarleli. Directed by Shriram Lagoo. Perf. Ashwini Bhave and Ashutosh Gowarikar. Kuso Films. India: Prism (date of release unknown). VCD. The occupants of a house try to decode the mystery behind the sightings of a white sari-clad singing apparition. Nalaya Manithan. Directed by Velu Prabhakaran. Perf. Prabhu Ganesan and Amala. Perfect Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Prequel to Adhisaya Manithan, narrates the transformation of a man into a monster as a result of a scientific experiment gone awry. Tulasi Dalam. Directed by Yandamuri Veerendranath. Perf. Sharadh Babu and Aarati. Vani Films. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. VCD. Story of a young girl being possessed by a spirit. Ade Raaga Ade Haadu. Directed by M.S. Rajashekar. Perf. Shivarajkumar and Seema. Bhagavati Combines. India: Sri Ganesh Video (date of release unknown). VCD. A happily married couple is shocked to realise that the wife is possessed by the spirit of a woman who was her mother in the last birth. Idu Saadhya. Directed by Dinesh Babu. Perf. Anant Nag and Shankar Nag. Chamundeshwari Studio. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Reminiscent of the slasher genre. A killer is on a rampage inside a drama theatre. Amavas Ki Raat. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Kiran Kumar and Kunika. Shanti Enterprises. India: Priya, 2009. VCD. Occult practices, magic and sorcery become the central focus of the film as a demon is first given birth to and later killed to protect the society. Bandh Darwaza. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Perf. Hashmat Khan and Manjeet Kullar. Ramsay Productions. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2006. DVD. A female protagonist is used by a demon to extract revenge from her ancestors who had killed and buried him.

Film

1990

1990

1990

1990

1990

1991

1991

109.

110.

111.

112.

113.

114.

115.

Hindi

Hindi

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Shaitani Ilaaka. Directed by Kiran Ramsay. Perf. Sripradha and Deepak Parashar. Ramsay Productions. India: Time, 2004. VCD. The film narrates the story of an evil witch who sacrifices humans at the altar of a devil. Tum Mere Ho. Directed by Tahir Hussain. Perf. Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla. Tahir Husain Enterprises. India: Shemaroo, 2010. DVD. Story of snake-charmer tribal community where a male protagonist is blessed with a magical snake-charming powers. Adhisaya Manithan. Directed by Velu Prabhakaran. Perf. Nizhalgal Ravi and Gautami. Perfect Cine Arts. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Classic case of scientific experiment on human body gone awry, leading to the creation of a monster who is out on a mass killing spree. Pathimoonam Number Veedu. Directed by Baby. Perf. Nizhalgal Ravi and Sadhana. Aasha Creations. India: Real Music (date of release unknown). DVD. The male protagonist with his family moved into a house that was haunted by the spirit of a dead lady. Bhayankara Pisachi. Directed by Sajjan. Perf. Indrajit and Laila. (Production company unknown). India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Story of a spirit of a woman out to take revenge. Aakhri Cheekh. Directed by Kiran Ramsay. Perf. Vijay Arora and Anil Dhawan. Ramsay Productions. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Several women are killed after a male protagonist traps them into a romantic/sexual liaison. He is finally caught and killed. However, he comes back from dead to haunt people. House No. 13. Directed by Baby. Perf. Anil Dhawan and Leena Nair. DVF Investments. India: Time (date of release unknown). VCD. Remake of the Tamil Pathimoonam Number Veedu.

Year of release

1991

1991

1991

1991

1991

1992

No.

116.

117.

118.

119.

120.

121.

Appendix (Continued)

Malayalam

Tamil

Tamil

Marathi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Khooni Raat. Directed by J.D. Lawrence. Perf. Beena Banerjee and Saahil Chadha. (Production company unknown). India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. The female protagonist is raped and killed by a group of people. She rises from the dead to take revenge. Roohani Taaqat. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. Perf. Shagufta Ali and Rana Jung Bahadur. Punj Films. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. A group of city people come to a village and rape a woman. Upon which the locals insist to the local exorcist to invoke a demon to take revenge. The demon rises and causes mayhem. Kaal Ratri Bara Vajta. Directed by Bhaskar Jadhav. Perf. Pramod Shinde and Alka Kubal. Abhijaat Chitra. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. A young man comes to a village and takes shelter in a deserted bungalow on a rainy night. He meets some characters who commit suicide in front of him. In the morning, he is told that those characters had died fifteen years back. Uruvam. Directed by G.M. Kumar. Perf. Mohan and Pallavi. Prathik Pictures. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. New tenants in a house are pursued by the evil spirits let loose by the earlier tenant through black magic. Vaa Arugil Vaa. Directed by Kalaivanan Kannadasan. Perf. Ramya Krishnan and Raja. Chozha Cine Arts. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). DVD. A female protagonist is tortured to death by her in-laws. Her spirit gets inside a doll and starts killing them one by one. Aayushkalam. Directed by Kamal. Perf. Jayaram and Mukesh. Evershine Productions. India: Empire, 2007. VCD. A heart transplant patient discovers to his utter shock that he was able to see the spirit of the person whose heart has been given to him. And that no one else is able to see the spirit.

Film

1992

1992

1992

1992

1992

1992

1993

122.

123.

124.

125.

126.

127.

128.

Malayalam

Kannada

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Malayalam

(Continued)

Yodha. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan. Perf. Mohanlal, Madhu and Puneet Issar. Saga Films. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. The story oscillates between Himalayas, where a monastery is captured by black magicians, and Kerala, the place of the saviour in the form of an unemployed youth who saves the monastery. Junoon. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt. Perf. Rahul Roy and Pooja Bhatt. Vishesh Films. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Werewolves find a new local habitation in the shape, alternately, of Bollywood’s then leading hunk Rahul Roy and our very own national animal, the tiger. Maa. Directed by Ajay Kashyap. Perf. Jeetendra and Jaya Prada. Shantketan Films. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. A typical 1990s family drama in Hindi films about cruel in-laws. Only this time, the spirit of a dead mother comes back to save her children, husband and a pet dog from the evil clutches of her in-laws and other enemies. Raat. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Revathi, Rohini Hattangadi and Om Puri. Boney Kapoor and Verma Creations. India: Shemaroo, 2007. VCD. A young lady is possessed by the spirit of a woman when her family shifts its residence to a semi-urban location. The spirit threatens to kill her lover and her family members. Suryavanshi. Directed by Rakesh Kumar. Perf. Salman Khan, Amrita Singh and Sheeba. Sainath Films International. India: Shemaroo, 2011. DVD. A film based on the reincarnation theme. The male protagonist is reborn but is pursued by a spirit who is madly in love with him. Aathma Bandhana. Directed by Srikanth Nahatha. Perf. Jaya Prada and Shashikumar. Sri Sarvashakthi Films. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2008. VCD. The film narrativises horror through the spirit possession of a doll. Manichitrathazhu. Directed by Fazil. Perf. Mohanlal, Shobana, Suresh Gopi and Nedumudi Venu. Swargachitra. India: Moser Baer and Saina, 2007. VCD. In an uncannily feminist rendition of the dilemma of the bored housewife, this film takes the newly married female protagonist’s lack of self-fulfilment within marriage to the level of manifest psychological trauma when she finds herself possessed by the spirit of an extremely refined and creative courtesan who in the past lived in the same house.

Year of release

1993

1993

1993

1996

1996

1997

No.

129.

130.

131.

132.

133.

134.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Telugu

Hindi

Kannada

Telugu

Marathi

Language

Zapatlela. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. Perf. Mahesh Kothare and Laxmikant Berde. Jenima Films International. India: Prism, 2010. VCD. The spirit of a dreaded gangster possesses a doll and creates mayhem. The film can be classified as an Indian version of the Hollywood Chucky series. Nadi Rathri. Directed by Raja. Perf. Jennifer and Lavanya. Three Star Films. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. The female protagonist is raped and murdered by three people. The spirit of the dead woman then possesses the body of another woman to take revenge. Shhh! Directed by Upendra Rao. Perf. Kumar Govind and Kashinath. SK Films. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2008. VCD. Reminiscent of slasher genre. A male protagonist faked his death and puts up a mask of demon and is on a killing spree. Papi Gudia. Directed by Lawrence D’Souza. Perf. Avinash Wadhawan and Karishma Kapoor. Aum Films. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. A black magic practitioner enters into a doll’s body to commit a major crime, but in the process gets trapped in the doll’s body. Loosely based on the Child’s Play series. Deyyam. Directed by Ram Gopal Verma. Perf. J.D. Chakravarthy and Maheswari. Varma Corporation. India: Bhavani Media (date of release unknown). DVD. A young woman moves to the countryside with her sister and brother-in-law. She is the only survivor after a gruesome deyyam or spirit destroys her family in the wilderness. Bhayaanak Panjaa. Directed by R. Mittal. Perf. Anil Dhawan and Tina Ghai. Nirmala Movies. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. A murder takes place in a village. A group of reporters arrive from city to investigate the murder. They begin to be haunted by an evil spirit.

Film

1997

1998

1998

1998

1998

1999

2000

135.

136.

137.

138.

139.

140.

141.

Hindi

Malayalam

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Kannada

(Continued)

Nagamandala. Directed by T.S. Nagabharana. Perf. Prakash Raj and Vijayalakshmi. Banner Yajman Enterprises. India: T-Series, 2007. DVD. Story of an unhappy wife who is maltreated by her husband. A snake-turned-human comes and provides her with love and affection. Qatil Chandalini. Directed by Rajan Lyallpuri. Perf. Imtiaz Khan and Parveen Khan. (Production company unknown). India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. The female protagonist, who wants to participate in a Miss India competition, gets trapped in a haunted training institute. Ennu Swantham Janakikutty. Directed by Hariharan. Perf. Jomol and Chanchal. Kalpaka Films. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The spirit of a dead woman helps a young female protagonist to win the love of the person she had fallen in love with. Mayilpeelikkavu. Directed by Anil Kumar and Babu Pisharadi. Perf. Kunchacko Boban, Jomol and Thilakan. Rohit Films. India: Moser Baer, 2008. Lover and beloved brutally murdered, return reincarnate to take revenge on their killer. Putuler Protishodh. Directed by Rabi Kinagi. Perf. Rachana Banerjee, Siddhant Mahapatra and Debu Bose. Shree Maruti Films. India: Eagle (date of release unknown). VCD. Probably for the first time, Bangla cinema engages with the theme of a doll possessed by a spirit out to take revenge. Aakasha Ganga. Directed by Vinayan. Perf. Divya Unni and Mukesh. Aakash Films. India: Harmony, 2011. VCD. Caste issues arise as the descendant of an upper-caste family has a relationship with a lower-caste woman. The upper-caste family, upon discovery of their affair, burns her alive. The woman returns as a yakshi to avenge her murder. Kaali Pahadi. Directed by Kishan Shah. Perf. Satnam Kaur and Amit Pancholi. Mangla. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Horror story about a couple in a village who are unable to have children of their own.

Year of release

2000

2000

2000

2000

2001

2001

No.

142.

143.

144.

145.

146.

147.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Tamil

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Language

Devadoothan. Directed by Sibi Malayil. Perf. Mohanlal and Jaya Prada. Kokers Productions. India: Empire (date of release unknown). VCD. A well-reputed musician becomes an agent of reunion of two lovers separated when the girl’s parents kill her paramour. Indriyam. Directed by George Kithu. Perf. Nishanth Sagar and Lena. Akai Films. India: Harmony, 2008. VCD. An anthropological expedition of college-going students to a tribal area leads to the accidental unleashing of a spirit leading to disastrous circumstances. Summer Palace. Directed by K. Murali. Perf. Krishna Kumar and Sindhu. Aruvi Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A couple visits the summer palace for their honeymoon. The male protagonist is possessed by the spirit of a girl who was killed by the grandfather of his wife. Athey Manithan. Directed by K. Rajeshwar. Perf. Livingston and Maheswari. Annai Cine Arts. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). DVD. A male protagonist falls in love with a woman. But he decides to marry another woman and in the process, kills his pregnant paramour. The spirit of the dead woman then haunts the newly wed couple. Aks. Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Perf. Amitabh Bachchan, Nandita Das and Manoj Bajpai. A.B.C.L. India: Eros Entertainment, 2007. DVD. A cop kills a dreaded criminal. But the spirit of this dead criminal enters the body of the cop and rapes the cop’s wife and assassinates the prime minister. Dafan. Directed by Jitendra Chawda. Perf. Satnam Kaur and Mohan Joshi. Ishwar Films Kanta. India: Ultra, 2005. VCD. A female protagonist who often had nightmare about an ancestral house sets to decode the mystery. But she is murdered. Then her spirit comes back from the dead to haunt her murderers.

Film

2001

2001

2001

2001

2002

2002

2002

148.

149.

150.

151.

152.

153.

154.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Maut Ki Haveli. Directed by A. Raja. Perf. Sohail Khan and Anil Nagrath. R.D. Films. India: Priya, 2009. DVD. Story of protagonists trapped in a haunted palatial mansion. Qatil Chudail. Directed by Kanti Shah. Perf. Anil Nagrath and Jhony Nirmal. Pali Films. India: Friends (date of release unknown). VCD. The narrative centres around an evil-spirit-possessed female protagonist. Meghasandesam. Directed by Rajasenan. Perf. Suresh Gopi and Samyuktha Varma. Jayalakshmi Films. India: Empire, 2008. VCD. The spirit of a student who loved her teacher when alive now wants to kill the girlfriend of the same teacher. Neelambari. Directed by Surya. Perf. Devaraj and Ramya Krishnan. Sri Lakshmi Sai Creations. India: Manoranjan Video, 2010. VCD. A TV channel reporter team arrives to cover a reported human sacrifice rituals taking place in a village. All the members of the unit get killed mysteriously. Darwaza. Directed by Kanti Shah. Perf. Anil Nagrath and Sapna. Pali Films. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. A male protagonist always scares people away for fun by wearing masks symbolising evil. One day, he is actually possessed by an evil spirit and starts killing people. Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. Perf. Akshay Kumar and Sunny Deol. Shankar Movies. India: Captain (date of release unknown). DVD. Snake myths, reincarnation and male violence are the staple diet of this film. The female protagonist after being brutally assaulted by the villains commits suicide and joins her lover from the past birth as a spirit to take revenge on the villains. Raaz. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu. Tips Films. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. The female protagonist comes to know that her husband had an adulterous affair with a girl. The spirit of the dead girl now communicates with her.

Year of release

2002

2002

2002

2003

2003

No.

155.

156.

157.

158.

159.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Malayalam

Malayalam

Language

Ee Bhargavi Nilayam. Directed by Benni P. Thomas. Perf. Suresh Krishna and Vani Viswanath. Highlight Creation. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. A wronged wife becomes a yakshi in her quest to avenge herself on her husband whose earlier career as local gangster and convict has now given way in his quest for great power through chattan seva. Pakalpooram. Directed by Anil Babu. Perf. Mukesh and Geethu Mohandas. Damor Cinema. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. A voluptuous yakshi has preyed on and killed three dozen Namboodari young men. Order is restored by a young and devout Namboodari whose strategy is to inflame the yakshi by seducing a real virgin woman in front of her. Subdued only temporarily, the yakshi reappears only to have the same offices performed by the natural son of the first Namboodari conqueror of the rampaging spirit. Marma. Directed by Sunil Kumar Desai. Perf. Prema, Anand and Kishori Ballal. Royal Movie Makers. India: Sree Nakoda Video, 2008. VCD. A woman witnesses a murder and is herself attacked by the murderer. Her trauma thereafter leads to a therapist concluding that she has been hallucinating, as there were no other witnesses to this murder. Bhoot. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Ajay Devgan, Urmila Matondkar, Nana Patekar and Rekha. Dream Merchants Enterprise and Varma Corporation. India: T-Series, 2011. DVD. Horror enters urban landscape as we find the possession of a female protagonist by the spirit of a dead girl in a high-rise apartment building in Mumbai. The spirit wants to take revenge of her murder. Darna Mana Hai. Directed by Prawaal Raman. Perf. Nana Patekar, Sanjay Kapur and Saif Ali Khan. A.K Sera Sera/Varma Corporation Production. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Six different stories are weaved together, probably first time in Indian horror cinema, only to have a common link in the end.

Film

2003

2003

2003

2003

2003

2003

2004

160.

161.

162.

163.

164.

165.

166.

Hindi

Tamil

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

Hawa. Directed by Guddu Dhanoa. Perf. Tabu. Jeet Entertainment. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Tribal beliefs come to the fore as the spirits of several sinners killed by a tribe hundreds of years ago combine together in the form of an unknown entity and attack the female protagonist and her family. Kucch To Hai. Directed by Anurag Basu and Anil V. Kumar. Perf. Tusshar Kapoor and Esha Deol. Shri Siddhivinayak Films. India: Video Sound, 2003. DVD. A group of students accidentally kill their professor who comes back in a haunting scenario. Pyaasa Haiwan. Directed by Kanti Shah. Perf. Sapna and Vinod Tripathi. Pali Films. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. A monster plays havoc in the lives of the main protagonists. Saaya. Directed by Anurag Basu. Perf. John Abraham and Tara Sharma. Vishesh Films. India: Moser Baer, 2013. DVD. A loving couple is separated with the sudden death of the female protagonist. However, the male protagonist feels that he can still communicate with her. Sssshhh . . . Directed by Pawan Kaul. Perf. Dino Morea and Tanishaa Mukerji. Cinevista. India: Eros Entertainment, 2003. DVD. Serial killer out on a killing spree in mysterious circumstances. Whistle. Directed by J.D. and Jerry. Perf. Sherin and Vikramaditya. Media Dreams. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown), DVD. Reminiscent of slasher genre. A female protagonist after being intensely ragged commits suicide. Then, a spate of killings take place and people apprehend the role of a spirit. Ho Sakta Hai!. Directed by Wilson Louis. Perf. Victor Banerjee and Khalid Siddiqui. Ankk Media Arts. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. The caretaker’s wife performs voodoo rituals to kill the original landlords of the house.

Year of release

2004

2004

2004

2004

2004

2004

No.

167.

168.

169.

170.

171.

172.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Hum Kaun Hai?. Directed by Ravi Sharma Shankar. Perf. Amitabh Bachchan and Dimple Kapadia. 4U2C Films. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. The story of a female protagonist who lives in a big mansion with her two small children. Three of her servants disappear mysteriously and then she writes a letter to the employment agency. Three people turn up. She employs them. Later she could sense the presence of some ghostly apparitions. Khooni. Directed by Kanti Shah. Perf. Amit Pachori and Sapna. Pali Films. India: Friends (date of release unknown). VCD. A husband discovers that his wife is having an adulterous relationship. But he is killed. Soon he rises from the dead in the form of a zombie. Krishna Cottage. Directed by Santram Varma. Perf. Sohail Khan and Isha Koppikar. Balaji Films Limited. India: Bombino Digital Video, 2004. VCD. A few college kids discover on the sly a library book withdrawn from circulation; strange things ensue. Rakht. Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar. Perf. Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty and Bipasha Basu. Cine Blitz Productions. India: Shemaroo, 2004. DVD. A young widow with an eight-year-old child is also a tarot card reader. Life becomes difficult for her as she begins seeing visions of her clients’ future. Rudraksh. Directed by Mani Shankar. Perf. Sanjay Dutt and Bipasha Basu. Karma Entertainment. India: Shemaroo, 2011. DVD. Science fiction which narrates the search for voodoo practices that lies beyond the scientific rationalisation. Vaastu Shastra. Directed by Sourabh Usha Narang. Perf. Sushmita Sen, Ahsaas Channa and J.D. Chakravarthy. A.K. Sera Sera/Ram Gopal Varma Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. A happily married couple shift to a new residence in a deserted place not favoured according to the principles of Vaastu. Soon eerie things start happening.

