The 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist, collected a spine-tingling $402 million at the box-office worldwide; the 1999 low-budget The Blair Witch Project collected $248 million. While Bollywood doesn?t have a success rate anywhere near Hollywood?s for horror movies, the local film industry, fighting a recession, is now mulling the horror trail to the box-office.
?There are guaranteed returns on a horror film,? says an analyst, ?and you don?t necessarily need big names or high production costs. Also, if a horror film is good, it?s bound to be watched again and again; so producers and distributors tend to make money on home video sales and other rights as well.?
Consider this. BIG Pictures? March 6 release, 13B, made at a modest budget of Rs 6 crore, collected Rs 15 crore in the first week, despite mixed reviews. The producers gave it a wide release with 40 prints for the overseas market alone and the film, launched both in Hindi and Tamil, got a great response from overseas Indians as well. Not surprisingly, most big production houses are including a horror film in their slate this year.
Says Sunir Kheterpal, COO, Big Pictures: ?Several international distributors have shown a keen interest in adapting the film 13B into local languages and have asked for the script for acquiring dubbing rights.? Discussions are on with companies in the US, Western Europe and East Asia, where this genre is popular.? Kheterpal said BIG Pictures has another horror film in the line-up. ?We will make a franchise out of 13B and will soon announce the next film in the series.? Riding on the success of 13B, director Vikram K Kumar says his next horror film will be ready in three years.
Percept Picture Company has recently opened a separate wing for horror films which is slated to produce 10 horror flicks a year. BIG Pictures too is keenly looking at new scripts in the horror genre and wants to make at least two horror flicks a year. Ram Gopal Varma, who has made many films in the genre from Bhoot to Phoonk, is making three more, 360 degree, Agyaat and a sequel of Phoonk. From the PPC stable, the first horror film to reach the screens will be Priyadarshan?s Grr, the shooting for which would start in September.
Some horror films being produced by PPC include 8X10 (a supernatural thriller) and Vaham. On the small screen, too, horror shows have become a hit and have taken slots in primetime broadcast.
Globally, the horror genre is seen as safe business-wise, because by and large, horror films have a dedicated audience, says an analyst. This set of audience patronises horror films and looks for new content all the time. With technological advancements in sound and visual effects, the horror genre has certainly evolved, feel experts. You don?t need ghoulish visuals and ear-splitting sound effects to scare the audience anymore, they claim.
Production houses are ready to spend on technology and content to make a horror film stylish. Horrortainment, which is the newly opened wing of PPC for acquisition and production of horror movies, is looking at investing Rs 100 crore into the making of horror films over the next three years. Also, it has big plans to create a franchise where PPC will launch merchandise, theme parks, gaming and others. Says Navin Shah, CEO, PPC, ?We will be putting nearly 40-50% of our entire investment plan, of Rs 100 crore, during the very first year of operation of our new wing. In fact, we are looking at producing ten horror films over the next three years.? The first film, Grr, is set for a March 2010 release.
Video sales a bonus
Horror/supernatural/superhero films move very fast off home video shelves. With The Dark Knight being the biggest DVD grosser in India, Indian home video producers and distributors are taking the cue to release many more titles. Shemaroo has released Hindi horror film Raat on home video and English horror films like Evil Death 2; Scarecrow Slayer and World Cinema horror films like Audition on home video. Says Hiren Gada, director, Shemaroo: ?These films have a niche dedicated audience and within that audience, sales is there.? An average Indian horror film can earn revenues between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 30 lakh from home video sales, says Gada. ?We are in talks with various producers of forthcoming horror films for home video rights,? he said.
Kulmeet Makkar, CEO, BIG Music, home video wing of BIG Pictures, says horror movies can do well in home video sales provided content is right it has good animation and special effects. Some superhit horror films from Hollywood are Dracula, The Exorcist, and Friday the 13th. ?Our expectations are high from Friday the 13th when we release the film on home video in the near future,? says Makkar. ?Similarly, we are looking at garnering huge revenues from the release of 13B on video in 3-4 weeks from now. We will release the film in Hindi and in Tamil,? he adds.
On the home video front, BIG collected Rs 1 crore in three months from the sale of Vikram Bhatt?s recently released horror film 1920. For a small-budget film, the returns were huge, says Makkar. From big-budget home video releases like Welcome, Singh is Kinng and Jodha Akbar, BIG collected Rs 3 crore each per film.
But the meltdown has hit the revenue collection target of Rs 85 crore for this fiscal. ?We are likely to close this fiscal at Rs 80 crore due to the global meltdown,? says Makkar. ?Though, next fiscal year, we are looking at the target of Rs 100 crore. Currently, we are releasing films from four Hollywood production houses?Warner Bros, Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks?and have plans to release 30-40 horror flicks from these houses in the next few years, out of which 5-6 films will be released by this year-end,? he adds.
Horror on the small screen
The small screen too is experimenting with the horror fare. SAB TV, which is known for its comedy shows, has launched horror shows and made a success of it. Says Anooj Kapoor, business head, SAB: ?The series with the horror theme, Bhootwalah, which we launched a couple of weeks ago on our primetime slot, have evoked a very good response.? The series, currently on air from Monday to Thursday, had a viewership of 24 lakh during the first two days of its telecast, compared to the normal viewership of 13 lakh for shows prior to this,? says Kapoor.
But experts warn that filmmakers must tread cautiously on the horror turf. ?Too much of gore and special effects may not be enough to get the people in,? they point out. Shashank Karnard, director, KPMG and a media & entertainment expert, says ?these films should not overdo. They need to understand what the audience wants from such kinds of flicks.? For instance, says Karnard, ?We need more psychological thrillers.? He rues the fact that serious cinema hasn?t shown an interest in the horror genre yet. Benegal, Nihalani, anyone?
