’T is the season for not just joy but for horror too. But wait, there are some laughs as well.
We’re talking about Mo , the Tamil film that hits screens this week. Directed by debutant Bhuvan Nullan, this film falls under the horror-comedy genre, one that has proved to be successful for Kollywood for a while now.
The teaser of the film, which released in November, established the genre. It opens with Nagesh and Balaiah in that epic ‘horror film’ scene in the 1964 flick Kadhalikka Neramillai and intersperses that interestingly with scenes from Mo .
“That was the plan for the teaser from the time I started work on this project,” smiles Bhuvan, a mechanical engineering graduate, who was smitten by filmmaking, “That scene is epic for anyone who has followed Tamil cinema. Every horror filmmaker relates to that. I knew that juxtaposing that with my scenes will work in favour of my film.”
Apart from popular actors, like Aishwarya Rajesh, Suresh Ravi, Yogi Babu, Mime Gopi and Darbuka Siva, that he’s roped in, Bhuvan believes that the content itself would attract audiences. “I know that there have been many horror-comedies in the recent past, but I firmly believe that Mo will stand out,” says Bhuvan, who had earlier assisted Selva of Naan Avan Illai fame and directed a few short films before bagging his first feature.
That conviction stems from the fact that the ‘pei’ factor in the film is more fun than fear. “In every horror film, the ghost usually has a back story — about how it came into being — and why it takes revenge on someone. Here, the reason is quite silly… but a lot of fun,” he says, giving us a sneak peek into the film’s story.
The team parked itself in a school in Sriperumbudur for a couple of weeks (“that’s where 60 per cent of the shoot got done”) and wrapped up the entire film in a month. “The location plays a vital factor in a script like this,” explains the filmmaker.