Film

2004

2004

2004

2004

2004

2004

2004

173.

174.

175.

176.

177.

178.

179.

Marathi

Marathi

Marathi

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

(Continued)

Agninakshathram. Directed by Karim. Perf. Suresh Gopi and Biju Menon. Rashmi Arts International. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. A child endowed with supernatural powers is born in a Namboodari homestead, which has lost glory and lost golden statuette of the resident goddess. She helps reclaim in the face of the evil machinations of evil tantriks who are also lower caste. Aparichithan. Directed by Sanjeev Sivan. Perf. Kavya Madhavan and Karthika. Valiyaveetil. India: Harmony, 2009. VCD. A group of college-going friends dabble into the world of Ouija board and face the consequences. Vellinakshatram. Directed by Vinayan. Perf. Taruni Sachdev and Prithviraj Sukumaran. Akkash Films. India: Empire, 2008. VCD. A child is possessed by a spirit out to take revenge for historical injustices. Vismayathumbathu. Directed by Fazil. Perf. Mohanlal and Mukesh. Ammu International. India: Harmony, 2010. VCD. The male protagonist is endowed with sixth-sense abilities to foresee future. Akalpit. Directed by Sanjay Surkar. Perf. Avinash Narkar and Aishwarya Narkar. Plus Entertainment. India: Eagle, 2005. VCD. The story of how the spirit of a murdered girl comes back to haunt her killers. Pachadlela. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. Perf. Shreyas Talpade and Bharat Jadhav. Jenima Films International. India: Video Palace, 2010. VCD. A group of city friends shift to a rural area because of transfer of their jobs. They rent a bungalow which had a reputation of being haunted. One of the very few films in Indian horror cinema that shows multiple ghosts possessing the body of the same protagonist. Savarkhed Ek Gaon. Directed by Rajeev Patil. Perf. Vikram Gokhale and Sadashiv Amrapurkar. Eera Films. India: Everest Entertainment (date of release unknown). DVD. An entire village lives in fear and believe that they are ill-fated with horror.

Year of release

2004

2004

2004

2005

2005

2005

No.

180.

181.

182.

184.

185.

186.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Telugu

Tamil

Language

Adhu. Directed by Ramesh Balakrishnan. Perf. Sneha and Vijayan. Visswas Films. India: Big Home Video, 2008. DVD. After a cornea transplantation, a young girl starts having mysterious visions. It is a remake of the 2002 Thai film The Eye and has inspired Naina in Hindi. Swetha Naagu. Directed by Sanjeeva. Perf. Soundarya and Abbas. CV Arts. India: Shalimar, 2006. VCD. A female scholar working on snakes goes to a forest in search of more research on snake myths. There she is constantly hounded by a huge white snake who wants to bite her. Apthamitra. Directed by P. Vasu. Perf. Soundarya, Vishnuvardhan and Ramesh Arvind. Dwarakish Chithra. India: Sri Ganesh Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Kannada rendition of the Malayalam Manichitrathazhu. Anjaane: The Unknown. Directed by Harry W. Fernandes. Perf. Sanjay Kapoor and Manisha Koirala. Rishi Film International. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Heavily inspired by the 2001 American horror film The Others, it shows how a family breaks because of an adulterous affair of the husband and the trauma of the battle for custody of their children. Kaal. Directed by Soham Shah. Perf. John Abraham and Ajay Devgan. Dharma Productions. India: Yash Raj Films, 2005. DVD. A wildlife expert along with some villagers investigate a series of mysterious killings in a wildlife park. Naina. Directed by Shripal Morakhia. Perf. Urmila Matondkar and Anuj Sawhney. iDream Productions. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Hindi rendition of Adhu Tamil. The female protagonist, who lost her eyesight in childhood, gets back her vision through an operation. But suddenly, she starts seeing eerie things.

Film

2005

2005

2005

2005

2005

2005

2005

187.

188.

189.

190.

191.

192.

193.

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Bangla

Bangla

Malayalam

Hindi

(Continued)

Paheli. Directed by Amol Palekar. Perf. Rani Mukherjee and Shah Rukh Khan. Red Chillies Entertainment. India: Eros International, 2008. DVD. In the absence of her husband (who left her just after marriage and started looking after family business in a distant land), the female protagonist encounters a ghost who is a lookalike of her husband and starts having an affair with it fully aware that it is only an apparition. Anandabhadram. Directed by Santosh Sivan. Perf. Nedumudi Venu and Kavya Madhavan. Sri Bhadra Pictures. India: Empire, 2007. DVD. A supernatural fairy thriller set in rural Kerala dealing with proponents of black magic. The male protagonist comes from the United States to light the lamps at a dark and mysterious temple of Shiva, but then falls into trouble. Mantra. Directed by Rabiranjan Maitra. Perf. Sabyasachi Chakraborty. Saregama Films. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. A doll is possessed by the spirit of a dreaded gangster. Raat Barota Paanch. Directed by Saran Dutta. Perf. Paron Bandhopadhyay and Ananya. (Production company unknown). India: Eskay Video, 2005. VCD. Two lovers take shelter on a rainy night with the family of a haunted house and soon they are in trouble. Trouble starts precisely at five minutes past twelve at night. Anniyan. Directed by S. Shankar. Perf. Vikram and Sadha. Oscar Films. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown). DVD. Reminiscent of psychological thriller genre. The male protagonist suffers from multiple disorder syndrome and takes up different identities on a day-to-day basis. Chandramukhi. Directed by P. Vasu. Perf. Rajnikant, Jyotika and Vijayakumar. Sivaji Productions. India: AP International, 2005. DVD. Tamil rendition of the Malayalam Manichitrathazhu. A Film By Aravind. Directed by Shekhar Suri. Perf. Rajiv Kanakala, Richard Rishi and Sherlyn Chopra. Sridhar Cinema. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2007. VCD. The celebrity duo of a successful director and lead actor are in trouble as the director realises that everything in their lives are happening according to a film script he had received from a mysterious and unknown writer.

Year of release

2006

2006

2006

2006

2006

2006

No.

194.

195.

196.

197.

198.

199.

Appendix (Continued)

Telugu

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Darna Zaroori Hai. Directed by J.D. Chakravarthy. Perf. Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Shetty and Anil Kapoor. A.K. Sera Sera/Ram Gopal Varma Productions. India: SEPL, 2007. VCD. Produced in the mould of the earlier thriller Darna Mana Hai, this film too weaves six different stories with a common end. Eight: The Power of Shani. Directed by Karan Razdan. Perf. Gulshan Grover and Meghna Naidu. United Dream Entertainments. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. The male protagonist is gifted with the ability to see ghosts. Things become problematic when he comes to know that his own family is being haunted. Moonnamathoral. Directed by V.K. Prakash. Perf. Jayaram and Vineeth. Fairy Queen Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Two young women rent a bungalow, only to be haunted everyday by a variety of spirits. Halfway into the film, we realise that they themselves are spirits whose untimely exits from the world of living is avenged by a female writer through whose body they gain justice and are liberated into a more complete death. Tanthra. Directed by K.J. Bose. Perf. Aravinder, Aishwarya, Kiran Raj and Shweta Menon. M2R2 Movie Makers. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Indian cinema for the first time tries to explore the tantric studies and practices as a way of life with the plot having its setting in Kodukkollur Mana in north Malabar, centre for tantric studies. Atripta Chhaya. Directed by Dharam. Perf. Shakti Kapoor and Biswajeet. Colour Scope Films. India: Angel Digital, 2006. VCD. The spirit of a dead girl comes back to avenge her murder. Photo. Directed by Siva Nageswara Rao. Perf. Anand, Mukta, Anjali and Jayasudha. (Production company unknown). India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Telugu rendition of Sivi (Tamil).

Film

2006

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

200.

201.

202.

203.

204.

205.

206.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

(Continued)

Mohini 9886788888. Directed by Rajendra Singh Babu. Perf. Auditya Singh and Sadha. Sri Lakshmi Venkateswara Arts. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2008. VCD. Whenever somebody receives a phone call from the number 9886788888, he/she mysteriously dies. Bhool Bhulaiya. Directed by Priyadarshan. Perf. Akshay Kumar, Shiney Ahuja and Vidya Balan. T-Series. India: T-Series, 2007. DVD. Hindi rendition of Manichitrathazhu. Chhodon Naa Yaar. Directed by Dilip Sood. Perf. Jimmy Shergill and Kim Sharma. Swadeshi Entertainment. India: Shree International, 2007. DVD. A group of college friends go to a village to shoot a film. There they are haunted by a spirit. Darling. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Fardeen Khan and Esha Deol. T-Series. India: Eros Entertainment. 2007. DVD. Adultery leads to unwanted pregnancy. The male protagonist kills his pregnant beloved. But she rises from the dead to haunt him. Gauri: The Unborn. Directed by Akku Akbar. Perf. Mohan Azaad and Anupam Kher. Adlabs. India: Adlabs, 2007. DVD. A couple goes to the countryside with their daughter to spend their holidays. Soon they encounter eerie happenings. Ghutan. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. Perf. Aryan Vaid and Pooja Bharti. Ramsay Entertainments. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. The female protagonist comes to know that her husband is having an extramarital affair. He kills her, but she comes back from the dead to take revenge. Om Shanti Om. Directed by Farah Khan. Perf. Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shreyas Talpade and Kiron Kher. Red Chillies Entertainment. India: Eros, 2007. DVD. Based on the theme of reincarnation, reminds us of the Hindi films Madhumati and Karz.

Year of release

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

No.

207.

208.

209.

210

211.

Appendix (Continued)

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Malayalam

Malayalam

Language

Soorya Kireedam. Directed by George Kithu. Perf. Indrajith Sukumaran and Remya Nambeesan. (Production details unknown). India: Highness Video, 2007. VCD. The services of an exorcist is called upon when a young girl is suspected of being possessed. Subhadram. Directed by Sreelal Devaraj. Perf. Jayakrishnan and Mythili Roy. Five Star Productions. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. It is the story of how the fiancé of a dead young girl revisits under an assumed identity the people he suspects of having killed her, even as her spirit takes advantage of the unravelling mental balance of these individuals and avenges her own murder. Muni. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. Perf. Raghava Lawrence, Raj Kiran and Vedika. Gemini Productions. India: Santosh Videos India, 2007. VCD. The male protagonist is set ablaze by enemies; his spirit enters the body of another male protagonist, a timorous individual who is fed a regular diet of horror stories by his mother when he was a child, and avenges himself and in the process, avenges an entire village his enemies had been keeping in thrall. Sivi. Directed by K.R. Senthil Nathan. Perf. Yogi and Jaisree Rao. BKS Cini Circuit. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. A young photographer and his girlfriend begin to be haunted by the spirit of a young lady. Later it was discovered that she was taking revenge on the photographer and his friends for their past misdeeds. Mantra. Directed by Osho Tulasi Ram. Perf. Sivaji, Charmy Kaur and Kausha Rach. Gen Next Movies. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. DVD. Two young girls try to pay off the monetary debts of their father by asking the goon sent by the moneylender to help them sell their ancestral mansion. They are shocked to find out that the house is haunted.

Film

2007

2008

2008

2008

2008

2008

2008

212.

213.

214.

215.

216.

217.

218.

Telugu

Telugu

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

(Continued)

Banamathi. Directed by Jayasimha Musun. Perf. Devaraj and Sobha Raj. Gurukul Movies. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2009. VCD. Elaborate indigenous exorcism rituals required to banish the evil spirit creating mayhem. 1920. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Adah Sharma and Rajneesh Duggal. ASA Productions. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. A couple starts living in a haunted mansion which has a gory history of its own. The film is set in 1920 with a flashback going back to 1857. Anamika: The Untold Story. Directed by Anant Mahadevan. Perf. Dino Morea and Minissha Lamba. Bhanwarlal Sharma Productions. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. The caretaker of a palatial household falls in love with the young industrialist in the family and kills his first wife and has plans to kill his second wife too. Karzzzz. Directed by Satish Kaushik. Perf. Himesh Reshammiya and Urmila Matondkar. Reliance Entertainment. India: Adlabs, 2008. DVD. Remake of Karz. Phoonk. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Sudeep, Anu Ansari and Ahsaas Channa. One More Thought Production. India: Junglee Music, 2008. DVD. The daughter of a construction engineer is possessed by an evil spirit sent by her father’s disgruntled former employees who had been sacked because of their involvement in a scam. Raksha. Directed by Vamsikrishna Akella. Perf. Jagapathi Babu, Rajeev and Kalyani. One More Thought and Zed3 Pictures. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. DVD. Telugu rendition of the Hindi Phoonk. Three. Directed by Shekhar Suri. Perf. Richard Rishi and Rajiv Kanakala. Raj (India) Entertainments. India: Universal Home Entertainment, 2008. DVD. The female protagonist is haunted regularly with the voice of a male protagonist she knew sometime back.

Year of release

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

No.

219.

220.

221.

222.

223.

224.

Appendix (Continued)

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

13B. Directed by Vikram K. Kumar. Perf. R. Madhavan, Neetu Chandra and Poonam Dhillon. Big Pictures. India: T-Series, 2009. DVD. A family moves to a new location and discovers that their TV is screening a certain family soap which portrays whatever is going to happen to the family in immediate future. To their shock, they realise that no such program is shown in any other TV sets in their locality. The Tamil version of the film is called Yavarum Nalam. Agyaat. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Nitin Kumar Reddy and Priyanka Kothari. UTV Motion Pictures. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. A film-shooting unit goes to the forests in Sri Lanka only to realise that some unknown entity is killing them one by one. Raaz: The Mystery Continues. Directed by Mohit Suri. Perf. Emraan Hashmi and Kangana Ranaut. Vishesh Films. India: Sony BMG, 2009. VCD. Not a sequel to Raaz. A painter’s father was about to disclose the pollution caused by a chemical plant to the people. But he is murdered, triggering off a series of epiphanic revelations in a woman far away and unconnected to him. Chemistry. Directed by Viji Thampi. Perf. Vineeth, Saranya Mohan and Shilpa Bala. Vaishnavi Creations. India: Empire, 2010. DVD. When three students of an engineering college are found dead in the chemistry lab after drinking poison, a new occupant of the hostel is possessed. Kana Kanmani. Directed by Akku Akbar. Perf. Jayaram, Padma Priya and Baby Nivedita. Aan Media. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. A Malayali couple aborts a female baby due to career and social ambitions. Years later, the spirit of that dead-yet-to-be-born child possesses the body of their small daughter to teach them a lesson. Explores the issue of the female infanticide. Kerala Cafe. Directed by Lal Jose et al. Perf. Thilakan and Fahadh Faasil. Backwater Media and Entertainment. India: Empire, 2010. DVD. The short film Mrityunjayam in the collection contains the narrative of horror. Story of a spooky ancestral house.

Film

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

225.

226.

227.

228.

229.

230.

Telugu

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Malayalam

(Continued)

Winter. Directed by Deepu Karunakaran. Perf. Jayaram and Bhavna. Jayalakshmy Films. India: Harmony, 2010. DVD. A wealthy doctor shifts to a huge house in the countryside in order to help one of his daughters recuperate from her stressful life in town, only to witness bizarre happenings. Vaastu theorists finally provide some clues, but the resolution is far away. Eeram. Directed by Arivazhagan Venkatachalam. Perf. Aadhi, Nandha and Sindhu Menon. S Pictures. India: Magna Sound Home Video (date of release unknown). DVD. The investigation of a suspected suicidal death of a girl triggers the discovery of some strong supernatural force. Jaganmohini. Directed by N.K. Vishwanathan. Perf. Namitha and Raja. Murali Cine Arts. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. The male protagonist falls in love with a lower-class/caste woman. But they are unable to marry. She gets killed. However, her spirit comes back to earth to save the life of the lover. Yavarum Nalam. Directed by Vikram K. Kumar. Perf. Madhavan, Neetu Chandra and Poonam Dhillon. Big Pictures. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Tamil rendition of the Hindi 13B. Aa Intlo. Directed by Chinna. Perf. Chinna and Mayuri Devan. 9 Entertainers. India: Volga Videos, 2009. DVD. A family moves into a new house and soon they encounter ghosts. Arundhati. Directed by Kodi Ramakrishna. Perf. Sonu Sood and Anushka Shetty. Mallemala Entertainments. India: Volga Videos, 2009. DVD. The female protagonist realises she is an incarnation of her own grandmother, who had sacrificed herself by self-mortification in order to kill an evil tantrik who torments her kingdom. Her struggle to once again put to sword this evil spirit ends in victory without her having to give up her mortal body this time round.

Year of release

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

2009

No.

231.

232.

233.

234.

235.

236.

Appendix (Continued)

Kannada

Kannada

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Language

Diary. Directed by Machakanti Rama Krishna. Perf. Sivaji and Shraddha Das. Gen Next Movies. India: Sri Venkateswara Videos, 2010. DVD. The male protagonist buys a house and he along with a newly acquainted female protagonist discover a diary in the house. They soon find out that the house is haunted by the spirit of the murdered wife of the diary writer. Indumathi. Directed by Harsha P. Reddy. Perf. Sivaji and Shweta Bhardwaj. Geomedia Arts. India: Universal Home Entertainment, 2009. DVD. A female protagonist steals huge amount of money from her office boss and runs away with her boyfriend. They take shelter in a house that has a haunted feel about it. Punnami Nagu. Directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy. Perf. Mumaith Khan and Rajiv Kanakala. Royal Film Company. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A female snake’s revenge on the snake poachers in the form of a woman. Ratri. Directed by Uday Shankar. Perf. Shayaji Shinde and Preeti Mehra. Annapurna Cine Creations. India: Volga, 2009. DVD. A thriller that is based on the assumption that ghosts are haunting the protagonists. Shishira. Directed by Manju Swaraj. Perf. Yashas, Prema and Meghana. Cine Sankula and CMB Ventures. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The protagonist, a rationalist, agrees to spend a night in a haunted bungalow on a dare; he emerges the next day fully convinced of the existence of phenomena that lie beyond the rationally explicable. Inspired by John Cusack’s 1408. Yaaradu? Directed by Srinivas Kaushik. Perf. M. Leelavathi, Vinod Raj and Ashwini. Smt. Leelavathi Combines. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2010. VCD. Some young people take a vacation in a scenic hamlet; three of them disappear within short notice, and their powerful fathers launch a search for the missing boys. The maid of the vacation resort is the prime suspect and the plot revisits old injuries.

Film

2010

2010

2010

2010

237.

238.

239.

