Supernatural thrillers and horror flicks are always associated with darkness, gory faces and silence followed by a thunder-like metallic sound to scare the audience sitting in the dark theatre surrounded by digital sound. From Ramsay Brothers of yore to Ram Gopal Varma, film makers have followed this dictum. But Ravindra Prasad Patnaik decided to be different. “Why do we have to use darkness to create that horror element in movies, why not horror be presented in all its brightness and still create that scary feeling? This thought led me to scout for the world’s brightest and colourful location to film Tulasidalam . And I found Las Vegas as the ideal location for my theme,” said R.P. Patnaik.
Nischal Deva of Friends Book fame and Mumbai-based model turned actress Vandana Gupta play the lead roles in this coming of age horror flick while R.P. plays a key role as a ghost reader. “The movie starts as a beautiful love story set in U.S.A. Nischal plays a software engineer and Vandana, a professional guide. Certain intriguing incidents in their life lead to scary happenings. I play one of the key roles that let the story move forward. Whether I am able to solve the mystery or not one has to watch on the big screen,” smiles the singer-music director turned actor-director. Brahmanandam plays the role of a witch doctor ( Bhootha Vaidyudu ). “We have to shoot his portions,” R.P. informs. “There are light hearted scenes too. The movie provides entertainment, suspense and thrills. It is not in the genre of a dark horror flick. Rather it is an enjoyable horror movie with melodious music.” The movie has five songs.
But then attempting different genres of celluloid stories has become a way of life for R.P. His debut directorial venture, Andamaina Manasulu dealt with teenage blues, while Broker took a dig at the present day political scenario and his third movie Friends Book is about the new fad among the young, face book and its consequences. Meanwhile news is that R.P.’s first English language film, Amy will be distributed world wide by the US based network IPN distributors. “’Amy’ is a super natural thriller set against the backdrop of the Amish community, one of the ancient tribes of America,” said R.P. Patnaik.
He would like to emphasis that his movie, Tulasidalam is not based on the popular novel by Yandamuri Veerendranath. “Since the title is apt for our story, we named it so. Otherwise there is not even a iota of resemblance between the two. We plan to release the movie in May-June. Watch it and you will agree that our horror movies too have come of age,” smiles the maverick filmmaker.
