Back in 2007, a simple woman Avni, gets possessed by the spirit of Manjulika on-screen, and creates havoc in her otherwise blissful marriage, and terrorises an entire village. The horror seems to have no end in sight, till a psychiatrist decides to dig deeper, and finds out that there is more than what meets the eye..
.. Coupled with a haunting music score and the right use of prosthetics, this potboiler had all the trappings of sending shivers down your spine.
However, it was also peppered heavily with a dose of unintended laughs, rib-tickling jokes and an affable Chhote Pandit (remember Rajpal Yadav with the red face?), making the otherwise petrifying Manjulika somewhat watchable! A win-win for all. Yes, we are talking about Bhool Bhulaiyaa, that kick started the trend of a new genre in Hindi cinema - one that was here to stay, and how! Going back in time Historically, horror movies in India were marked by the usual stereotypes - jump scares, screeching doors, wind blowing in your hair and last, but not the least, an ancestral haveli perched atop a hilly town, with a lone watchman, with many scary tales up his sleeve. Case in point were Purana Mandir (1984), Tahkhana (1986), Purani Haveli (1989), and many others, all with similar sounding names, and eerily similar plots.
Aditya Sarpotdar, who directed the recent hit Munjya, looks back at that era and tells us, "Earlier, horror movies in India were largely dependent on theatrics and lacked an element of novelty. The only exce.