240.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

A Flat. Directed by Hemant Madhukar. Perf. Sanjay Suri, Jimmy Shergill, Kaveri Jha, Aindrita Ray and Hazel Crowney. Anjum Rizvi Film Company and Y.T. Entertainment Ltd. India: Magna Home Video, 2011. DVD. The protagonist is on the hunt for a flat in Mumbai to settle down with his girlfriend. A friend loans him one as a stopgap arrangement. A spirit, who is trapped there, shows him via a diary that his friend had trapped her on false pretences, neglected her and also indirectly led to her death. She also shows him that his father had been involved in trying to rape her. The protagonist helps her attain revenge and moves on to a happy life. Click. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan. Perf. Shreyas Talpade, Sadha and Sneha Ullal. Pritish Nandy Communications. India: Moser Baer, 2010. VCD. A young woman discovers after an accident involving herself and her boyfriend that he, a photographer, had been indirectly responsible for the rape of a girl who loved him. His group of friends had raped her and a series of photographs of the incident are the only links between himself and this traumatised girl, who upon her death, haunts and kills all her rapists. At the end of the film, she is seen sitting on the photographer’s shoulder by his girlfriend, who now finds her own relationship with him changed by her knowledge of his past. Help. Directed by Rajeev Virani. Perf. Bobby Deol, Mugdha Godse and Sophia Handa. Rupali Aum Entertainment. India: Shree International, 2010. DVD. The female protagonist discovers on a visit to her home town in Mauritius that her mother who was thought to be insane was actually possessed by an evil spirit. This evil spirit inhabited the body of Pia’s triplet twin sister and causes mayhem. She and her husband manage to lay the spirit to rest, but it turns out at the end of the film that the spirit may have just taken the shape of her newborn. Hisss. Directed by Jennifer Lynch. Perf. Mallika Sherawat, Divya Dutta, Irrfan Khan and Jeff Doucette. Split Image Pictures Production. India: Shemaroo, 2010. DVD. A scientist seeking a cure for cancer traps a male snake in the hope that the female will surrender the naag mani if her partner is taken hostage. The rest of the film tracks the revenge of the female snake on the scientist for his torture and killing of her partner for his greed.

Year of release

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

No.

241.

242.

243.

244.

245.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Kaalo. Directed by Wilson Louis. Perf. Swini Khara, Aditya Srivastav, Kanwarjit Paintal and Sheela David. Beyond Dreams Entertainment. India: Beyond Dreams Entertainment, 2010. DVD. A bus passing through a desert landscape is suddenly under attack from a disgruntled witch who wants a young girl to be given to her in exchange for safety. One passenger steadfastly stands by the girl and helps her and the others to safety. Mallika. Directed by Wilson Louis. Perf. Sameer Dattani, Himanshu Malik and Suresh Menon. Glorious Entertainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The female protagonist sees constant visions of spirits and sets out to investigate. Phoonk 2. Directed by Milind Gadagkar. Perf. Sudeep, Amruta Khanvilkar and Ahsaas Channa. Sarthak Movies and ZED 3 Pictures Production. India: Moser Baer, 2012. VCD. The film is a sequel of Phoonk. As in that film, the ghost haunts the family of the protagonists, threatening to kill everyone till the father succeeds in destroying the spirit for now. Rokkk. Directed by Rajesh Ranshinge. Perf. Tanushree Dutta, Udita Goswami and Sachin Khedekar. Ikkon Films. India: Eagle Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. The female protagonist discovers that her new husband, who is much older than her, is at the heart of the mysterious curse haunting his mansion. Shaapit. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Aditya Narayan, Shweta Agarwal and Shubh Joshi. ASA Productions and Enterprises. India: Shree International, 2010. DVD. A couple are in love but cannot marry because a curse hangs on the female protagonist’s family’s female line: they are cursed to not marry because one of their male ancestors violated another family’s woman. The couple after much hardship break the curse and marry.

Film

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

246.

247.

248.

249.

250.

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

(Continued)

Swaha: Life Beyond Superstition. Directed by Manoj Sharma. Perf. Rikkee and Manoylo Svitlana. Blue Sky Entertainment. India: SEPL (date of release unknown). VCD. A saint visits the house of one of his devotees and experiences paranormal activities. Drona 2010. Directed by Shaji Kailas. Perf. Mammootty and Thilakan. Aroma Movies. India: Central Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. The film centres around a haunted palatial mansion. In Ghost House Inn. Directed by Lal. Perf. Mukesh, Jagadish, Siddique, Ashokan, Radhika and Nedumudi Venu. PNV and Lal Creations. India: Central Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. The male protagonist’s dreams of starting a resort in a property he has just bought in Ooty seem to be in trouble, as the property is allegedly haunted. He and his friends believe it to be so till they uncover a devious plot authored by an imposter priest and his helpers. Yakshiyum Njanum. Directed by Vinayan. Perf. Spadikam George, Gautham Krishn, Meghana Raj, Ricky, Thilakan and Jubil. R.G. Productions India. India: Empire, 2010. DVD. The male protagonist commits a crime and is sent to a mansion in order to stay hidden. There he befriends a girl who he discovers later is a yakshi who haunts the mansion for revenge on its owner, who is the cause of her own death. They help one another, but she is exorcised and eradicated by a priest. Her last wish of avenging herself is however fulfilled by him. The Bhoot of Rose Ville. Directed by Sanghamitra Chowdhury. Perf. Arpita Mukherjee, Dron Mukherjee, Souradeep Ghosh and Satrajit Majumdar. Tricolour Entertainment. India: Angel Videos, 2012. DVD. The female protagonist does not marry a Hindu boy at her father’s instructions. However, her Christian fiancé, who is accidentally killed before their wedding, begins to haunt her family home. He kills her and she in turn kills her Hindu boyfriend.

Year of release

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

No.

251.

252.

253.

254.

255.

Appendix (Continued)

Kannada

Telugu

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Language

Anandhapurathu Veedu. Directed by Naga. Perf. Nandha, Chaya Singh and Master Aryan. S Pictures. India: Prince Home Video’s Entertainments (date of release unknown). DVD. The male protagonist brings his wife and child to his ancestral home to escape from thugs to whom he owes money. The house is haunted, which is first sensed by his disabled son and later his wife. They are able to overcome all their adversities with the help of the ghosts. Orr Eravuu. Directed by Hari Shankar, Hareesh Narayan and Krishna Sekhar. Perf. Asha and Heventhika. Shankar Bros. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The main protagonist is a paranormal investigator, but one night he is killed in mysterious circumstances in a property he is investigating. Nagavalli. Directed by P. Vasu. Perf. Venkatesh and Anushka Shetty. Sri Sai Ganesh Productions. India: Aditya Video, 2011. DVD. Remake of the Kannada Aptharakshaka. Panchakshari. Directed by V. Samudra. Perf. Anushka Shetty and Samrat. Aditya Music, HPR Entertainment and Sairatna Creations. India: Aditya Video, 2011. DVD. A city-based female protagonist is possessed by the spirit of a dead village girl who wants to avenge her murder. Aptharakshaka. Directed by P. Vasu. Perf. Vishnuvardhan, Avinash, Vinaya Prasad and Sandhya. Udaya Ravi Films. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. The spirit of a dancer from a century ago enters a contemporary woman’s family and causes death. To better the marriage prospects of her daughters, the woman is confined to an outhouse as she is thought to be mad. Various ill-omened events are tracked down to the curse on a feudal ancestor and peace is restored.

Film

2010

2011

2011

2011

2011

256.

257.

258.

259.

260.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

(Continued)

Antharathma. Directed by B. Shankar. Perf. Mithun Tejaswi and Vishakha Singh. Friends Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist finds 14 crores deposited into his bank account one day; he only confides in one friend who kills him. The rest of the story sees Shyam surviving as a ghost, trying to master touch once again in order to help his beloved wife who survives him. 404: Error Not Found. Directed by Prawaal Raman. Perf. Imaad Shah and Tisca Chopra. APCA News and Entertainment. India: Reliance Home Video, 2011. VCD. Horror is used to condemn ragging incidents in medical institutions. Aagaah: The Warning. Directed by Karan Razdan. Perf. Ila Arun and Anang Desai. Omkar Investments. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The film depicts how a young female body is possessed by the spirit of a dead terrorist. Haunted 3D. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Mahaakshay Chakraborty, Tia Bajpai, Achint Kaur and Arif Zakaria. ASA Productions and Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., DAR Motion Pictures and BVG Films. India: Big Music, 2011. DVD. The male protagonist has to figure out why an evil spirit is causing deaths at a house he will inherit. It turns out that seventy years back a girl had killed her piano teacher in order not to be raped there, but he returns as a spirit to rape her anyway. With the help of a sufi mystic, they are able to travel in time and change the girl’s fate. Phhir. Directed by Girish Dhamija. Perf. Rajneesh Duggal, Adah Sharma and Roshni Chopra. ASA Productions and Enterprises. India: Reliance Home Video (date of release unknown). VCD. The male protagonist’s wife is abducted; the kidnappers demand a ransom. When other means do not yield results, he goes to a soothsayer for help; she helps trace his wife but also reveals to him his past life in which he had killed his wife and for which it was revealed he would pay in this one. His wife indeed has been cheating on him, but the soothsayer turns out to be his wife in the previous life. The ransom plot is solved too.

Year of release

2011

2011

2011

2011

No.

261.

262.

263.

264.

Appendix (Continued)

Telugu

Tamil

Malayalam

Hindi

Language

Ragini MMS. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. Perf. Rajkummar Rao and Kainaz Motivala. ALT Entertainment, Balaji Motion Pictures and iRock Films. India: Junglee Home Video, 2011. DVD. A young girl and her boyfriend go to a deserted resort building where her boyfriend wants to film her without her knowledge to make a porn clip. The resident evil spirit is a woman who was branded a witch for killing her children; only the girl succeeds in escaping her clutches. The film ends with her recovering after ten months in hospital and agreeing to tell her story. Maniac. Directed by Albin Joseph. Perf. Mohan and Shob. Albees Entertainments. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The story is built around the disappearance of two couples. Kanchana: Muni 2. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. Perf. Raghava Lawrence, Sarathkumar, Lakshmi Rai, Kovai Sarala, Devadarshini and Sriman. Sri Thenandal Films. India: Symphony Home Videos, 2012. DVD. The male protagonist is a happy-go-lucky young man who prefers to play games rather than work and who is unusually attached to his mother. Mid-film, he is possessed by a trio of ghosts, including that of a transgendered person. The trio was murdered by a rapacious politician and their mission is to avenge themselves the humiliations their gender, religion or disability have brought on them. Mangala. Directed by Osho Tulasi Ram. Perf. Vijaya Sai and Charmy Kaur. Mantra Entertainment and CNR Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A man is excessively devoted to his son; his son wants a huge sum of money to present to an actress he adores. The man obtains the sum by black magic, but the son is spurned by the actress and commits suicide. Now the father thinks that the actress is responsible for his son’s death and invokes black magic against her.

Film

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

265.

266.

267.

268.

269.

270.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

(Continued)

?: A Question Mark. Directed by Allyson Patel and Yash Dave. Perf. Sonam Mukherjee, Maanvi Gagroo and Akhlaque Khan. Percept Picture Company. India: Percept Pictures, 2012. DVD. A group of friends go to a deserted place to shoot footage for a film for an academic project. They never return. The film is their footage. 1920: Evil Returns. Directed by Bhushan Patel. Perf. Aftab Shivdasani and Tia Bajpai. ASA Productions and Enterprises. India: Big Music, 2012. DVD. A poet finds that a rival has exploited both his sister and his beloved; he manages to rescue the latter’s spirit from bondage. Bhoot Returns. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Manisha Koirala, J.D. Chakravarthy, Madhu Shalini and Alayana Sharma. Eros Entertainment. India: Eros, 2013. DVD. When a couple moves to a new bungalow, their daughter makes a new invisible friend who is actually an evil spirit. Dangerous Ishhq. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Jimmy Shergill and Karishma Kapoor. BVG Films and DAR Films. India: Big Music, 2012. DVD. The film traces the love story of a couple over four centuries. Ghost. Directed by Puja Jatinder Bedi. Perf. Shiney Ahuja and Sayali Bhagat. Owl Village Films Pvt. Ltd. and Mega Bollywood. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist is handling an investigation into several deaths at a hospital following the death of a foreign woman who worked there as a nurse. In the course of his inquiry, he finds that he himself had been the woman’s boyfriend and had even married her; and after their wedding, they had been attacked by several goons who were working for his father. The woman clings to life: though dead, her heart keeps beating, but the doctors treating her cut her body up into pieces and throw it away. So the dead woman has been avenging herself on them. Raaz 3D. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Emraan Hashmi, Bipasha Basu and Esha Gupta. Fox Star Studios and Vishesh Films. India: Big Music, 2012. DVD. Bitter rivalry between two heroines lead to one turning to black magic to punish the other.

Year of release

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

No.

271.

272.

273.

274.

275.

276.

Appendix (Continued)

Bangla

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Language

Talaash: The Answer Lies Within. Directed by Reema Kagti. Perf. Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee. Excel Entertainment and Aamir Khan Productions. India: Big Music, Reliance Entertainment, 2012. DVD. A cop investigating a murder gets the help of a woman who mysteriously seems to only help him and he later realises that she was only visible to him. The woman is a ghost helping avenge her own murder. Manthrikan. Directed by Anil. Perf. Jayaram, Poonam Bajwa and Muktha George. Yes Cinema Company. India: Empire, 2012. DVD. A reluctant black magician is forced by an encounter with a girl who is a yakshi to practice his craft. Silent Valley. Directed by Syed Usman. Perf. Nideesh and Roopasree. God’s Way Creation. India: Horizon, 2012. DVD. A group of friends decide to pick online a point in a jungle to have picnic. But soon they find themselves horrified. Yakshi: Faithfully Yours. Directed by Abhiram Suresh Unnithan. Perf. Akhil Devan and Avantika Mohan. Seashell Movies. India: Horizon, 2013. DVD. Modern rendition of the yakshi myth through a filmmaking endeavour by the protagonists. Bhooter Bhabishyat. Directed by Anik Dutta. Perf. Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Parambrata Chatterjee and Paran Bandyopadhyay. Satya Films and Mojo Productions. India: Saregama, 2012. DVD. Many of Calcutta’s ghosts find themselves about to be displaced from a heritage building. They scheme to prevent the planned mall from coming up and succeed for now. Jekhane Bhooter Bhoy. Directed by Sandip Ray. Perf. Paran Bandyopadhyay and Saswata Chatterjee. Shree Venkatesh Films. India: Eagle, 2013. DVD. The film showcases three stories dealing with a ghost hunter, a mysterious entity and a relationship between an author and a spirit.

Film

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2013

277.

278.

279

280.

281.

282.

Hindi

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Telugu

Marathi

(Continued)

Aik. Directed by Prateik Kadam. Perf. Swapnil Jadhav and Aditi Sarangdhar. Matrubhumi Productions and Cutting Chai productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Horror films recently have been using the reality TV trope and this film is another example of that. Avunu. Directed by Ravi Babu. Perf. Poorna and Harshvardhan Rane. Flying Frogs. (VCD/DVD details unknown). In a house, a spirit keeps a voyeuristic watch on the married female protagonist. One day, the spirit tries to sexually assault her. 12 AM Madhyarathri. Directed by Karthik. Perf. Abhimanyu and Divya Sridhar. Gayatri? Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The spirit of a dead girl comes back to take revenge of her brutal murder from a powerful politician’s son. Charulatha. Directed by Pon Kumaran. Perf. Priyamani, Skanda and Saranya Ponvannan. Dwarakish and AKK Entertainment. India: Anand Video (date of release unknown). DVD. A pair of conjoined twin sisters fall in love with the same man; one kills the other, who persists in spirit form. The man discovers the deception, but the dead sister’s spirit enjoins forgiveness and acceptance in the end. Kalpana. Directed by Rama Narayanan. Perf. Upendra Rao and Lakshmi Rai. Sri Thenaandaal Films. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2012. VCD. Kannada remake of the Tamil film Kanchana. 3G: A Killer Connection. Directed by Sheershak Anand and Shantanu Ray Chhibber. Perf. Neil Nitin Mukesh, Sonal Chauhan and Himani Chauhan. Next Gen Films. India: Eros Entertainment, 2013. DVD. A persistent phone call onto the protagonist’s cellphone leads to an encounter with occult rituals in Fiji.

Year of release

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

No.

283.

284.

285.

286.

287.

288.

Appendix (Continued)

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Aatma. Directed by Suparn Verma. Perf. Bipasha Basu and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Panorama Studio. India: Wide Frame Pictures, 2013. DVD. The female protagonist who has rescued herself and her daughter from an abusive relationship with her husband finds that she must kill herself to destroy his evil spirit. She does so to protect her daughter. Ek Thi Daayan. Directed by Kannan Iyer. Perf. Emraan Hashmi, Huma Qureshi and Kalki Koechlin. ALT Entertainment, VB Pictures and Balaji Motion Pictures. India: Eros, 2013. DVD. The male protagonist realises almost too late that his wife is a witch; almost too late he is able to destroy her with the help of their son. Go Goa Gone. Directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. Perf. Kunal Khemu, Vir Das and Saif Ali Khan. Illuminati Films. India: Eros International, 2013. DVD. Three friends go to Goa and find that a dystopic place full of drugs and newborn zombies. Horror Story. Directed by Ayush Raina. Perf. Karan Kundra and Nishant Malkani. ASA Productions and Enterprises. India: Big Music, 2013. DVD. A group of friends explore a haunted hotel, built on the site of a burnt down hospital for the criminally insane, in high spirits. All except one die. Rise of the Zombie. Directed by Luke Kenny and Devaki Singh. Perf. Luke Kenny, Kirti Kulhari and Ashwin Mushran. Kenny Media Production. India: Junglee Home Video, 2013. DVD. The protagonist goes to the jungle, is bitten by an insect and turns zombie; other locals also become zombies through contact with him. Akam. Directed by Shalini Usha Nair. Perf. Fahad Faasil and Anumol. Hanzo Films. India: Wilson Videos, 2013. DVD. A feminist rendition of the classical yakshi myth. An architect met an accident which left him disfigured. A girl falls in love with him and marries him. However, the husbands starts suspecting that his wife was a yakshi baying for his blood.

Film

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

289.

290.

291.

292.

293.

294.

295.

