Five years after Bombay Talkies , Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar had directed another four-film omnibus, Lust Stories , last year for Netflix. They must have liked being in each other’s company, as they have reunited again after 18 months for a quartet of scary tales, Ghost Stories , that drops on Netflix on the very last day of this decade. Edited excerpts from a short but no-holds-barred interaction with them, in which we started off by asking the obvious question…
Why ghosts?
Karan Johar: I got carried away at the screening of Lust Stories and decided let’s jump in the deep end of the ocean. I suggested horror and everyone really got excited.
Then I realised how stupid I was to have suggested it, because I didn’t know if I had the ability to pull off this genre. I dug my own grave but I ventured into it, kicking and screaming. I tried very hard to get out of it. We have a group chat in which I kept saying ‘I can’t do this, can we think of something else’, but by then they had already shot their films. I was too late.
You work independently on films, do not consult each other. How have each of you interpreted horror? How similar, different?
AK: We are very different I think… But it somehow falls together.
KJ: It never seems to jump out. Thematically we are unified.
How is your horror different, Karan?
KJ: Mine is a ghost story.
AK: It’s a spookedy.
KJ: Mine is a pretty ghost story. Zoya described it really well. She said it was a Disney horror film.
DB: It is fun.
AK: There are at least two very laugh-out-loud moments.
KJ: Mine comes right at the end so after you have got scared, mine is the relief at the end.
What about yours, Dibakar?
DB: I haven’t done a ‘ghost ghost’ story as such. I have grown up on stories that come from Indian folklore — bhoot , pret , pishaach , raakshas , daitya . Then there are lots in Bengali culture like brahmodaittyo , shakchunni , petni . It came somewhere from there…
So yours is a sanskari ghost?
DB: No… Is it? [wonders]
KJ: His film will shake your foundation off. That’s what it did to me. I thought I was going to have a cardiac arrest…
AK: It is a sanskari ghost. He has made a sanskari ghost story; how dangerous sanskari can be.
KJ: It is not sanskari but it is definitely a commentary-wala ghost.
AK: Most political…
DB: But the ghost is not doing the commentary, ghost is having fun. Commentary kuchh aur hai .
Yours, Zoya?
AK: Hers is a ghost story. She is very diligent.
ZA: It’s a classic ghost story. About two women. I think it’s a bit of a feminist film. I don’t know how else to put it.
DB: When we finished watching each other’s films, I turned to her and said ‘heartbreaking’.
And Anurag, is yours sledgehammer, like you are [these days]?
AK: Mine is a story that crawls upon you. It’s atmospheric horror. What I like is what I got to do. It’s a slow burn…
Are you all admirers of horror?
KJ: Not at all. I am not admiring of any such thing.
AK: I like horror.
DB: I like.
ZA: I also.
So 3:1!
KJ: I don’t admire the genre at all. I don’t watch it. I would admire it if I watched it.
I can’t tell you that I have admired Ramsay Brothers because those are the ones I have seen.
Then I can’t ask you your favourite horror film…
KJ: No
DB: For the 23rd time in two days [of media interactions] The Blair Witch Project . So many people have asked me. Can I change it? The film that really scared me and also fascinated me is actually a short film by [Satyajit] Ray. Called Monihara: The Lost Jewels . It is part of Teen Kanya . One of the stories in it. It was the original anthology that he did. It was made out of three [Rabindranath] Tagore stories if I am not mistaken. And this is a ghost story somewhere in the 20th century Bengal.
ZA: There are some that are scary and still creep me out. Rosemary’s Baby , it’s just an amazing film, The Shining , the first The Omen , The Exorcist . TheSixth Sense freaks me out.
AK: Classic horror is always good.
KJ: I remember one film I saw that I never recovered from, that scared me was Carrie . I think that’s what scarred me when it comes to the genre.
DB: The Brian De Palma version or the new one?
KJ: Sissy Spacek…
ZA: That’s Brian De Palma and it’s superb.
AK: I like them all. I can talk about the last two decades. Let The Right One In , Midsommar , The Witch , Halloween , Us , Get Out , The Devil’s Backbone .
DB: I have one schlock favourite, Jeepers Creepers 1 .
KJ: There are two of those?
DB: I think there are three.
KJ: It’s a franchise!
DB: You should see it.
KJ: I will not do any such thing.
AK: You don’t like Scream , Halloween ?
KJ: I don’t like.
ZA: Halloween is very good.
AK: I Know What You Did Last Summer bhi nahin dekha? [asking Karan]
KJ: I have seen this anthology like this [covers his face].
DB: Wahi to mazaa hai .
Let’s move on to horror in real life?
AK: What’s happening in the country…
That’s also your fear? [posed to all the four]
AK: My biggest fear is the people I have put at risk by putting myself out there. More than [about] me, it’s people close to me, who I work with… I am inherently a survivor, but people around me, I don’t think are equipped to be survivors.
ZA: Loss of human rights is horrific. It frightens me and it’s here, there, everywhere. It’s global.
AK: Power in the hands of people who are so unaware.
[Turning to Johar] You dislike horror. Is that why you keep away from it for real too?
KJ: The way I have addressed any kind of horrific situation, be it within the confines of our country or anything else, is to do it in my way. The film I am making next [ Takht ] is a very solid film based on commentary. I don’t like to say these things. I think the more you state it, the more it dilutes what it is. It’s a solid commentary film and it’s saying something very strong.
DB: Three-four years ago, when the process started with the clamping down of JNU [Jawaharlal Nehru University] and FTII [Film and Television Institute of India] and when FTII was butchered with, we did something [referring to award wapsi ] and at that point I had said that it wasn’t a cinema industry issue.
I said that it was an education issue. If you stop students from asking questions then how will they learn? If you stop people from questioning then how will anyone learn anything and how will the society go forward?
