The merger of disparate genres — horror and comedy — has resulted in five films in the Maddock Supernatural Universe. Amar Kaushik has helmed three of these films: Stree (2018), which was his directorial debut, Bhediya (2022) and his recent film Stree: Sarkate Ka Aatank (2024), which is by far the most successful film of the shared universe. Popular as Stree 2, the film has emerged as the biggest Bollywood hit of 2024 with its estimated global gross collections of more than Rs 500 crore, ten times its reported budget of Rs 50 crore.
The prequel’s success guaranteed Stree 2 its initial viewership. It has worked like magic at the box office because director Kaushik has succeeded in making it as enjoyable as its predecessor. Predictably, horror is a far lesser presence in the story revolving around a headless entity that is out to get modern women. The film is a lot of fun because of its laugh-out-loud moments, while fine performances by the main cast (Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee, Aparshakti Khurrana) are at the core of its appeal.
After the success of the two Stree films, the sequel in particular, it will not be surprising if more filmmakers attempt horror comedies soon. After all, Aditya Sarpotdar’s Munjya, the small-budget fourth film of the Maddock Universe without a single star in its cast, had emerged as a surprise super hit earlier this year. Anees Bazmee’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 of the same genre and the standalone sequel to Priyadarshan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) was a blockbuster in 2022, which was a bad year for Bollywood at the box office.
Horror is not the most visible genre of films produced by Bollywood. The overall output of commercial cinema is dominated by romantic, action and family-oriented films, among them those that merge two or all these genres. This approach to film production is appropriate since the viewer might get bored of too many horror films. After all, how many filmgoers are likely to gravitate to the theatres to watch new horror films every second week for, say, three months on the trot? Not many, apart from true-blue addicts of the genre.
While Stree 2’s dramatic performance has been a shot in the arm for the industry, history shows that Bollywood has delivered diverse films in which horror constitutes some part of the story. Of course, there have been many unwatchable horror films over the years. Some readers would remember the Rajkumar Kohli-directed Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani (2002), whose memories evoke wholehearted laughter. Another ‘unforgettable film’ is Jennifer Lynch’s supernatural horror directorial mishmash Hisss (2010) in which Mallika Sherawat plays a shape-shifting cobra, and the late great Irrfan Khan appears as a cop. Khan did act in mediocre films, too, but Hisss is the worst film of his career.
Many Bollywood filmmakers have made horror films since legendary filmmaker Kamal Amrohi’s directorial debut Mahal (1949), a supernatural horror offering considered Bollywood’s first horror film. Many modern-day viewers would recall the jump scares in Ram Gopal Varma’s psychological horror film Kaun? (1999). Vikram Bhatt’s supernatural horror film Raaz (2002) — the unofficial adaptation of Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath — had what it takes to keep the viewer engaged.
Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot (2003), another supernatural horror film, kept the viewer engaged as the person tried to anticipate the next fear-inducing moment. The sequel to Ragini MMS (2011), Bhushan Patel’s erotic horror film Ragini MMS 2 (2014) was promoted as a ‘horrex’, or a film that combined horror and sex. In more recent times, Anand Gandhi’s folk horror film Tumbbad (2018) was a rarity: a highly unusual, exquisitely crafted work of art.
The Ramsay Brothers have carved out a unique brand name because of the small-budget horror films they started making in the 1970s. Their films satisfied their target audience, and those such as the surprisingly successful Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1972), Veerana (1988) and several others justified the nominal investment in them and simultaneously established them as filmmakers who specialized in horror films. Dead bodies, vampires, yeti (yes, even yeti in the 1991 film Ajooba Kudrat Kaa ), sleaze: there is much to discover in the Ramsay Brothers films, whose body of work is viewed as cult cinema.
A good horror film is an entertaining experience, whether or not the fear factor in the story is dominant. To keep the viewer engaged, however, it must have what all good films do: good screenplay, able direction, and competent performances. If a film has all these qualities, the producer can hope to laugh all the way to the bank.
The writer, a journalist for three decades, writes on literature, cinema and pop culture. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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