Bangla

Bangla

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

Malayalam

(Continued)

Dracula 3D. Directed by Vinayan. Perf. Sudheer Sukumaran and Thilakan. Akash Films. India: Horizon, 2013. DVD. Dracula is risen from his grave and seeks to be reunited with his lady love in India. Some parts of the film is shot in Romania, traditionally considered to be the home of Dracula. Geethanjali. Directed by Priyadarshan. Perf. Mohanlal, Nishan and Keerthi Suresh. Seven Arts International. India: Movie Channel, 2013. DVD. The protagonist’s twin sister has just committed suicide on the eve of the former’s engagement; however, a psychiatrist reveals that the sister supposed to be dead is the one masquerading as the former after having killed her. Ms. Lekha Tharoor Kaanunnathu. Directed by Shajiyem. Perf. Meera Jasmine and Suraj Venjaramoodu. Saranam Pictures. India: Satyam, 2014. VCD. A TV hostess suddenly starts seeing violent nightmares. People get her admitted in the psychiatric wing. Red Rain. Directed by Rahul Sadasivan. Perf. Narain and Mohan Sharma. Highlands Entertainment. India: Empire, 2014. DVD. A horror film bordering on science fiction. Loosely based on the red rain phenomenon in Kerala. Adbhut. Directed by Sayantan Mukherjee. Perf. Soumitra Chatterjee and Paran Bandyopadhyay. Celluloid. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The story narrativises a 200-year-old ancient building housing many ghosts. Chhayamoy. Directed by Haranath Chakraborty. Perf. Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and Gaurav Chakraborty. Rosevalley Films. India: Dhoom, 2013. DVD. The eponymous benevolent ghost helps a man make his fortune when they meet in a forest where he has found treasure but is being hunted by goons. Goynar Baksho. Directed by Aparna Sen. Perf. Moushumi Chatterjee and Konkona Sen Sharma. Shree Venkatesh Films. India: Eagle, 2013. DVD. A box of jewels a dead matriarch is attached to connects her to female descendants several generations later and gives them economic and sexual freedoms.

Year of release

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

No.

296.

297.

298.

299.

300.

301.

Appendix (Continued)

Telugu

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Marathi

Language

Zapatlela 2. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. Perf. Sonalee Kulkarni and Sai Tamhankar. Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. India: Shemaroo, 2013. DVD. Probably, the first Marathi film to be shot entirely with a 3D camera. The film is a sequel to Zapatlela. The spirit of a dreaded criminal tries to come back to life again using a doll. Anjal Thurai. Directed by A.R. Rafi. Perf. Mohan and Sowparnika. Latha Cine Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A typical whodunnit film set in an evening college. Masani. Directed by Padmaraj and L.G. Ravichandran. Perf. Ramki, Iniya and Akhil. Sree Green Productions. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2013. DVD. The film depicts the story of a village where different sculptors try to finish a statue. But each time an artisan is hired, he is killed by some evil spirits who do not want to let the statue to be completed. Pizza II: Villa. Directed by Deepan Chakravarthy. Perf. Ashok Selvan and Sanchita Shetty. Thirukumaran Entertainment and Studio Green. India: Sri Balaji Video (date of release unknown). DVD. The male protagonist inherits a villa and comes with it a baggage of previously unseen paintings of his father. The paintings reveal his future. Aravind 2. Directed by Shekhar Suri. Perf. Sri and Maadhavi Latha. Sri Vijayabheri Productions. India: Sri Balaji Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Reminiscent of the slasher genre. The male protagonist joins a film crew to look for a missing person. But horror strikes when the crew members are killed one by one. Moksha. Directed by Srikanth Vemulapalli. Perf. Meera Jasmine and Disha Pandey. Amarnathan Movies. India: Santosh Videos, 2013. DVD. The male protagonist befriends and falls in love with a girl called Moksha, who it turns out is a vampire and lives with her father; her father is a security guard who kills for her so that she has blood to suck on.

Film

2013

2013

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

302.

303.

304.

305.

306.

307.

308.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Telugu

(Continued)

Prema Katha Chitram. Directed by J. Prabhakar Reddy. Perf. Sudheer Babu and Nanditha Raj. Maruthi Media House Productions. India: Bhavani, 2013. DVD. Fed up of failures, four protagonists go to a house to commit suicide. But they encounter supernatural occurrences there. 6–5=2. Directed by K.S. Ashoka and Swarna Latha. Perf. Darshan Apoorva, Krishna Prakash, Vijay Chendoor and Pallavi. Swarnalatha Production. India: AP International, 2014. DVD. A group of friends go on a trek when evil things happen; only their camera survives and the film is based on the found footage conceit. 3 A.M. Directed by Vishal Mahadkar. Perf. Rannvijay Singh and Anindita Nayar. Handprint Pictures and Essel Vision Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A reality TV show on the existence of ghosts and spirits is arranged. 6–5=2. Directed by Bharat Jain. Perf. Niharica Raizada, Ashrut Jain, Gaurav Kothari, Disha Kapoor, Gaurav Paswalla and Prashantt Guptha. Swarnalatha Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Remake of the 2013 Kannada film of the same name. One of the first instances of the footage genre film made in Hindi. Creature 3D. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. Perf. Bipasha Basu and Imran Abbas. T-Series. India: T-Series, 2014. DVD. A newly made forest resort finds itself in the middle of hell as a monstrous creature attacks its occupants. Darr @ the Mall. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. Perf. Jimmy Shergill, Nushrat Bharucha and Arif Zakaria. Contiloe Entertainment. India: Big Music, 2014. DVD. A mall built on the site of an orphanage, which was burned down by the mall’s promoters, becomes haunted by the ghosts of the orphans and their guardian, a nun. Gang of Ghosts. Directed by Satish Kaushik. Perf. Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra and Mahi Gill. Venus Records & Tapes. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Based on the Bengali film Bhooter Bhabishyat.

Year of release

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

No.

309.

310.

311.

312.

313.

314.

Appendix (Continued)

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Language

Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai. Directed by Debaloy Dey. Perf. Bhanu Uday and Swara Bhaskar. Shri Wardhaman Movie Ventures. (VCD/DVD details unknown). After a road accident, the female protagonist starts getting haunted by some strange supernatural entities. Mumbai 125 KM 3D. Directed by Hemant Madhukar. Perf. Karanvir Bohra and Vedita Pratap Singh. Light and Shadow Films and Sri Mahati Media. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A group of friends, travelling to a New Year’s Eve party in Mumbai suddenly come across a series of supernatural occurrences, 125 kilometres outside Mumbai. Neighbours. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. Perf. Hritu and Sunny Singh. Ramsay Entertainment. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). DVD. A girl discovers that her neighbours are vampires. Pizza. Directed by Akshay Akkineni. Perf. Akshay Oberoi and Parvathy Omanakuttan. UTV Motion Pictures. India: Big Music, 2014. DVD. Remake of the 2012 Tamil film Pizza. A pizza delivery boy goes to an upmarket house and strange things ensue. Ragini MMS 2. Directed by Bhushan Patel. Perf. Sunny Leone and Parvin Dabas. Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment. India: Big Reliance, 2014. DVD. The film is a sequel to Ragini MMS and takes the witch episode forward. A film crew goes to shoot the Ragini story at the same mansion where she was attacked by a supernatural force. The same supernatural force now starts killing the crew one by one. Trip to Bhangarh: Asia’s Most Haunted Place. Directed by Jitendra Pawar. Perf. Manish Chaudhary, Suzanna Mukherjee and Piyush Raina. Rock N Rolla Films and Swami Samartha Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A group of friends in a college reunion party decide to visit the haunted fort of Bhangarh in Rajasthan.

Film

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

315.

316.

317.

318.

319.

320.

321.

322.

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Marathi

Bangla

Malayalam

Malayalam

(Continued)

Mithram. Directed by Jespal Shanmugham. Perf. Gowri Krishna and Vijay Menon. Thilakeswari Movies. India: Horizon, 2015. DVD. The story revolves around a bodyguard who falls in love with the lady he is protecting. Raktharakshassu 3D. Directed by Paul Factor. Perf. Madhu and Sunny Wayne. 3Dreams International. India: Horizon, 2014. VCD. A couple along with their little daughter go to an island to spend their vacation. However, their happiness is short-lived as they soon encounter horrific experiences. Maya. Directed by Raj Kumar Behl. Perf. Sayantani Ghosh and Rhimjhim Gupta. (Production and VCD/DVD details unknown). A couple feels scared when their little daughter behaves eerily and violently on her birthday. Anvatt. Directed by Gajendra Ahire. Perf. Adinath Kothare and Urmila Kanetkar. PSJ Entertainments. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A couple residing in city goes to a village to live for some time and there they encounter strange happenings. Aaaah. Directed by Hari Shankar and Hareesh Narayan. Perf. Gokulnath and Meghna. KTVR Creative Frames and Shankar Bros. India: MSK, 2014. DVD. Horror anthology with settings across the world: probably a first for Tamil cinema. Agadam. Directed by Mohamad Issack. Perf. Tamizh and Srini Iyer. Last Bench Boys Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The ghost of a woman killed by men comes back to haunt them. Aranmanai. Directed by Sundar C. Perf. Andrea Jeremiah and Vanay Rai. Vision i Medias. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2014. DVD. When a family return to their native place to sell off their ancestral property, they encounter supernatural happenings. Irukku Aana Illai. Directed by K.M. Saravanan. Perf. Vivanth and Eden. Varam Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Horror-comedy. The male protagonist is involved in an accident where a girl also gets killed. The spirit of that girl then haunts him.

Year of release

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

No.

323.

324.

325.

326.

327.

328.

329.

Appendix (Continued)

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

Language

Pisaasu. Directed by Mysskin. Perf. Naga and Prayaga Martin. B. Studios. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2014. DVD. A male protagonist finds a young girl dead in an accident. Thereon, he is always accompanied by the spirit of that dead girl. Yaamirukka Bayamey. Directed by Deekay. Perf. Krishna and Rupa Manjari. RS Infotainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). When an old house is converted into a hotel, the spirit of a dead girl kills all the previous owners of the land one by one. Boochamma Boochodu. Directed by Rewan Yadu. Perf. Sivaji and Kainaz Motivala. Hezen Entertainments and Sneha Cinema. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A newly wed couple encounter ghosts in a house. Geethanjali. Directed by Raj Kiran. Perf. Srinivasa Reddy and Anjali. M.V.V. Pictures. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A scriptwriter is haunted by the spirit of a dead woman who wants to avenge her murder. Ice Cream. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. Navdeep and Tejaswi Madivada. Bhimavaram Talkies. India: Volga (date of release unknown). DVD. It is the horror story of a protagonist who is obsessed with eating ice cream and suffers from sleeping disorders during night. Ice Cream 2. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Perf. J.D. Chakravarthy and Naveena. Bhimavaram Talkies. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Reminiscent of slasher film genre. Sequel to Ice Cream. A group of amateur filmmakers shot a short film in a chemical factory to impress their producer. The abandoned chemical factory is full of ghosts. Poga. Directed by Marthand K Shankar. Perf. Abhinav and Praneeth Babu. Random Thoughts. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The story reminds of the life of the Telugu actress Prathyusha.

Film

2014

2014

2014

2014

2015

2015

2015

2015

330.

331.

332.

333.

334.

335.

336.

337.

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

(Continued)

Aakramana. Directed by Prashanth Kumar. Perf. Raghu Mukherjee and Daisy Shah. A1 Cinemas. India: Sri Nakoda (date of release unknown). VCD. The first 3D horror movie in Kannada narrates the haunting experiences of the newly wed wife in the house. Chandralekha. Directed by Om Prakash Rao. Perf. Chiranjeevi Sarja and Shanvi. SM Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Remake of the Telugu Prema Katha Chitram. Horror Picture. Directed by Vijay Surana. Perf. Harish Raj and Roopashri. Om Shanthivijay Productions. India: Aananda, 2014. DVD. A typical horror film with fear, sleaze and sex sub-plots. Namo Bhootatma. Directed by Murali. Perf. Komal Kumar and Aishwarya Menon. R.S. Infotainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist converts his ancestral property to a hotel. However, ever since the hotel started its business, people began to die mysteriously. Alone. Directed by Bhushan Patel. Perf. Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover. Panorama Studios. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Story of two sisters conjoined at birth. One of them died, but not before promising that the two will always remain together. Thus, the spirit of the dead sister continues to live with the one alive. Ek Paheli Leela. Directed by Bobby Khan. Perf. Sunny Leone and Jay Bhanushali. Paper Doll Entertainment. India: T-Series, 2015. DVD. A reincarnation story: the lovers are separated some 300 years back. The villain now returns to separate them again after their rebirth. Khamoshiyan: Silences Have Secrets. Directed by Karan Darra. Perf. Gurmeet Choudhary and Ali Fazal. Vishesh Films. India: Shemaroo, 2015. The male and the female protagonists indulge in an extramarital affair with disastrous consequences. Plot No. 666. Directed by Aziz. Perf. Mohammed Nazim and Sanchita. Jaya Saptagiris Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A plot in a village is considered to be haunted. But a group of friends out on adventure gatecrash in the house built on the plot with disastrous consequences.

Year of release

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

No.

338.

339.

340.

341.

342.

343.

344.

Appendix (Continued)

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Marathi

Language

Goa 350 KM. Directed by Amol Padave. Perf. Gaurav Ghatnekar and Madhuri Desai. Panchamved Entertainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Strange things happen in a place 350 kilometres from Goa. Baby. Directed by D. Suresh. Perf. Manoj Bharathiraja and Shira Gaarg. RK Entertainment and Sri Annamalaiyar Studio. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A couple overcome their marital discord to protect their daughter who is haunted by a spirit. Darling. Directed by Sam Anton. Perf. G.V. Prakash Kumar and Nikki Galrani. Geetha Arts and Studio Green. Malaysia: Lotus Star (date of release unknown). DVD. Fed up of failures, three protagonists go to a house to commit suicide. But they encounter supernatural occurrences there. Demonte Colony. Directed by R. Ajay Gnanamuthu. Perf. Arulnithi and Ramesh Thilak. Mohana Movies. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2015. DVD. The film depicts the story of a haunted house in De Monte Colony in Chennai where the protagonists go and eventually meet their dreadful fate. Enakkul Oruvan. Directed by Prasad Ramar. Perf. Siddharth and Deepa Sannidhi. Thirukumaran Entertainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist suffering from sleeplessness is prescribed a particular drug. This drug blessed him with wish-fulfilling abilities. However, situation turns horrific when the line between real and the fantastic gets blurred. Kanchana 2: Muni 3. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. Perf. Raghava Lawrence and Taapsee Pannu. Raghavendra Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Horror enters into reality TV show. Maya. Directed by Ashwin Saravanan. Perf. Nayanthara and Aari. Potential Studios. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The female protagonist is shocked to find that the film she was watching actually portrayed her own life.

Film

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

345.

346.

347.

348.

349.

350.

351.

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Telugu

Tamil

Tamil

(Continued)

Strawberry. Directed by Pa. Vijay. Perf. Pa. Vijay and Avani Modi. Vil Makers. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A ghost takes help of human agency to punish her killers. Yoogan. Directed by Kamal G. Perf. Yashmith and Sakshi Agarwal. Twin Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A female protagonist is cheated by her colleagues in her office. Unable to prove her innocence, she commits suicide. Her spirit comes back to haunt her colleagues who betrayed her. Avunu 2. Directed by Ravi Babu. Perf. Poorna and Harshvardhan Rane. Flying Frogs. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Sequel to Avunu. The spirit from the first film again begins to look for an opportunity to sexually assault the female protagonist though they have shifted to another house. Budugu. Directed by Manmohan. Perf. Lakshmi Manchu and Sreedhar Rao. Hyderabad Film Inovaties. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A small boy displays weird behaviour scaring everybody around him. Mantra 2. Directed by S.V. Suresh. Perf. Charmy Kaur and Raghu Babu. Green Movies. India: Horizon (date of release unknown). A female protagonist gets a job in Hyderabad and starts living at a paying guest accommodation. She is shocked to realise that the house had an eerie past. Raju Gari Gadhi. Directed by Omkar. Perf. Ashwin Babu and Dhanya Balakrishna. Varahi Chalana Chitram and AK Entertainments and Oak Entertainments. (VCD/ DVD details unknown). A TV channel plans to host a reality TV show in a house that is considered to be haunted. Tripura. Directed by Raj Kiran. Perf. Swathi Reddy and Saptagiri. Pooja Film International. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A female protagonist has the ability to foresee future through dreams. The story is about how this ability to know about future complicates her own married life.

Year of release

2015

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

No.

352.

353.

354.

355.

356.

357.

358.

Appendix (Continued)

Tamil

Marathi

Malayalam

Malayalam

Hindi

Hindi

Kannada

Language

Ouija. Directed by Raaj Kumar Reddy. Perf. Bharat and Shraddha Das. Vega Entertainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A group of young working women decide to make a short film. 1920 London. Directed by Tinu Suresh Desai. Perf. Sharman Joshi and Meera Chopra. Reliance Entertainment. India: Reliance Entertainment, 2016. DVD. The female protagonist asks her former lover to exorcise her husband from an evil spirit that has possessed him. Phobia. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. Perf. Radhika Apte and Amrita Bagchi. Next Gen Films and Eros International. India: Eros, 2016. DVD. Story of an agoraphobic young woman. Aadupuliyattam. Directed by Kannan Thamarakkulam. Perf. Jayaram and Ramya Krishnan. Grande Film Corporation. India: Anon Trendz, 2016. DVD. An established businessman and his family are troubled by a spirit whom he encountered when he bought a property in a village. Pretham. Directed by Ranjith Sankar. Perf. Jayasurya and Aju Varghese. Dreams N Beyond. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Three college friends in a grand reunion plan to invest in a resort in Kerala. But it turns out that the resort they have invested in is a centre of paranormal activities. Lapachhapi. Directed by Vishal Furia. Perf. Vikram Gaikwad and Usha Naik. Midas touch Movies. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The pregnant female protagonist along with her husband comes to a house surrounded by a sugarcane field. The rest of the story is about how the evil spirits residing there try to kill the unborn child. The film can also be read as a critique of female infanticide. Aranmanai 2. Directed by Sundar C. Perf. Trisha and Siddharth. Avni Cinemax. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Evil spirits get freed as the temple guarding them undergoes renovation. They create mayhem.

Film

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

359.

360.

361.

362.

363.

364.

365.

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

Tamil

(Continued)

Bayam Oru Payanam. Directed by Manisharma. Perf. Vishakha Singh and Bharath Reddy. Octo Spider Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist, a photographer journalist, goes to a forest as a part of his assignment. While staying at a haunted mansion, he encounters eerie things. Darling 2. Directed by Sathish Chandrasekaran. Perf. Kalaiyarasan and Maya. Rite Media Works. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Prank and mistaken information leads to the male protagonist committing suicide. However, his spirit returns to haunt the person responsible for lying which resulted in his committing suicide. Dhilluku Dhuddu. Directed by Rambala. Perf. Santhanam, Shanaya and Saurabh Shukla. Sri Thenandal Films. (VCD/DVD details unknown). What started as merely a cunning ploy to scare the female protagonist through imaginary ghost tricks became serious when the characters encounter a real ghost in a mansion. Hello Naan Pei Pesuren. Directed by S. Baskar. Perf. Vaibhav Reddy and Oviya. Avni Movies. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The horror narrative centres around a ghost in a mobile. Jackson Durai. Directed by Dharani Dharan. Perf. Sibiraj and Sathyaraj. Sri Green Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A house is haunted by ghosts from the prehistoric times. A police inspector is called upon to investigate strange happenings in that house. Miruthan. Directed by Shakti Soundar Rajan. Perf. Jayam Ravi and Lakshmi Menon. Global Infotainment. India: Ayngaran International Media, 2016. DVD. A zombie narrative where infection spreads as a result of toxic chemicals. Sowkarpettai. Directed by V.C. Vadivudaiyan. Perf. Srikanth and Raai Laxmi. Shalom Studios. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A moneylender and his sons murder two protagonists. Their spirits come back from the dead to haunt them.

