When The Conjuring 2 released in June 2016, its box office earnings netted ₹60 crore net at the Indian box office. 1920 London (₹15 crore net) and Raaz Reboot (₹25 crore net) which released at the same time were fairly successful, but couldn’t collectively match up to the American competition. In the last five years, Hollywood horror has not just been annihilating its Indian counterpart, it’s also eating into the mainstream Bollywood market.
Regionally dubbed films like Insidious , Annabelle: Creation and even the niche It have continued to perform well at the box office. “The dubbed versions of American horror films account for almost 40% of the business, especially those running in metros,” says Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a firm specialising in trade analysis. “Language is very important.” Box office expert Sreedhar Pillai echoes the sentiment though he does add, “Only Hollywood mass horror films work well in single screen areas.” Pillai is referring to classic jump scares that transcend language boundaries. Take for example, It which compared to The Conjuring sequel’s ₹60 crore net, made only ₹17 crore net. “It was too [complicated], something which the common man did not understand,” says Pillai.
It’s the same reason then, according to experts, that Pari, which released on March 2, has been restricted to urban multiplexes. The film was marketed as high-end horror. Two weeks later, the Anushka Sharma-starrer will just about manage something close to ₹25 crore net. In its second week, the film has collected about ₹20 crore net, not breaking even against a budget of ₹21 crore. The fact that Pari had the distinction of starring an A-lister didn’t help matters. Neither did its lack of a bankable male star — albeit Parambrata Chatterjee is popular in Bengal where the film has performed well — and short soundtrack with no commercial music. The film’s box office fate is indicative of how Bollywood horror has fared for a while now.
With barely four to five releases per year and even fewer filmmakers (like Vikram Bhatt and Ram Gopal Verma) ruling the genre’s roster, horror has never performed exceptionally. For instance, one of the recent most successful franchises of the genre has been Bhatt’s 1920 series. Its fourth instalment (released earlier this year), 1921 made only ₹15.41 crore net against a budget of ₹15 crore. “Horror is driven by special effects: sound and visual,” says Kapoor. “It’s determined by technology and Hollywood is doing it much better.” Plus, our expectations from Bollywood for the genre have always been low. Take for example the year 2004, when technological advancements meant that Bollywood shouldn’t have resorted to Ramsay-like techniques for scares; where bad make-up made monsters more funny than frightening. While Hollywood successfully remade the Japanese Ju-on: The Grudge , we still saw particularly embarrassing CGI and poor screenplays with films like Rakht (₹5.34 crore net) and Rudraksh (₹5.89 crore net). Since then, we’ve had a handful of success stories with of course, Bhatt’s 1920 and Raaz series; and the likes of Kaal (2005, ₹19 crore net), Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007, ₹49 crore net), Haunted 3D (2011, ₹26.39 crore) and Ek Thi Daayan (2013,₹26.81 crore net).
While Bollywood’s horror game has definitely improved, it still has a long way to go before it can capture the market entirely. “The problem with horror is that they’re not family films,” says Kapoor. “And no established stars have done horror in the last five to six years. By and large, the films are made with newcomers and television actors.” Pari has changed that trend with Sharma giving it some credibility. Unfortunately, it’s not been enough to bridge the gap entirely. After 1921 and Pari , there aren’t any upcoming horror films releasing this year. Then there’s director Ashim Ahluwalia’s upcoming ‘Palace of Horrors’, part of the international anthology The Field Guide To Evil which will premiere at the ongoing edition of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, on March 16. The horror short — set in 1913 Bengal — follows the filmmaker two efforts. His debut, Miss Lovely — preceded the Arun Gawli biopic Daddy — premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and portrayed the seedy underbelly of the sex-horror film industry. While Ahluwalia and Sharma’s contributions may not have helped immensely, they still further a genre that’s been largely neglected and dormant in Indian film industry.
*All figures courtesy Box Office India
