Popular Malayalam digital platform Karikku, made its Netflix début with a sketch video Ripper — The Wanted Killer . Uploaded on April 3 on Netflix India’s YouTube Channel, it has already garnered 10 million views — one of the highest figures for the channel.
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This figure, Karikku founder Nikhil Prasad says, is “high and fast growing” even for the OTT platform. He had been in talks with OTT platforms such as Netflix to develop other content when this project came up for discussion.
“It was intended as a promotion for the Malayalam film Irul which is streaming on Netflix. We suggested this format instead with a video reference to Irul in the sketch, an idea that Netflix agreed with,” he says.
Irul starring Fahadh Faasil and Soubin Shahir, and directed by Naseef Yusuf Izudin, released on Netflix on April 2.
Formed in 2018 by Prasad, Karikku has grown into one of the top digital content creators in Malayalam with almost seven million followers on YouTube. It hit the jackpot after conceptualising the hugely popular YouTube series Thera Para .
The cast of Ripper... too comprises Karikku and Thera Para regulars Anu K Aniyan, Arjun Ratan, Jeevan Stephan, Sabareesh Sajjin, Kiran Viyyath and Unni Mathews. Prasad, who is the writer/director, has pegged the script on Karikku’s core strength, which is humour, and incorporated an element of horror. Not only the cast, even the location for Ripper... is the same as Thera Para . “It’s the same house where we shoot our episodes!”
The entire creative team
The only challenge, according to Prasad, was the duration for the sketch, “It could not exceed 13 to 14 minutes, we couldn’t cross that. Which made it difficult to convey the storyline, but we were able to make it work.”
The almost 17-minute episode (including credits) revolves around a serial killer on the loose in Kochi, and a group of friends who alternate between being afraid and joking about it. “We had complete freedom to create what we wanted to and how. There was no interference on the part of Netflix and they are very happy with how everything has turned out,” Prasad says.
Karikku is now in talks with other OTT platforms as well about content creation, with their impressive début on Netflix only helping to make the convincing part easier, Prasad believes.