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

366.

367.

368.

369.

370.

371.

372.

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Kannada

Telugu

Language

Tulasi Dalam. Directed by R.P. Patnaik. Perf. Nischal and Vandana Gupta. Colours Entertainment. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The male protagonist accepts to spend one night at a local cemetery all alone as part of a challenge with his friend. After spending one night, he starts being haunted by a spirit. Karva. Directed by Navaneeth. Perf. Tilak Shekar and Rohit. Sri Swarnalatha Productions. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The film has two basic sub-plots: one, where a documentary crew is out on a mission to debunk the widely accepted belief that a particular mansion is haunted; and the other, to decode the kidnapping of the daughter of a rich NRI businessman. Kathe Chitrakathe Nirdeshana Puttanna. Directed by Srinivasa Raju. Perf. Komal Kumar and Priyamani. Apple Blossom Creations. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Remake of the Telugu film Geethanjali. Last Bus. Directed by S.D. Arvind. Perf. Avinash Narsimharaju and Meghashree Bhagavatar. Goals and Dreams. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Passengers board the last bus to their destination with fatal consequences. Naani. Directed by Raghavendra K. Gollahalli. Perf. Manish Arya and Priyanka Rao. Tulsi Films. (VCD/DVD details unknown). A test-tube baby dies and the house becomes haunted. Shivalinga. Directed by P. Vasu. Perf. Shiva Rajkumar and Vedhika. Suresh Arts. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The spirit of a male protagonist comes back from the dead to reveal that he did not commit suicide but he was murdered. U Turn. Directed by Pawan Kumar. Perf. Shraddha Srinath and Radhika Chetan. Pawan Kumar Studios. (VCD/DVD details unknown). The horror narrative centres around certain motorists who violate traffic rules at a particular flyover in the city.

Film

Source: Information collated by the author from various current and archival sources.

Year of release

No.

Appendix (Continued)

GLOSSARY

Adivasi  ethnic and tribal population of India. Agnipariksha  literally means test of fire. In the colloquial sense, this word refers to the ordeal of those women who are either raped or accused of adultery and have to prove their innocence. Aravani  transgender community of Tamil Nadu. Baital  same as vetala. Bhadralok  a particular section of society in Bengal where people are educated, affluent and prosperous. Brahmapurusha  in ancient Hindu mythology, the word denoted highest form of the cosmic man-god. Chinna veedu  Tamil word meaning a small family. In the colloquial sense, the word signifies illegitimate family. Chowpatty  that part of any beach where people frequent. Dayan  witch. Devadasis  a religious practice in some parts of India where a girl devotes her life to worship and service of a particular god or a temple. Dholki  a two-headed hand drum. Giallo  Twentieth-century genre located specifically to Italian literature and film, and includes thrillers, crime fiction, mystery and horror. The word giallo means yellow in Italian which in turn symbolises a series of cheap paperbook novels with yellow covers which became very popular in the post-war Italy. Godzilla  Japanese word to signify a cross between a gorilla and a whale. Gramin  related to villages. Hijras  transgender communities in India are generally known as hijras, though they might also have an equivalent local name. Ichchadhari nagin  a shape-shifting female snake as described in ancient Indian mythology. Irulas  a scheduled tribe inhabiting some parts of the Nilgiri mountains in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. 269

G lossary

Jat-ness  Jats are a traditional agriculture community of northern India. Jat-ness would symbolise stereotyped behaviour of the Jat community. Kalbelia  a sensuously enacted dance form by the Kalbelia tribe of Rajasthan. Lavani  sensual song and dance which is a part of traditional Marathi theatre and film. Mahabharata  Ancient Indian epic. Mahal  palatial mansion. Malayali  a person originating from the Malayalam-speaking community. Manglik  according to Indian astrology, a person is said to be manglik if he/she is born with certain arrangement of planets in the personal horoscope. Usually, it is believed that a manglik finds it difficult to marry. Mantravadi  Malayalam word meaning magician. Manushya gan  according to Indian astrology, gan is believed to represent a person’s temperament and character, and thus help in the prediction of future. Marwari  ethnic group originating from Rajasthan. Mritunjay mantra  ancient Indian chant believed to be beneficial for the physical, mental and emotional well-being. Mujra  a specific type of dance form practised by courtesans during the Mughal era. Naag mani  mythical snake pearl found on the head of certain types of snakes who transform themselves into any physical being, usually they take human form. Naag yoni  origin/source of life; ancient Indian scriptures emphasise the existence of about 84 lakh yonis. Naag yoni is one of them. Naga  half-human and half-snake tribe of people as described in ancient Indian mythology. Noroi  Japanese word meaning curse. Pardesi  foreigner. Pathshala  traditional school in villages in India. Pativrata nari  a concept rooted in Indian mythology wherein the wife takes a vow that she will live and die for her husband. Pirs  a Muslim saint. Punnami  Full moon night. Rakta Pisach  Indian equivalent of a vampire – the blood-sucking monster. Ramayan  ancient Indian epic poem. Sati savitri  colloquially means a virtuous and devoted wife. Swayamvar  a practice followed in ancient India when girls of marriageable age were allowed to choose their life partners from a list of prospective bridegrooms. Tamashe-wali  tamasha is a specific type of Marathi theatre, and the actress acting/singing/dancing is known as tamashe-wali. 270

G lossary

Tantrik  black magician, practitioner of sectarian beliefs of ancient tantra cult. Thakur  within the now-abolished Zamindari system in India, the person was the chief landlord who used to collect land revenue. Tharavaattamma  Malayalam word meaning female head of the family in the pre-patriarchal matrilineal society in Kerala. Vaghdev  the Bhils tribe worship tiger as Vaghdev. Vampirehungsroman  narrative of vampire-in-making. Veettamma  Malayalam word meaning housewife. Vetala  in ancient Hindu mythology, they were spirits inhabiting the underworld. Yakshi  supernatural creatures described either as female god or demoness. Yeti  the mythical snowman – half-beast half-man – believed to be living in the Himalayas.

271

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287

F ilmography

Ammo Bomma. Directed by Relangi Narasimha Rao. 2001. USA: Movie Time Video, 2012. DVD. Anaconda. Directed by Luis Llosa. 1997. USA: Sony, 1998. DVD. Anamika: The Untold Story. Directed by Anant Mahadevan. 2008. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Anandabhadram. Directed by Santosh Sivan. 2005. India: Empire, 2007. DVD. Anandhapurathu Veedu. Directed by Naga. 2010. India: Prince Home Video’s Entertainments (date of release unknown). DVD. Andhera. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1975. India: Friends Video (year unknown). VCD. Angoor. Directed by Gulzar. 1982. India: IndiaWeekly, 2008. DVD. Anita. Directed by Raj Khosla. 1967. India: Shemaroo, 2008. DVD. Anjaane: The Unknown. Directed by Harry W. Fernandes. 2005. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Anjal Thurai. Directed by A.R. Rafi. 2013. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Anniyan. Directed by S. Shankar. 2005. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown). DVD. Antharathma. Directed by B. Shankar. 2010. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Anvatt. Directed by Gajendra Ahire. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Aparichithan. Directed by Sanjeev Sivan. 2004. India: Harmony, 2009. VCD. Apthamitra. Directed by P. Vasu. 2004. India: Sri Ganesh Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Aptharakshaka. Directed by P. Vasu. 2010. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. Aranmanai. Directed by Sundar C. 2014. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2014. DVD. Aranmanai 2. Directed by Sundar C. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Aravind 2. Directed by Shekhar Suri. 2013. India: Sri Balaji Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Ardhanaari. Directed by Santosh Souparnika. 2012. India: MG Sound and Frames Release, 2013. DVD. Arundhati. Directed by Kodi Ramakrishna. 2009. India: Volga Videos, 2009. DVD. Athey Manithan. Directed by K. Rajeshwar. 2000. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). DVD. Atripta Chhaya. Directed by Dharam. 2006. India: Angel Digital, 2006. VCD. Aur Kaun. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1979. India: Friends Video (year unknown). VCD. Avana Ivan. Directed by S. Balachander. 1962. India: SB Creations, 1962. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Avunu. Directed by Ravi Babu. 2012. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Avunu 2. Directed by Ravi Babu. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Baby. Directed by D. Suresh. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Bachao: Inside Bhoot Hai. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. 2010. India: G. K. Solutions. (VCD/DVD details unknown).

288

F ilmography

Banamathi. Directed by Jayasimha Musun. 2007. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2009. VCD. Bandh Darwaza. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1990. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2006. DVD. Bayam Oru Payanam. Directed by Manisharma. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Bees Saal Baad. Directed by Biren Nag. 1962. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Bees Saal Baad. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. 1988. India: Moser Baer. 2008. VCD. Beetlejuice. Directed by Tim Burton. 1988. USA: Warner Home Video, 2008. DVD. Bhargavi Nilayam. Directed by A. Vincent. 1964. India: Harmony, 2009. VCD. Bhayaanak Panjaa. Directed by R. Mittal. 1997. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Bhayankara Pisachi. Directed by Sajjan. 1990. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Bhool Bhulaiya. Directed by Priyadarshan. 2007. India: Eros, 2008. DVD. Bhoot. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2003. India: T-Series, 2011. DVD. Bhoot Bungla. Directed by Mehmood. 1965. India: Ultra, 2004. VCD. Bhoot Returns. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2012. India: Eros, 2013. DVD. Bhooter Bhabishyat. Directed by Anik Dutta. 2012. India: Saregama, 2012. DVD. Bhutacha Bhau. Directed by Sachin. 1989. India: Golden Plaza, 2008. VCD. Bin Badal Barsaat. Directed by Jyoti Swaroop. 1963. India: Shemaroo, 2009. VCD. Blacula. Directed by William Crane. 1972. USA: MGM, 2004. DVD. Boa vs. Python. Directed by David Flores. 2004. USA: Sony, 2004. DVD. Boochamma Boochodu. Directed by Rewan Yadu. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Budugu. Directed by Manmohan. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Chaappa Kurishu. Directed by Sameer Thahir. 2011. India: Central Pictures, 2011. DVD. Chamatkar. Directed by Rajiv Mehra. 1992. India: Shemaroo, 2008. DVD. Chandanachola. Directed by Jeasy. 1975. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Chandralekha. Directed by Om Prakash Rao. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Chandramukhi. Directed by P. Vasu. 2005. India: AP International, 2010. DVD. Charulatha. Directed by Pon Kumaran. 2012. India: Anand Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Cheekh. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1985. India: Priya, 2009. VCD. Chehre Pe Chehra. Directed by Raj Tilak. 1981. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Chemistry. Directed by Viji Thampi. 2009. India: Empire, 2010. DVD. Chemmeen. Directed by Ramu Karyatt. 1967. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD.

289

F ilmography

Chhayamoy. Directed by Haranath Chakraborty. 2013. India: Dhoom, 2013. DVD. Chhodon Naa Yaar. Directed by Dilip Sood. 2007. India: Shree International, 2007. DVD. Chinatown. Directed by Roman Polanski. 1974. USA: Paramount, 2000. DVD. Click. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan. 2010. India: Moser Baer, 2010. VCD. Creature 3D. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2014. India: T-Series, 2014. DVD. Dafan. Directed by Jitendra Chawda. 2001. India: Ultra, 2005. VCD. Dahshat. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1981. India: Friends, 2008. VCD. Dak Bangla. Directed by Keshu Ramsay. 1987. India: Time Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Dangerous Ishhq. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2012. India: Big Music, 2012. DVD. Darling. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2007. India: Eros Entertainment. 2007. DVD. Darling. Directed by Sam Anton. 2015. Malaysia: Lotus Star (date of release unknown). DVD. Darling 2. Directed by Sathish Chandrasekaran. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Darna Mana Hai. Directed by Prawaal Raman. 2003. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Darna Zaroori Hai. Directed by J.D. Chakravarthy. 2006. India: Kria, 2006. DVD. Darr @ the Mall. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. 2014. India: Big Music, 2014. DVD. Darwaza. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1978. India: Times Video, 2006. VCD. Darwaza. Directed by Kanti Shah. 2002. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. Dead of Night. Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. 1945. UK: Studiocanal, 2009. DVD. Demonte Colony. Directed by R. Ajay Gnanamuthu. 2015. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2015. DVD. Deshadanakili Karayarilla. Directed by Padmarajan. 1986. India: Saina (date of release not known). DVD. Dev.D. Directed by Anurag Kashyap. 2009. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. Devadoothan. Directed by Sibi Malayil. 2000. India: Empire (date of release unknown). VCD. Deyyam. Directed by Ram Gopal Verma. 1996. India: Bhavani Media (date of release unknown). DVD. Dhilluku Dhuddu. Directed by Rambala. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Dhund: The Fog. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. 2003. India: Eagle, 2005. DVD. Diary. Directed by Machakanti Rama Krishna. 2009. India: Sri Venkateswara Videos, 2010. DVD.

290

F ilmography

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Directed by Aditya Chopra. 1995. India: Yash Raj Films, 2003. DVD. Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche. Directed by Tulsi Ramsay. 1972. India: Friends Video, 2010. DVD. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Directed by Victor Fleming. 1941. USA: Warner Home Video, 2005. DVD. Dracula. Directed by Tod Browning and Karl Freund. 1931. USA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 1999. DVD. Dracula. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 1992. USA: UCA, 2007. DVD. Dracula 3D. Directed by Vinayan. 2013. India: Horizon, 2013. DVD. Drona 2010. Directed by Shaji Kailas. 2010. India: Central Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. Duvidha. Directed by Mani Kaul. 1973. India: Shemaroo, 2012. DVD. Ee Bhargavi Nilayam. Directed by Benni P. Thomas. 2002. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Ee Ganam Marakkumo. Directed by N. Sankaran Nair. 1978. India: Horizon (date of release unknown). VCD. Eeram. Directed by Arivazhagan Venkatachalam. 2009. India: Magna Sound Home Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Eight: The Power of Shani. Directed by Karan Razdan. 2006. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Ek Daav Bhutacha. Directed by Ravi Namade. 1982. India: Golden Plaza, 2008. VCD. Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi. Directed by Vishram Bedekar, 1970. India: Friends Video, 2010. VCD. Ek Paheli. Directed by Naresh Kumar. 1971. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Ek Paheli Leela. Directed by Bobby Khan. 2015. India: T-Series, 2015. DVD. Ek Ratra Mantarleli. Directed by Shriram Lagoo. 1989. India: Prism (date of release unknown). VCD. Ek Thi Daayan. Directed by Kannan Iyer. 2013. India: Eros, 2013. DVD. Enakkul Oruvan. Directed by S.P. Muthuraman. 1984. India: Movieland (date of release unknown). DVD. Enakkul Oruvan. Directed by Prasad Ramar. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Ennu Swantham Janakikutty. Directed by Hariharan. 1998. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Directed by Michel Gondry. 2004. USA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment. DVD. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. Directed by Sam Raimi. 1987. USA: Lions Gate, 2011. DVD. Eyes of Laura Mars. Directed by Irvin Kirshner. 1978. USA: Closed Caption, 2000. DVD. Flowers in the Attic. Directed by Jeffrey Bloom. 1987. USA: Lions Gate, 2014. USA: New Yorker Video, 2000. DVD.

291

F ilmography

Fright Night. Directed by Tom Holland. 1985. USA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 1999. DVD. Fright Night. Directed by Craig Gillespie. 2011. USA: DreamWorks Pictures, 2011. DVD. Gang of Ghosts. Directed by Satish Kaushik. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Gauri: The Unborn. Directed by Akku Akbar. 2007. India: Adlabs, 2007. DVD. Geethanjali. Directed by Priyadarshan. 2013. India: Movie Channel, 2013. DVD. Geethanjali. Directed by Raj Kiran. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Gehrayee. Directed by Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje. 1980. India: Shemaroo, 2007. VCD. Ghost. Directed by Puja Jatinder Bedi. 2012. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Ghungroo Ki Awaaz. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1981. India: Shemaroo (date of release unknown). VCD. Ghutan. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. 2007. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. Go Goa Gone. Directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. 2013. India: Eros International, 2013. DVD. Goa 350 KM. Directed by Amol Padave. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Goynar Baksho. Directed by Aparna Sen. 2013. India: Eagle, 2013. DVD. Green Snake. Directed by Tsui Hark. 1993. Hong Kong: Tai Seng, 2001. DVD. Gumnaam. Directed by Raja Nawathe. 1965. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Ha Khel Savalyancha. Directed by Vasant Joglekar. 1976. India: Big Home Video, 2009. VCD. Haiwan. Directed by Ram Bano. 1977. India: Eros Entertainment, 2010. DVD. Hanabari. Directed by Premendra Mitra. 1952. India: Big Home Videos, 2011. DVD. Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Directed by Dev Anand. 1971. India: Shemaroo, 2010. DVD. Haunted 3D. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2011. India: Big Music, 2011. DVD. Haveli. Directed by Keshu Ramsay. 1985. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Hawa. Directed by Guddu Dhanoa. 2003. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Hello Naan Pei Pesuren. Directed by S. Baskar. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Help. Directed by Rajeev Virani. 2010. India: Shree International, 2010. DVD. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Directed by Alexander Hall. 1941. USA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2007. DVD. Hisss. Directed by Jennifer Lynch. 2010. India: Shemaroo, 2010. DVD. Ho Sakta Hai!. Directed by Wilson Louis. 2004. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Horror Picture. Directed by Vijay Surana. 2014. India: Aananda, 2014. DVD. Horror Story. Directed by Ayush Raina. 2013. India: Big Music, 2013. DVD. Hotel. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1981. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. House No. 13. Directed by Baby. 1991. India: Time (date of release unknown). VCD.

292

F ilmography

Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. . ! Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya. 1994. India: Eros International Ltd, 2007. DVD. Hum Kaun Hai?. Directed by Ravi Sharma Shankar. 2004. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Ice Cream. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2014. India: Volga (date of release unknown). DVD. Ice Cream 2. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Idu Saadhya. Directed by Dinesh Babu. 1989. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. In Ghost House Inn. Directed by Lal. 2010. India: Central Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. Indriyam. Directed by George Kithu. 2000. India: Harmony, 2008. VCD. Indumathi. Directed by Harsha P. Reddy. 2009. India: Universal Home Entertainment, 2009. DVD. Irukku Aana Illai. Directed by K.M. Saravanan. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). It’s a Wonderful Life. Directed by Frank Capra. 1946. USA: Republic Pictures, 2001. DVD. Jaani Dushman. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. 1979. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. 2002. India: Captain (date of release unknown). DVD. Jackson Durai. Directed by Dharani Dharan. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Jadu Tona. Directed by Ravikant Nagaich. 1977. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Jaganmohini. Directed by B. Vittalacharya. 1978. India: Volga Videos, 2003. VCD. Jaganmohini. Directed by N.K. Vishwanathan. 2009. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. Jekhane Bhooter Bhoy. Directed by Sandip Ray. 2012. India: Eagle, 2013. DVD. Jighangsha. Directed by Ajoy Kar. 1951. India: Angel Digital, 2011. Jogwa. Directed by Rajeev Patil. 2009. India: Everest, 2010. DVD. Junoon. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt. 1992. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Kaadu. Directed by P. Subramaniam. 1973. India: Shree Video Tronics (date of release unknown). VCD. Kaal. Directed by Soham Shah. 2005. India: Yash Raj Films, 2005. DVD. Kaal Ratri Bara Vajta. Directed by Bhaskar Jadhav. 1991. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Kaali Pahadi. Directed by Kishan Shah. 2000. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Kaalo. Directed by Wilson Louis. 2010. India: Beyond Dreams Entertainment, 2010. DVD. Kabrastan. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1988. India: Nupur, 2007. VCD. Kala Patthar. Directed by Yash Chopra. 1979. India: Yash Raj Studio, 2007. DVD.

293

F ilmography

Kalliyankattu Neeli. Directed by M. Krishnan Nair. 1979. India: Horizon, 2011. VCD. Kalo Chhaya. Directed by Premendra Mitra. 1948. India: Angel Digital, 2006. VCD. Kalpana. Directed by Rama Narayanan. 2012. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2012. VCD. Kalpana House. Directed by P. Chandrakumar. 1989. India: Wilson Videos, 2010. VCD. Kana Kanmani. Directed by Akku Akbar. 2009. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. Kanakambari. Directed by Dinesh Baboo. 2004. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2009. VCD. Kanchana: Muni 2. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. 2011. India: Symphony Home Videos, 2012. DVD. Kanchana 2: Muni 3. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Kankal. Directed by Naresh Mitra. 1950. India: Angel Digital, 2006. VCD. Karoti. Directed by Ajoy Banerjee. 1988. India: Angel Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Karva. Directed by Navaneeth. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Karz. Directed by Subhash Ghai. 1980. India: Shemaroo, 2008. DVD. Karzzzz. Directed by Satish Kaushik. 2008. India: Adlabs, 2008. DVD. Kashmora. Directed by S.B. Chakravarthy. 1986. India: Manisha, 2007. VCD. Kathe Chitrakathe Nirdeshana Puttanna. Directed by Srinivasa Raju. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Kathputli. Directed by Amiya Chakrabarty and Nitin Bose. 1957. India: Eros Entertainment, 2005. DVD. Kerala Cafe. Directed by Lal Jose et al. 2009. India: AP International, 2010. DVD. Khamoshi. Directed by Asit Sen. 1979. India: Eros Entertainment, 2007. DVD. Khamoshiyan: Silences Have Secrets. Directed by Karan Darra. 2015. India: Shemaroo, 2015. Khooni. Directed by Kanti Shah. 2004. India: Friends (date of release unknown). VCD. Khooni Mahal. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1987. India: Bombino (date of release unknown). VCD. Khooni Murdaa. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1989. India: Priya, 2007. VCD. Khooni Raat. Directed by J.D. Lawrence. 1991. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Khudito Pashan. Directed by Tapan Sinha. 1960. India: Angel Digital, 2009. VCD. Khwahish. Directed by Govind Menon. 2003. India: Shemaroo, 2003. DVD. Kissa Kursi Ka. Directed by Amrit Nahata. 1978. Film (VCD/DVD details unknown). Kohraa. Directed by Biren Nag. 1964. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD.

294

F ilmography

Krishna Cottage. Directed by Santram Varma. 2004. India: Bombino Digital Video, 2004. VCD. Kucch To Hai. Directed by Anurag Basu and Anil V. Kumar. 2003. India: Video Sound, 2003. DVD. Kudrat. Directed by Chetan Anand. 1981. India: Moser Baer, 2009. DVD. Kuheli. Directed by Tarun Majumdar. 1971. India: Angel Digital, 2009. DVD. Kuttichaathan. Directed by Crossbelt Mani. 1975. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Lakshmi Kataksham. Directed by B. Vittalacharya. 1970. Film (VCD/DVD details unknown). Lalkuthi. Directed by Kanak Mukhopadhyay. 1978. India: Angel Digital, 2010. VCD. Lapachhapi. Directed by Vishal Furia. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Last Bus. Directed by S.D. Arvind. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Lisa. Directed by Baby. 1978. India: Harmony Videos, 2012. VCD. Love Me Deadly. Directed by Jacques Lacerte. 1973. USA: Media Blasters, 2008. DVD. Love, Sex Aur Dhokha. Directed by Dibakar Banerjee. 2010. India: Moser Baer, 2010. DVD. Maa. Directed by Ajay Kashyap. 1992. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai. Directed by Debaloy Dey. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Madhumati. Directed by Bimal Roy. 1958. India: Shemaroo, 2010. VCD. Magic. Directed by Richard Attenborough. 1978. USA: Platform Entertainment, 2007. DVD. Mahal. Directed by Kamal Amrohi. 1949. India: Friends, 2009. VCD. Mallika. Directed by Wilson Louis. 2010. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Manasariyathe. Directed by Soman Ambatt. 1984. India: Wilson Videos (date of release unknown). VCD. Mandi. Directed by Shyam Benegal. 1983. India: Eagle Home Entertainment, 2003. DVD. Mangala. Directed by Osho Tulasi Ram. 2011. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Mangalsutra. Directed by Vijay B. 1981. India: Eagle, 2006. DVD. Maniac. Directed by Albin Joseph. 2011. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Manichitrathazhu. Directed by Fazil. 1993. India: Moser Baer and Saina, 2007. VCD. Manthrikan. Directed by Anil. 2012. India: Empire, 2012. DVD. Mantra. Directed by Osho Tulasi Ram. 2007. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. DVD. Mantra. Directed by Rabiranjan Maitra. 2005. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Mantra 2. Directed by S.V. Suresh. 2015. India: Horizon (date of release unknown). Manush Bhoot. Directed by Ajay Sarkar. 2006. India: Sony BMG, 2009. DVD. Maraner Pare. Directed by Satish Dasgupta. 1954. India: Angel Video (date of release unknown). DVD.

295

F ilmography

Marma. Directed by Sunil Kumar Desai. 2002. India: Sri Nakoda Video, 2008. VCD. Masani. Directed by Padmaraj and L.G. Ravichandran. 2013. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2013. DVD. Maut Ki Haveli. Directed by A. Raja. 2001. India: Priya, 2009. DVD. Maya. Directed by Raj Kumar Behl. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Maya. Directed by Ashwin Saravanan. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Meghasandesam. Directed by Rajasenan. 2001. India: Empire, 2008. VCD. Mera Saaya. Directed by Raj Khosla. 1966. India: Shemaroo, 2003. DVD. Miruthan. Directed by Shakti Soundar Rajan. 2016. India: Ayngaran International Media, 2016. DVD. Mithram. Directed by Jespal Shanmugham. 2014. India: Horizon, 2015. DVD. Mohini 9886788888. Directed by Rajendra Singh Babu. 2006. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2008. VCD. Moksha. Directed by Srikanth Vemulapalli. 2013. India: Santosh Videos, 2013. DVD. Moodu Pani. Directed by Balu Mahendra. 1980. India: Jayam, 2011. DVD. Moonnamathoral. Directed by V.K. Prakash. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Mr. Natwarlal. Directed by Rakesh Kumar. 1979. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Ms. Lekha Tharoor Kaanunnathu. Directed by Shajiyem. 2013. India: Satyam, 2014. VCD. Mumbai 125 KM 3D. Directed by Hemant Madhukar. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Muni. Directed by Raghava Lawrence. 2007. India: Santosh Videos India, 2007. VCD. My Dear Lisa. Directed by Baby. 1987. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). VCD. Naa Ninna Bidalaare. Directed by Vijay. 1979. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2007. VCD. Naani. Directed by Raghavendra K. Gollahalli. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Nache Nagin Gali Gali. Directed by Mohanji Prasad. 1989. India: Eagle (date of release unknown). VCD. Nadi Rathri. Directed by Raja. 1993. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Nagamandala. Directed by T.S. Nagabharana. 1997. India: T-Series, 2007. DVD. Nagavalli. Directed by P. Vasu. 2010. India: Aditya Video, 2011. DVD. Nagin. Directed by Rajkumar Kohli. 1976. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. Nagina. Directed by Harmesh Malhotra. 1986. India: Eagle, 2008. VCD. Naina. Directed by Shripal Morakhia. 2005. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Nalaya Manithan. Directed by Velu Prabhakaran. 1989. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Namo Bhootatma. Directed by Murali. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Neelambari. Directed by Surya. 2001. India: Manoranjan Video, 2010. VCD.

296

F ilmography

Neeya. Directed by Durai, 1979. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. Neighbours. Directed by Shyam Ramsay. 2014. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). DVD. Nekromantic. Directed by Jorg Buttgereit. 1987. USA: Barrel Entertainment, 2000. DVD. Nenjam Marappathillai. Directed by Sridhar. 1963. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Nigahen. Directed by Harmesh Malhotra. 1989. India: Eagle, 2008. VCD. Night of the Living Dead. Directed by George A. Romero. 1969. USA: Synergy Entertainment, 2008. DVD. Nishi Trishna. Directed by Parimal Bhattacharya. 1989. India: Angel Digital, 2009. VCD. Nooravathu Naal. Directed by Manivannan. 1984. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Nosferatu. Directed by F. W. Murnau. 1922. USA: Image Entertainment, 2001. DVD. Notebook. Directed by Rosshan Andrrews. 2006. India: Harmony (date of release unknown). DVD. Om Shanti Om. Directed by Farah Khan. 2007. India: Eros, 2007. DVD. Orr Eravuu. Directed by Hari Shankar, Hareesh Narayan and Krishna Sekhar. 2010. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Ouija. Directed by Raaj Kumar Reddy. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Paathirapattu. Directed by N. Prakash. 1967. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Pachadlela. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. 2004. India: Video Palace, 2010. VCD. Padunna Puzha. Directed by M. Krishnan Nair. 1968. India: Saina (date of release unknown). VCD. Paheli. Directed by Amol Palekar. 2005. India: Eros International, 2008. DVD. Pakalpooram. Directed by Anil Babu. 2002. India: Moser Baer, 2007. VCD. Panchakshari. Directed by V. Samudra. 2010. India: Aditya Video, 2011. DVD. Papi Gudia. Directed by Lawrence D’Souza. 1996. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Pathimoonam Number Veedu. Directed by Baby. 1990. India: Real Music (date of release unknown). DVD. Pathlag. Directed by Raja Paranjpe. 1964. India: Neelam Audio and Video Inc. (date of release unknown). VCD. Phhir. Directed by Girish Dhamija. 2011. India: Reliance Home Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Phir Wohi Raat. Directed by Danny Denzongpa. 1980. India: Ultra, 2008. VCD. Phobia. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. 2016. India: Eros, 2016. DVD. Phoonk. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 2008. India: Junglee Music, 2008. DVD. Phoonk 2. Directed by Milind Gadagkar. 2010. India: Moser Baer, 2012. VCD. Photo. Directed by Siva Nageswara Rao. 2006. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD.

297

F ilmography

Pillai Nila. Directed by Manobala. 1985. India: Raj Vision Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Pisaasu. Directed by Mysskin. 2014. Malaysia: Lotus Five Star, 2014. DVD. Pizza. Directed by Akshay Akkineni. 2014. India: Big Music, 2014. DVD. Pizza II: Villa. Directed by Deepan Chakravarthy. 2013. India: Sri Balaji Video (date of release unknown). DVD. Plot No. 666. Directed by Aziz. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Poga. Directed by Marthand K Shankar. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Prema Katha Chitram. Directed by J. Prabhakar Reddy. 2013. India: Bhavani, 2013. DVD. Pretham. Directed by Ranjith Sankar. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Punnami Naagu. Directed by Rajasekhar. 1980. India: Volga Videos, 2004. VCD. Punnami Nagu. Directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy. 2009. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Purana Mandir. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1984. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2006. DVD. Purani Haveli. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1989. India: Friends Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Putuler Protishodh. Directed by Rabi Kinagi. 1998. India: Eagle (date of release unknown). VCD. Pyaasa Haiwan. Directed by Kanti Shah. 2003. India: Ultra (date of release unknown). VCD. Pyasa Shaitan. Directed by Joginder Shelly. 1984. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Qatil Chandalini. Directed by Rajan Lyallpuri. 1998. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Qatil Chudail. Directed by Kanti Shah. 2001. India: Friends (date of release unknown). VCD. Raat. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 1992. India: Shemaroo, 2007. DVD. Raat Barota Paanch. Directed by Saran Dutta. 2005. India: Eskay Video, 2005. VCD. Raaz 3D: Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2012. India: Big Music, 2012. DVD. Raaz. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2002. India: Moser Baer, 2009. VCD. Raaz: The Mystery Continues. Directed by Mohit Suri. 2009. India: Sony BMG, 2009. DVD. Ragini MMS. Directed by Pawan Kripalani. 2011. India: Junglee Home Video, 2011. DVD. Ragini MMS 2. Directed by Bhushan Patel. 2014. India: Reliance, 2014. DVD. Raju Gari Gadhi. Directed by Omkar. Perf. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Rakht. Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar. 2004. India: Shemaroo, 2004. DVD. Raksha. Directed by Vamsikrishna Akella. 2008. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. DVD. Raktharakshassu 3D. Directed by Paul Factor. Perf. 2014. India: Horizon, 2014. VCD.

298

F ilmography

Randu Penkuttikal. Directed by Mohan. 1978. India: Angel Films (date of release unknown). DVD. Ratri. Directed by Uday Shankar. 2009. India: Volga, 2009. DVD. Red Rain. Directed by Rahul Sadasivan. 2013. India: Empire, 2014. DVD. Red Rose. Directed by Bharathiraja. 1980. India: T-Series (date of release unknown). VCD. Rise of the Zombie. Directed by Luke Kenny and Devaki Singh. 2013. India: Junglee Home Video, 2013. DVD. Rokkk. Directed by Rajesh Ranshinge. 2010. India: Eagle Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD. Roohani Taaqat. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1991. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Rudraksh. Directed by Mani Shankar. 2004. India: Shemaroo, 2011. DVD. Saaya. Directed by Anurag Basu. 2003. India: Moser Baer, 2013. DVD. Saboot. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1980. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Sadak. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt. 1991. India: T-Series, 2007. DVD. Sadma. Directed by Balu Mahendra. 1983. India: Shemaroo, 2002. DVD. Sancharam. Directed by Ligy G. Pullappally. 2004. France: Sortle Video, 2009. DVD. Sannata. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1981. India: Priya (date of release unknown). VCD. Sansani. Directed by Irshad. 1981. India: Friends Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Satya. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma. 1998. India: Eros Entertainment, 2006. DVD. Sau Saal Baad. Directed by Mohan Bhakri. 1989. India: Eagle, 2007. VCD. Savarkhed Ek Gaon. Directed by Rajeev Patil. 2004. India: Everest Entertainment (date of release unknown). DVD. Shaapit. Directed by Vikram Bhatt. 2010. India: Shree International, 2010. DVD. Shabnam Mausi. Directed by Yogesh Bharadwaj. 2005. India: Madhu Entertainment, 2005. Shaitaan. Directed by Firoz Chinoy. 1974. India: Moser Baer (date of release unknown). VCD. Shaitani Ilaaka. Directed by Kiran Ramsay. 1990. India: Time, 2004. VCD. Shakthi. Directed by Vijay Anand. 1980. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Shaun of the Dead. Directed by Edgar Wright. 2004. USA: Universal Pictures, 2007. DVD. Sherlock Homes and the Voice of Terror. Directed by John Rawlins. 1942. USA: Mpi Home video, 2003. Shhh! Directed by Upendra Rao. 1993. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2008. VCD. Shishira. Directed by Manju Swaraj. 2009. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Shivalinga. Directed by P. Vasu. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Sholay. Directed by Ramesh Sippy. 1975. India: Pen, 2011. DVD. Sigappu Rojakkal. Directed by P. Bharathiraja. 1978. India: Movie Land (date of release unknown). DVD.

299

F ilmography

Silent Valley. Directed by Syed Usman. 2012. India: Horizon, 2012. DVD. Sivi. Directed by K.R. Senthil Nathan. 2007. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Snake Woman’s Marriage. Directed by Sun Yang. 1975. Film. Snakes on a Plane. Directed by David R. Ellis. 2006. USA: New Line, 2007. DVD. Soorya Kireedam. Directed by George Kithu. 2007. India: Highness Video, 2007. VCD. Sowkarpettai. Directed by V.C. Vadivudaiyan. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Sreekrishna Parunthu. Directed by A. Vincent. 1984. India: Harmony, 2008. VCD. Sssshhh. . . . Directed by Pawan Kaul. 2003. India: Eros International, 2007. DVD. Strawberry. Directed by Pa. Vijay. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Subhadram. Directed by Sreelal Devaraj. 2007. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Summer Palace. Directed by K. Murali. 2000. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Suryavanshi. Directed by Rakesh Kumar. 1992. India: Shemaroo, 2011. DVD. Swaha: Life Beyond Superstition. Directed by Manoj Sharma. 2010. India: SEPL (date of release unknown). VCD. Swetha Naagu. Directed by Sanjeeva. 2004. India: Shalimar, 2006. VCD. Tahkhana. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1986. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2009. DVD. Talaash: The Answer Lies Within. Directed by Reema Kagti. 2012. India: Reliance Entertainment, 2012. DVD. Tamanna. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt. 1997. India: T-Series, 2007. VCD. Tanthra. Directed by K.J. Bose. 2006. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Teen Kanya. Directed by Satyajit Ray. 1961. India: Big Home Video, 2008. DVD. Telephone. Directed by Tulsi Ramsay and Shyam Ramsay. 1985. India: Friends Video, 2006. VCD. That Girl in Yellow Boots. Directed by Anurag Kashyap. 2011. India: Moser Baer, 2011. DVD. The Bhoot of Rose Ville. Directed by Sanghamitra Chowdhury. 2010. India: Angel Videos, 2012. DVD. The Cement Garden. Directed by Andrew Birkin. 1993. USA: New Yorker Video, 2000. DVD. The Exorcist. Directed by William Friedkin. 1973. USA: Warner Home Video, 1998. DVD. The Eye. Directed by Pang Brothers. 2002. USA: Lions Gate, 2003. The Great Gabbo. Directed by James Cruze and Erich Von Stroheim. 1929. USA: Synergy Entertainment, 2007. DVD. The Great Gambler. Directed by Shakti Samanta. 1979. India: Shemaroo, 2002. DVD.

300

F ilmography

The Horn Blows at Midnight. Directed by Raoul Walsh. 1945. USA: Warner Archive Collection, 2013. DVD. The Horror of Dracula. Directed by Terence Fisher. 1958. USA: Warner Home Video, 2005. DVD. The Last Man on Earth. Directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow. 1964. USA: Legend Films, 2008. DVD. The Legend of the White Serpent. Directed by Shiro Toyoda. 1956. Film. The Others. Directed by Alejandro Amenabar. 2001. USA: Miramax, 2011. DVD. The Truman Show. Directed by Peter Weir. 1998. USA: Paramount, 1999. DVD. The Twilight Saga. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. 2008. USA: PVR Pictures, 2013 DVD. Three. Directed by Shekhar Suri. 2008. India: Universal Home Entertainment, 2008. DVD. Tower House. Directed by Nisar Ahmad Ansari. 1962. India: Friends Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Trading Places. Directed by John Landis. 1983. USA: Paramount Home Entertainment, 2002. DVD. Trikal. Directed by Shyam Benegal. 1985. India: Eagle, 2003. VCD. Trip to Bhangarh: Asia’s Most Haunted Place. Directed by Jitendra Pawar. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Tripura. Directed by Raj Kiran. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Tulasi Dala. Directed by Vemagal Jagannath Rao. 1985. Film. Tulasi Dalam. Directed by Yandamuri Veerendranath. 1995. India: Sri Balaji Video, 2008. VCD. Tulasi Dalam. Directed by R.P. Patnaik. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Tum Mere Ho. Directed by Tahir Hussain. 1990. India: Shemaroo, 2010. DVD. U Turn. Directed by Pawan Kumar. 2016. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Urangaatha Sundari. Directed by P. Subramaniam. 1969. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Uruvam. Directed by G.M. Kumar. 1991. India: Big Home Video, 2008. VCD. Vaa Arugil Vaa. Directed by Kalaivanan Kannadasan. 1991. India: Raj Video Vision (date of release unknown). DVD. Vaastu Shastra. Directed by Sourabh Usha Narang. 2004. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Vahininchya Bangdya. Directed by Shantaram Athavle. 1953. India: Fountain Video (date of release unknown). VCD. Vampyr. Directed by Carl Dreyer. 1932. USA: Image entertainment, 1998. DVD. Vayanadan Thampan. Directed by A. Vincent. 1978. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Vedhala Ulagam. Directed by A.V. Meiyappan. 1948. India: Moser Baer, 2008. DVD. Veendum Lisa. Directed by Baby. 1987. India: T-Series, 2011. DVD.

301

F ilmography

Veerana. Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. 1988. USA: Mondo Macabro, 2009. DVD. Vellinakshatram. Directed by Vinayan. 2004. India: Empire, 2011. VCD. Vismayathumbathu. Directed by Fazil. 2004. India: Harmony, 2010. VCD. Whistle. Directed by J.D. and Jerry. 2003. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown), DVD. Winter. Directed by Deepu Karunakaran. 2009. India: Harmony, 2010. DVD. Woh Kaun Thi? Directed by Raj Khosla. 1964. India: Ultra, 2009. VCD. Woh Phir Aayegi. Directed by B.R. Ishara. 1988. India: Moser Baer, 2008. VCD. Yaamirukka Bayamey. Directed by Deekay. 2014. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Yaar? Directed by Sakthi-Kannan. 1985. India: Symphony Home Videos (date of release unknown). DVD. Yaaradu?. Directed by Srinivas Kaushik. 2009. India: Sri Ganesh Video, 2010. DVD. Yaksha Gaanam. Directed by Sheela. 1976. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Yakshi: Faithfully Yours. Directed by Abhiram Suresh Unnithan. 2012. India: Horizon, 2013. DVD. Yakshiyum Njanum. Directed by Vinayan. 2010. India: Empire, 2010. DVD. Yavarum Nalam. Directed by Vikram K. Kumar. 2009. India: Big Pictures, 2009. DVD. Yodha. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan. 1992. India: Moser Baer, 2007. DVD. Yoogan. Directed by Kamal G. 2015. (VCD/DVD details unknown). Zapatlela. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. 1993. India: Prism, 2010. VCD. Zapatlela 2. Directed by Mahesh Kothare. 2013. India: Shemaroo, 2013. DVD. Zombieland. Directed by Ruben Fleischer. 2009. USA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD.

302

INDEX

Aa Intlo 36 Aandhi 97 abject 12, 97, 106, 157, 177 action 4, 10, 18 Adharvam 23 Adler, Margot 67 agency 21, 23, 28, 55, 56, 57, 64, 86, 98, 130, 134, 165, 166, 183, 191, 195, 197, 201, 206 Aggarwal, Anil 71 Aggarwal, Anirudh 71 Aggarwal, Bina 41 agnipariksha 59 Ajit 102 Akalpit 31, 36 Akam 34, 174, 175, 175 – 86, 194 Akash Ganga 36 Akbar, Akku 24, 36 Akella 30 Aks 35 alienation 67, 87, 124, 128, 207, 208 All India Radio 190 Altman, Rick 7 Amar, Akbar, Anthony 152 Amar Chitra Katha 101 Ammo Bomma 149 Amrohi, Kamal 2, 174 Anaconda 94, 207 Anand, Dev 122 Anand, Tinnu 163 Anderson, Judith 18 Andhera 188 Andrews, Rosshan 53 Angel on My Shoulder 160

Anglo-Indian 117, 168 Angoor 112 Anil 36 animal transformations 32, 33, 36, 92 – 118, 189, 197 animation films 5 Anita 187 Anumol 180 apparition 3, 34, 175, 185 Apthamitra 31, 174 Aptharakshaka 31, 174 aravanis 152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 159 Aravindan, M. R. 150 Ardhanaari 152 art-horror 13 Arundhati 30, 32 atankajanita kampan 21 Athavle, Shantaram 27 Attenborough, Richard 145 Auerbach, Nina 66 Aur Kaun 188 Avana Ivan 174 Awachat, Anil 147 Baby 23, 29, 31, 36 Bachchan, Amitabh 2, 68 backlash 43, 74, 77 Backstein, Karen 67 baital 66, 67 Balachander, S. 174 Banan, Astha Atray 70 Bandh Darwaza 32, 67, 69, 73 – 7, 80, 82, 87, 91 Bandyopadhyay, M. 108

303

INDEX

Banerjee, Ajoy 27 Banerjee, Dibakar 49 Bano, Ram 188 Barjatya, Sooraj R. 22 Basheer, Vaikom Muhammed 23 Baskaran, S. Theodore 29, 196 Basu, Amrita 100 Basu, Anurag 174, 188 Bazin, Andre 4 b-category 22, 68, 161 Bedeker, Vishram 188 Bedi, Kabir 98 Bees Saal Baad 21, 33, 69 Beetlejuice 141 Benegal, Shyam 108 Bengali 4, 20, 24 – 7, 32, 82, 83, 84, 142, 160, 161, 169, 174, 190 Bengali Jatra 190 Benshoff, Harry M. 18 Berde, Lakshmikant 148 Bergh, Richard 70, 71 Bergson, Henri 141 Bhadkamkar, Abhiram 142 bhadralok 82, 83, 84 Bhakri, Mohan 22, 188, 199 Bharadwaj, Yogesh 152 Bharatanatyam 177 Bhargavi Nilayam 4, 8, 23 Bhatt, Mahesh 22, 32, 93, 152 Bhatt, Pooja 115 Bhatt, Vikram 22, 35 Bhattacharya, Parimal 27, 67, 207 bhayamu 21 bhayankarathwam 21 bhibatsa 21 Bhide, Ajit 146 Bhils 116, 117 Bhool Bhulaiya 174 Bhoot 8, 22, 32, 35, 36, 44 – 9, 53, 54, 60, 62, 64, 201, 203, 204, 205 Bhooter Bhabishyat 27, 33, 142, 159, 161, 166 – 70, 205 Bhugra, Dinesh 146 Bhutacha Bhau 28, 33, 159, 161 biological determinism 153, 155 Birkin, Andrew 73 Biswas, Moinak 26 Blackburn, Stuart H. 150

Blacula 66 blaxploitation 38, 66 blockbusters 4 Bloom, Jeffrey 73 Blore, Eric 14 Boa vs. Python 94 Boddy, Janice 37 Bokhari, S. Z. 157 Bomma 149 Boon, Kevin 119, 121 Bose, Anuja 101 Bose, K. J. 31 Bose, Nitin 149 Botting, Fred 88 box-office 2, 6 brahmapurusha 66, 67 Braudy, Leo 4 Burton, Tim 141 Buscombe, Edward 5 Butler, J. 154 Buttgereit, Jorge 70 capitalism/capitalist 9, 17, 40, 101, 122, 127, 137, 138, 139, 140, 166, 169, 206, 207; capitalist urban economy 40; consumer capitalism 120 Capra, Frank 160 Carmilla 17 Carroll, Noel 13, 141 Caston, Emily 160 castrating female 198 Cavalcanti et al 144 The Cement Garden 73 censor board 2, 77 c-grade 22, 132 Chaappa Kurishu 49 Chakrabarty, Amiya 149 Chakrabarty, Sabyasachi 161 Chamatkar 33, 142, 159, 161, 162 – 6, 170, 207 Chandamama 101 Chandramukhi 174 Chari, Bindiya 123 Charulatha 31 Chatterjee, Mousumi 161 Chatterjee, Prasenjit 83 Chatterjee, Subhajit 190 Chaudhuri, Soma 139 Chavan, Vijay 143

304

INDEX

Chemistry 32, 36, 49 – 53, 54, 60, 62, 64, 201, 208 Cherry, Brigid 90 Chinatown 73 Chinna 36 chinna veedu 56, 57 Chinoy, Firoz 188 Chipko movement 40 Chiranjeevi 32, 108, 112 Chopra, Aditya 22, 164 Chopra, B. R. 101 Chopra, Prem 102, 185 Chopra, Yash 2, 112 Christie, Deborah 119 Chucky 33, 144, 145, 150 Clasen, Mathias 129 class warfare 39, 43, 112 Clover, Carol 12, 47, 189 cognitivism 12, 13, 14 Cohen, Emma 37, 181 Cohen, Richard S. 181 Cold War 15 Collins, Jim 6 comedy 4, 10, 24, 28, 33, 70, 93, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 159, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171; horror-comedy 33, 37, 141 – 71 Comics Code Authority 2 Connell, R. W. 108 Coppola, Ford 66 Crain, William 66 Creed, Barbara 12, 99 cricket 152, 159, 164, 165 Cruze, James 144 custodial abuse 80 Dabas, Parvin 132 Darley, Andrew 6 Darna Mana Hai 22 Darna Zaroori Hai 22 darr 20 Das, Vir 122 Dasgupta, Satish 190 Davis, Wade 122 dayan 131 Dead of Night 144 D’Eaubonne, F. 40 deforestation 39, 167

Degoul, Frank 120 DeMause, Lloyd 74 Demetriou, D. 108 Desai, Manmohan 152 Desai, Sunil Kumar 174 Desai, Tinu Suresh 22 Desai, Vikas 22, 35, 197 Deshadanakili Karayarilla 53 detective fiction 25, 191, 192; fiction 189 Devgan, Ajay 44 Deyyam 33 Dhawan, Anil 98 Dhusiya, Mithuraaj 19 diabolical 41, 157 diegetic 42, 48, 53, 72, 76, 85, 88, 99, 116, 117, 159, 186, 207, 210; non-diegetic 42, 48, 72, 85, 99, 109, 116, 159 Dietrich, G. 41 Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge 22, 164 displacement 10, 48, 78, 86, 131, 137 Dissanayake, Daya 11 djinn 38 Doane, Mary Ann 51 Douglas, Mary 13 Dracula 3D 24, 32, 67, 86 – 91 Dreyer, Carl 17 drugs 121, 122, 123, 125, 130, 206 D’Souza, Lawrence 35, 149 Dubai 163, 165 Durai 29 Dutt, Sunil 68, 97, 112 Dutta, Anik 27, 142, 205 Dutta, Divya 133 Dutta, Saran 27 Duvidha 28 Dwyer, Rachel 3, 186 ecofeminism 39, 40, 41 ecology 40, 43, 44, 60, 64, 88, 93, 104, 122, 128, 129, 130, 205, 206 Eeram 29 Ek Daav Bhutacha 28, 142, 143, 144 Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi 188 Ek Ratra Mantarleli 174 Eleftheriotis, Dimitris 8

305

INDEX

Ellis, David R. 94 Ennu Swantham Janakikutty 24, 52 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 160 eve-teasing 105 Evil Dead 2 141 exorcism 31, 35, 41, 42, 51, 152, 203 The Exorcist 8, 22, 45 exoticisation 92, 106, 109, 157 exploitation 25, 32, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47, 49, 63, 64, 74, 93, 104, 127, 129, 138, 205, 206 fantastic 20, 33, 38, 63, 64, 106, 122, 173, 174, 180, 206 Fazil 24, 174 Fazil, Fahad 180 fear 12, 16, 18, 19, 20, 29, 42, 43 – 6, 47, 48, 50, 52, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 83, 84, 85, 87, 90, 92, 94, 95, 98, 99, 120, 125, 129, 137, 141 – 73, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 191, 195, 198, 207, 208 Feiner, Leslie 74 female agency 38 female autonomy 29, 42, 45 femininity 12, 23, 24, 28, 41, 50, 52, 53, 81, 97, 106, 113, 131, 139, 140, 182, 183, 187, 208 Fergusson, James 95 fertility 134, 138, 198 fetish/fetishising 59, 70, 115, 134, 169 film blanc 160 A Film by Aravind 30 ‘final girl’ 12 Fisher, Terence 66 Fleischer, Ruben 141 Flood, Michael 126 Flores, David 94 Flowers in the Attic 73 Freeland, Cynthia 14, 15, 17, 79, 81 Freud, Sigmund 14, 57, 173, 204 Friedkin, William 8 Fright Night 66, 141 frontality 112 Fuller, Christopher J. 38

Gabriel Over the White House 160 Gadagkar, Milind 149 Gandhi, Indira 10, 68, 93, 97, 98 gangster films 4, 22 Garbo, Greta 18 Garwood, Ian 48 Gehrayee 22, 31, 32, 35, 36, 39, 41, 43, 44, 49, 53, 54, 62, 64, 197, 198, 203, 204, 205, 206 gender hegemony 14 generic hybridity 5 genre 2, 3 – 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 53, 64, 65, 68, 70, 92, 93, 100, 102, 106, 119, 124, 140, 141 – 5, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 170 – 1, 172, 173, 174, 188, 189, 190, 191, 195, 199, 200, 203 Ghatge, Megha 28, 143 Ghatge, Vijayendra 74 Ghosh, Jayati 163 Ghosh, K. P. 25 ghost 13, 26, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 51, 58, 87, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 152, 159, 160, 161, 162, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 177, 178, 180, 183, 191, 192, 194, 200, 201, 205; ghost voiceover 44 Giallo 38 Gifford, Robert 45 Gillespie, Craig 141 Gledhill, Christine 107 globalised modernity 33, 140 Goel, I. 155 Go Goa Gone 22, 33, 121 – 31, 206 Gondry, Michel 160 Gooptu, Sharmishta 27, 82 Gopal, Sangita 19, 103 Gopalan, Lalitha 11 Gopi, Suresh 23, 175 Gopinath, Gayatri 52 Goynar Baksho 27, 160, 161 Grant, Barry Keith 162 The Great Gabbo 144 Great Gambler 2 Green Snake 94

306

INDEX

Griffiths, Mark 70 Grodal, Torben 13 grotesque 105, 165 grotesquerisation 208 Guercio, Gino del 122 Guiley, Rosemary Ellen 66 Gulzar 112 Gumnaam 21, 174 Gupte, Vandana 143 Hadyna, Dagmara 85 Haiti 119, 120, 121, 122, 127 Haiwan 188 Ha Khel Savalyancha 27 Halberstam, J. 154 Hall, Alexander 160 Hallenbeck, Bruce G. 141 Hamlet 183 Hammer Productions 2, 82 Hanabari 24, 25, 34, 93, 174, 175, 189 – 94 Handa, O. C. 95 Hare Rama Hare Krishna 122 Hariharan, T. 24, 52 Hassan, Kamal 23, 78 Haunt of Fear 2 Hecht, Ben 160 hegemony 11, 14, 21, 24, 54, 64, 80, 108, 145, 148, 192, 201 Here Comes Mr. Jordan 160 Herman, Judith Lewis 74 heteronormative 11, 18, 57, 75, 80, 129, 158, 176, 179, 193 high-rise buildings 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 64 Hijra 157 Hindi 2, 4, 9, 10, 18, 19, 20, 21 – 2, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, 44, 48, 49, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70 – 4, 82, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 108, 112 – 15, 118, 122, 123, 132, 138, 140, 142, 145, 148, 149, 157, 163, 164, 173, 188, 196 hippies 122 Hisss 32, 93, 103 – 7, 206, 207 historical disconnect 87 Hokenson, Jan Walsh 141 Holi 105 Holland, Tom 66

Hollywood 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 22, 38, 45, 67, 94, 95, 122, 144, 150, 160, 189, 207 home 40, 42, 49, 53, 113, 127, 128, 152, 154, 164, 165, 167, 172, 174, 175, 177, 179, 182, 183, 185, 194, 203, 204, 205, 207 homoeroticism 125, 126, 179, 204 homosexual panic 90, 91, 126 homosociality: female 41, 50, 52, 53, 64, 204; male 125, 126, 127, 146, 147, 179, The Horn Blows at Midnight 160 horripilation 20 The Horror of Dracula 66 Ho Sakta Hai 174, 188 Hum Aapke Hain Kaun 22 Hunaswadkar, Ameya 143 Hutcheon, Linda 166 Hutchings, Peter 70 hypermasculine body 42 hysteria 15, 173, 175, 177, 184, 186, 188, 194 Iaccino, James F. 84 ichchadhari nagin 97, 98, 101, 104, 105 imagined hinterland 53 immigrant 123, 163, 164 immortality 77, 78, 79, 81, 84, 137, 148, 200 incarnation 3 incest 43, 57, 67, 68, 69, 73 – 80, 86, 90, 91, 146, 147, 156, 199 industrialisation 39 In Ghost House Inn 24, 33 interstitial 13, 91 intertextual 6, 131, 132, 144 Irshad 188 Irulas 110 It’s a Wonderful Life 160 Iyer, Usha 70, 74 Jaani Dushman 2, 21, 32, 93, 108, 112 – 15, 197, 201, 204 Jackson, Michael 131 Jacob, Preminda 29 Jadhav, Bharat 28, 142 Jadu Tona 22, 35 Jaganmohini 30

307

INDEX

Jat 123 Jayaram 23 Jeetendra 112 Jentsch, Ernst 172 Joglekar, Vasant 28 Jogwa 152 Jonathan, P. Samuel 150 Jose, Lal 24 Joseph, Dennis 23 Junoon 22, 32, 93, 108, 115 – 17, 207 Kaalo 33, 132, 137 – 40, 198, 203, 204, 207, 208 kachavada 23 Kafka, M. P. 70 Kagti, Reema 200 Kahn, Jack S. 108 Kakar, Sudhir 9 kala 23 Kala Patthar 2, 112 Kale, Promod 147 Kalliyankattu Neeli 23 Kalo Chhaya 190 Kalyanaraman, Jananie 29 Kana Kanmani 24, 36 Kanala 30 Kanchana: Muni 2 33, 142, 143, 144, 145, 151 – 9, 170, 197, 198 Kankal 25, 190 Kannada 20, 30, 31, 61, 174 Kannan, R. 152 Kant, Immanuel 14 Kapoor, Rishi 101 Karoti 27 Karthikeyan, D. 110 Karunakaran, Deepu 24 Kashmora 30, 36 Kashyap, Anurag 49, 73 Kathputli 149 Kaul, Mani 8, 28 Kaul, Pawan 33, 188 Kaushik, Srinivas 31, 36 Kawin, Bruce F. 60, 141 Kee, Chera 120 Keith, Arthur 95 Keller, Marie 37 Kelly, John 70, 71 Kenny, Luke 121, 127, 207 Kerala Cafe 24

Khamoshi 146 Khan, Fardeen 44 Khan, Feroze 98 Khan, Irrfan 105 Khan, M. A. 157 Khan, Saif Ali 122 Khan, Sanjay 98 Khan, Shah Rukh 161, 162 Khanna, Rajesh 68 Khanna, Vinod 68 Khara, Swini 137 Khemu, Kunal 122 Khooni Murdaa 188 Khosla, Raj 34, 69, 174 Khudito Pashan 4, 25, 26 Khwahish 106 Kimmel, M. 107 Kinagi, Ravi 36 King, Ynestra 40 Kishore, Shelly 180 Kissa Kursi Ka 97 Kohli, Rajkumar 2, 21, 93, 97 – 100, 197 Kothare, Mahesh 4, 33, 142, 148, 149, 202 Kripalani, Pawan 49 Krishna, D. K. 22, 121, 206 Kristeva, Julia 12 Kucch to Hai 174, 188 Kuheli 26, 174 Kulhari, Kirti 127 Kumar, Anil V. 174, 188 Kumar, Ashok 2 Kumar, G. M. 29 Kumar, Rakesh 2 Kumar, Sanjeev 68, 112, 113, 115 Kumar, Uttam 25 Kumar, Vikram 30 Kumaran, Pon 31 Kunika 74 labour 9, 50, 74, 164, 169, 201, 203; cheap labour 104; labour economy 75 La Cava, Gregory 160 Lacerte, Jacques 70 Lagoo, Shriram 39, 174 Lakshmi Kataksham 30 Lakshmi, C. S. 55 Landis, John 160

308

INDEX

The Last Man on Earth 66 Lauro, Sarah Juliet 119 Lavani 28, 147 Lawrence, Raghava 33, 142, 149, 152, 197 Leelavathi 60 The Legend of the White Serpent 94 Lenin, Janaki 110 Leone, Sunny 132 liberalisation 30, 162, 163, 165 Lisa 23, 36 Llosa, Luis 94 Louis, Wilson 33, 132, 174, 188, 198 Love Me Deadly 70 Love, Sex Aur Dhokha 49 Lynch, Jennifer 32, 93, 104, 206 MacArthur, Charles 160 Macdonell, Arthur Anthony 95 Maddy 180 Madhu 23 Madhubala 3 madness 145, 146, 177, 184, 186 magic 144 Magistrale, Tony 79 Mahabharat (TV series) 101 Mahabharata 96 Mahal 2 – 3, 8, 21, 174 Mahendra, Balu 146 Maitra, Raviranjan 36, 149 Majumdar, Tarun 26, 174 Malayalam 4, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 31, 32, 33, 36, 49, 50, 52, 53, 64, 67, 88, 163, 174, 175, 178 male fantasy 55, 99, 198 male intrusion 42 male scrutiny 45 Malhotra, Harmesh 32, 93, 101, 202 Malik, Himanshu 106 Mammootty 23 Mangalsutra 35 manglik 146 Manichitratazhu 24, 33, 174 – 9, 184, 186, 194, 204 Manobala 32, 36, 197 Manthrikan 36 Mantra (Bengali film) 36, 149 Mantra (Telugu film) 30 mantravadi 59, 86, 87, 88

Manush Bhoot 174 manushya gan 146 Maraner Pare 190 Marathi 4, 20, 27, 28, 31, 33, 36, 39, 142, 147, 148, 149, 150, 159, 161, 171, 174m Marma 174 masculinist economy 32, 35 – 64 masculinity 29, 54, 63, 64, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 126, 153, 154, 192, 194, 197, 201, 204; in crisis 107, 110, 115, 174, 179, 187, 189, 197, 201, 204 masquerading 3, 121 – 2, 176 Matondkar, Urmila 44, 161 matrilineal discourse 61 Mayo, Archie 160 Mazumdar, Ranjani 48 McClendon, Patricia D. 73 Mehra, Rajiv 33, 142 Mehra, Vinod 98 Meiyappan, A. V. 28 melodrama 4, 10, 11, 23, 25, 26, 58, 142, 163 Menon, Govind 106 Menon, Nivedita 57 mental disintegration 46 Mera Saaya 187 middle-class cinema 10 Minkowski, Christopher 96 mirror 46, 47, 51, 65, 109 Miruthan 121 Mitra, Naresh 25, 190 Mitra, Premendra 24, 93, 174, 189, 190 MMS technology 49, 50, 53, 64, 208 Mohan 53 Mohanlal 23, 175 Mohiniyattam 177 Monihara 24, 26 monster 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 32, 36, 37, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 64, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 99, 111, 114, 122, 124, 126, 139, 141, 157, 207, 208 monsterisation 56, 57, 124, 208 montage 88, 116

309

INDEX

Moonnamathoral 36 Moorti, Sujata 103 Moreland, Sean 45 Morrell, R. 108 mrityunjay mantra 142, 148 Mr Natwarlal 2 Mubarki, Meraj Ahmed 19 mujra 103, 168 Mukesh 49 Mukherjee, Rani 161 multiple disorder syndrome 47 Murad, Raza 112 Muraleedharan, T. 53 Murnau, F. W. 66 musicals 4, 9 My Dear Lisa 29 naag mani 101, 104 naag yoni 102 Naa Ninna Bidaalare 31, 36 Nag, Biren 21, 33, 69 Nag, Dulali 26 Nagabhushanam, Hoskote 150 Nagaich, Ravikant 22, 35 Nagin 21, 29, 32, 93, 97 – 100, 101, 102, 107, 112, 113, 197, 198, 204, 207 Nagina 32, 93, 100 – 3, 104, 107, 202 Nair, K. 19, 70 Nair, M. Krishnan 23 Nair, P. K. 23, 24, 27, 196 Nair, Shalini Usha 24, 34 Namade, Ravi 28 Nanda, Meera 41 Nanjappa, Vicky 123 narcissism 17, 78 Nasiruddin, Melissa 129 National Emergency 68, 93, 113, 114, 115 Nawathe, Raja 21, 174 Nayar, K. R. 155 Neale, Stephen 4 necrophilia 19, 67, 68, 69, 70 – 3, 77, 91 Neela Velicham 23 Neeya 29 Nehru, Jawaharlal 1 – 2 Nekromantic 70 Nenjam Marappathillai 28

new cinema 10 New World 119 Nidimoru, Raj 22, 121, 206 Nigahen 101 The Night of the Living Dead 119 Nikhila H. 178 1920 London 22, 35 Nishi Trishna 27, 32, 67, 82 – 7, 207 Niyas, S. M. 178 non-normative sexualities 19, 68, 76, 86, 89, 91, 153 Noroi 38 Nosferatu 66 nostalgia 128, 157, 166, 168 Notebook 53 Oldham, C. F. 95 Osella, C. 108 Osella, F. 108 Ouzgane, L. 108 Oxford English Dictionary 20 Pachadlela 4, 28, 33, 142 – 5, 148, 170 Padmarajan 53 Paheli 28, 159, 161 Pal, Parthapratim 163 Palande, Pravin 130 Palekar, Amol 28, 68, 159 Palmer, Norman D. 97 Pangborn, Franklin 18 Papi Gudia 35, 149 Paranjpe, Raja 27, 174 Pardesi 123 parody 144, 166, 167, 168 pastiche 144, 166, 167, 168 Patel, Bhushan 22, 132, 199 Pathlag 27, 174 pathsala 162, 165 Patil, Rajeev 152 pativrata nari 102 patriarchal pedagogy 56 patriarchy 40, 42, 54, 58, 61, 79, 81, 108, 147, 184, 208 Paul, William 141 Pawar, G. M. 28 Pervez, Summer 45 Pfister, Christian 138 phantasmagorical 42 Phoonk 35

310

INDEX

Phoonk 2 149 Picart, Caroline Joan 142 Pillai, Meena T. 50 Pillai Nila 32, 36, 53 – 9, 60, 64, 197, 200 Pinedo, Isabel Cristina 16, 57, 135 Platts, Todd K. 121 Polanski, Roman 45, 73 porn star 132, 133, 136, 199 ‘Porror’ 132 Portelli, Alessandro167 possession 22, 31, 32, 35 – 64, 67, 93, 114, 115, 144 – 8, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 175, 177, 184, 186, 195, 197, 200, 204, 205; executive possession 37; pathogenic possession 37 postmodern 12, 15, 16, 18, 166, 191 Prabhavalkar, Dilip 142 Prakash, V. K. 36 Prasad, Madhava 9, 10, 29, 62 Premnath 102 Prem Nazir 23 prequel 6 Priyadarshan 174 proxy male violence 45 psychoanalysis 12, 172 psychological male violence 42 public spaces 42, 46 Pullapally, Ligy G. 53 punnami 108 Punnami Naagu 32, 93, 108 – 10, 202 Punnami Nagu 203 Purana Mandir 22, 32, 67, 68, 70 – 3, 77, 82, 87, 91 Purani Haveli 32 Puri, Amrish 42, 101 Purkiss, Diane 131 Putuler Protishodh 36, 149 queer 12, 16, 17, 18, 52, 154 Raam, Osho Tulasi 30 Raat 22, 35, 46 Raat Barota Paanch 27 Raaz 22, 35 Radstone, Susannah 168 ragging 60, 61, 62, 63

Raghavendra, M. K. 31, 61, 108 Ragini MMS 49 Ragini MMS 2 22, 33, 49, 132 – 7, 199, 200 Ragona, Ubaldo 66 Raimi, Sam 131 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish 11 Rajan, Shakti Soundar 121 Rajasekhar 32, 93, 202 Raje, Aruna 22, 35, 197 Rajendran, Aneeta 24, 53 rakta pisach 82 Ram, Kalpana 37 Ramakrishnan, Kodi 30 Ramakrishnan, Malayattoor 180 Raman, Prawaal 22 Ramayan 101 Rampal, Kuldip 45 Ramsay films 4, 18, 19, 22, 32, 39, 44, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 82, 91, 121, 142, 143, 167, 188, 203 Ramsay, F. U. 68 Ramsay, Shyam 22, 32, 67, 68, 69, 73, 188 Ramsay, Tulsi 22, 32, 67, 68, 69, 121, 188 Randu Penkuttikal 53 Rao, D. Surendra 97 Rao, Relangi Narasimha 149 Rao, Upendra 31 Rao, Vemagal Jagannath 31 rape-revenge 31 Rathnam, Mani 30 rave party 122, 123, 125 Ray, Satyajit 8, 24, 169, 192 Rayner, Philip 144 Reader’s Digest 2 recreational terror 16 Red Rose 188 Reddy, A. Kodandarami 203 Rege, Sharmila 147 reincarnation 19, 29, 195 Rekha 100, 112 Resnick, Phillip J. 70, 73 Rise of the Zombie 33, 121, 127 Rockoff, Adam 193 Romero, George A. 119 Rosman, Jonathan P. 70, 73 Rowena, Jenny 24, 146 Roy, Kanu 3

311

INDEX

Roy, Rahul 115 Rubin, Gayle 158 Ruspini 108 Russian mafia 122, 123 Ryall, Tom 5 Saboot 188 Sadak 152 Sadhana 187 Sadma 146 Sagar, Ramanand 101 Sahni, Balraj 149 Salkow, Sidney 66 Sancharam 53 Sander, George 18 Sannata 22 Sansani 188 Saraf, Ashok 161 Saranya 49 Sarathkumar 152 Sarkar, Ajay 174 Sarkar, Bhaskar 190, 191 sati savitri 187 Saturday Evening Post 2 Satya 22 Satyanarayana, A. 110 Schaltz, Thomas 7 Schnoebelen, Jill 132 science fiction 4, 162, 195 Scoundrel 160 Seabrook, William 120 Sekhar, A. 152 semiotic film theory 7 Sen, Aparna 26, 27, 159, 161 Sen, Asit 146 Sen, Meheli 19, 70 Sen, Moon Moon 86 Sen, Suchitra 25, 26 Sen Sharma, Konkona 161 Senthil Nathan, K. R. 29 sequels 6, 101, 189 Sex-change operations 152, 155 sexual abuse 74, 208 sexual economy 75 sexual exploitation 49, 74 sexualisation 106, 116 Shabnam Mausi 152 Shah, Kanti 22, 199 Shah, Nasiruddin 162 Shaitaan 188

shape-shifting 36, 92, 93 Sharjah 165 Shaun of the Dead 141 Sheikh, Farooq 68 Sherawat, Mallika 104, 106 Shilpa Bala 49 Shirin Toyoda 94 Shiva, Vandana 40, 44, 104 Shobhana 175, 178 Sholay 112 Silappadikaaram 149 Singh, Devaki 121, 207 Singh, Neetu 112 Sinha, C. 156 Sinha, Tapan 4, 24, 25, 26, 112, 156 Sippy, Ramesh 112 Sivi 29 6 – 5=2 31 Skal, David J. 2, 15, 81 slasher 12, 21, 33, 34, 37, 172, 174, 188, 189, 193 slave-master 119 slaves/slavery 40, 119, 120, 122, 147 Smith, Frederick M. 36, 37, 38 smuggler 33, 162, 163, 189, 193 snake 3, 32, 40, 92 – 111, 202, 207 Snake Woman’s Marriage 94 Snakes on a Plane 94 snake-woman 98, 99, 100, 102, 106, 107, 202 Solimini, Angelo G. 87 Souparnika, Santosh 152 Sreedharan, Janaky 179 Sreekrishna Parunthu 23 Sridevi 101, 103, 104 Sridhar 29 Srinivas, S. V. 30 Srivastava, Priyanka 187 Srivastava, S. 108 Sssshhh 34, 188 Stam, Robert 6 Stewart, Pamela J. 131 Stone, Bryan 170 Strathern, Andrew 131 subaltern 18, 75, 76, 77, 105, 110, 127, 128, 129, 148, 154, 170, 191, 201, 205 sublime 14, 15

312

INDEX

suicide 3, 43, 49, 54 – 5, 57 – 9, 109, 111, 143, 146, 167 – 8, 201 Sukumaran, Sudheer 86 Sun Yang 94 Suri, Shekhar 30 Surkar, Sanjay 31, 36 surveillance 46, 175, 178 Swaminath, G. 146 swayamvar 55, 56 taboo 70, 73, 80, 133, 198, 199, 200 Talaash: The Answer Lies Within 200, 201 Tales from the Crypt 2, 145 Talpade, Shreyas 142 Tamanna 152 tamasha 28, 147 Tamil 20, 25, 28 – 30, 31, 32, 33, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 64, 110, 121, 142, 149, 151 – 3, 155, 158, 173, 174, 176 – 7 Tanthra 31 tantric 23, 31, 35, 39, 42, 74, 82, 86, 87, 101, 133, 202, 203 Tarlo, Emma 97 technology 11, 24, 53, 86, 88, 89, 109, 119, 148, 153, 201, 202, 207, 208 Teen Kanya 24, 26 Telephone 188 Telugu 20, 21, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 108, 111, 149 Thakur, Sameer 49 Thampi, Viji 32, 36, 201 tharavaattamma 176 That Girl in Yellow Boots 73 therianthropy 36 Third world women 40, 41, 43 Thomas, Kette 121 Thomas, Rosie 8, 9 3D digital technology 24, 87, 88, 90, 91, 207 Thriller 131 thrillers 4, 5, 14, 20, 25, 31, 38, 131, 144, 180, 187, 190, 191 Tiwari, Anand 122 Tod, James 96 Todorov, Tzevetan 20, 33, 173, 180, 193

Tombs, Peter 18, 70 Trading Places 160 Transgender 144, 145, 151 – 9, 170, 197, 198 transgressive 10, 19, 66, 70, 73, 79, 81, 90 transmutations 19 tribe/tribal 75, 76, 79, 83, 84, 93, 97, 109, 110, 115, 116, 117, 202, 203 Trishul 112 The Truman Show 160 Tsui Hark 94 Tudor, Andrew 8 Tulasi Dala 31 Tulasi Dalam 30 12 AM Madhyarathri 31 uncanny 3, 14, 15, 20, 21, 26, 33, 34, 37, 94, 172 – 194 Upadhayaya, Bhagwat Sharan 96 Uruvam 29 ‘vagina dentata’ 85 Vahininchya Bangdya 27 Valanciunas, Deimantas 18 Valenti, Peter 160 vampire 12, 13, 17, 19, 22, 32, 36, 38, 65 – 91, 93, 106, 131, 180, 187, 195, 197, 198 Vampirehungsroman 78 Vampyr 17 Varma, Devendra P. 66 Varma, Ramgopal 8, 22, 30, 33, 35, 66, 201 Vasu, P. 31, 174 Vasudevan, Ravi 10, 11, 45, 48, 114 Vault of Horror 2 Vayanadan Thampan 23, 32, 67, 77 – 81, 82, 87, 91, 197, 200 Veendum Lisa 31, 36 Veerana 22, 69 Veerendranath, Yandamuri 30 veettamma 175, 176 Velayutham, Selvaraj 30 Vellinnakshatram 36 Venkatachalam, Arivazhagan 29 Venkataraghavan, M. 158 ventriloquism 144, 151 vetala 66, 67

313

INDEX

Vetala Ulagam 28 vibhishika 21 Vidler, Anthony 173 Vijay 31, 35, 36 Vijayalaxmi 3 Vinayan 24, 36, 67 Vincent, A. 4, 23, 67, 197 Vineeth 49 violence 16, 37, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 57, 63, 64, 71, 72, 74, 76, 79, 80, 81, 90, 91, 98, 103, 106, 116, 117, 125, 134, 135, 161, 162, 164, 165, 175, 176, 179, 183, 184, 195, 198, 199, 200, Vitali, Valentina 19, 70, 114 Vittalacharya, B. 30 Viyogi, Nasal 95 Vogel, Jean Philippe 96 Von Stroheim, Erich 144 voodoo 120, 122, 169 voyeurism 63, 116, 178, 193, 197 Vyjayanthimala 149 Wadhawan, Avinash 115 Walker, Robert 18 Walsh, Raoul 160 Warshow, Robert 4, 5 Watson, Paul 5, 6, 7

Weir, Peter 160 werewolf 22, 25, 32, 36, 69, 92, 106 Western patriarchy 40 wicca 131 Wildlife Protection Act 109 Williams, Linda 51, 123 Winter 24 witch 12, 33, 36, 37, 38, 69, 93, 119 – 40, 195, 198, 200, 207, 208 witchcraft 37, 38, 76, 131, 133, 137 Woh Kaun Thi? 34, 69, 174, 184 – 7, 194 Wright, Edgar 141 Yaaradu? 31, 36, 60 – 4 yakshi 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 194, 195 Yavarum Nalam 30 Yellamma 40 Zapatlela 33, 142, 143, 144, 145, 148 – 51, 162, 170, 202 Zapatlela 2 149 Zimmerman, Bonnie 17, 90 zombie 13, 19, 33, 36, 37, 38, 69, 93, 106, 119 – 31, 197, 207 Zombieland 141

314