Indian Horror Cinema

This book studies the hitherto overlooked genre of horror cinema in India. It uncovers some unique and diverse themes that these films deal with, including the fear of the unknown, the supernatural, occult practices, communication with spirits of the deceased, ghosts, reincarnation, figures of vampires, zombies, witches and transmutations of human beings into non-human forms such as werewolves. It focusses on the construction of feminine and masculine subjectivities in select horror films across seven major languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi and Malayalam. The author shows that the alienation of the body and bodily functions through the medium of the horror film serves to deconstruct stereotypes of caste, class, gender and anthropocentrism. Some riveting insights emerge thus, such as the masculinist undertow of the possession narrative and how complex structures of resistance accompany the anxieties of culture via the dread of laughter. This original account of Indian cinematic history is accessible yet strongly analytical and includes an exhaustive filmography. The book will interest scholars and researchers in film studies, media and cultural studies, art, popular culture and performance, literature, gender, sociology, South Asian studies, practitioners, filmmakers as well as cinephiles.

Bollywood Horrors is a wide-ranging collection that examines the religious aspects of horror imagery, representations of real-life horror in the movies, and the ways in which Hindi films have projected cinematic fears onto the screen. Part one, “Material Cultures and Prehistories of Horror in South Asia” looks at horror movie posters and song booklets and the surprising role of religion in the importation of Gothic tropes into Indian films, told through the little-known story of Sir Devendra Prasad Varma. Part two, “Cinematic Horror, Iconography and Aesthetics” examines the stereotype of the tantric magician found in Indian literature beginning in the medieval period, cinematic representations of the myth of the fearsome goddess Durga's slaying of the Buffalo Demon, and the influence of epic mythology and Hollywood thrillers on the 2002 film Raaz. The final part, “Cultural Horror,” analyzes elements of horror in Indian cinema's depiction of human trafficking, shifting gender roles, the rape-revenge cycle, and communal violence. This book also features images (colour in the hardback, black and white in the paperback).

Genre in Asian Film and Television takes a dynamic approach to the study of Asian screen media previously under-represented in academic writing. It combines historical overviews of developments within national contexts with detailed case studies on the use of generic conventions and genre hybridity in contemporary films and television programmes.

Bollywood Horrors is a wide-ranging collection that examines the religious aspects of horror imagery, representations of real-life horror in the movies, and the ways in which Hindi films have projected cinematic fears onto the screen. Part one, “Material Cultures and Prehistories of Horror in South Asia” looks at horror movie posters and song booklets and the surprising role of religion in the importation of Gothic tropes into Indian films, told through the little-known story of Sir Devendra Prasad Varma. Part two, “Cinematic Horror, Iconography and Aesthetics” examines the stereotype of the tantric magician found in Indian literature beginning in the medieval period, cinematic representations of the myth of the fearsome goddess Durga's slaying of the Buffalo Demon, and the influence of epic mythology and Hollywood thrillers on the 2002 film Raaz. The final part, “Cultural Horror,” analyzes elements of horror in Indian cinema's depiction of human trafficking, shifting gender roles, the rape-revenge cycle, and communal violence. This book also features images (colour in the hardback, black and white in the paperback).

Haunting Bollywood is a pioneering, interdisciplinary inquiry into the supernatural in Hindi cinema that draws from literary criticism, postcolonial studies, queer theory, history, and cultural studies. Hindi commercial cinema has been invested in the supernatural since its earliest days, but only a small segment of these films have been adequately explored in scholarly work; this book addresses this gap by focusing on some of Hindi cinema’s least explored genres. From Gothic ghost films of the 1950s to snake films of the 1970s and 1980s to today’s globally influenced zombie and vampire films, Meheli Sen delves into what the supernatural is and the varied modalities through which it raises questions of film form, history, modernity, and gender in South Asian public cultures. Arguing that the supernatural is dispersed among multiple genres and constantly in conversation with global cinematic forms, she demonstrates that it is an especially malleable impulse that routinely pushes Hindi film into new formal and stylistic territories. Sen also argues that gender is a particularly accommodating stage on which the supernatural rehearses its most basic compulsions; thus, the interface between gender and genre provides an exceptionally productive lens into Hindi cinema’s negotiation of the modern and the global. Haunting Bollywood reveals that the supernatural’s unruly energies continually resist containment, even as they partake of and sometimes subvert Hindi cinema’s most enduring pleasures, from songs and stars to myth and melodrama.

"Bollywood Horrors is a wide-ranging collection that examines the religious aspects of horror imagery, representations of real-life horror in the movies, and the ways in which Hindi films have projected cinematic fears onto the screen. Part one, 'Material Cultures and Prehistories of Horror in South Asia' looks at horror movie posters and song booklets and the surprising role of religion in the importation of Gothic tropes into Indian films, told through the little-known story of Sir Devendra Prasad Varma. Part two, 'Cinematic Horror, Iconography and Aesthetics' examines the stereotype of the tantric magician found in Indian literature beginning in the medieval period, cinematic representations of the myth of the fearsome goddess Durga's slaying of the Buffalo Demon, and the influence of epic mythology and Hollywood thrillers on the 2002 film Raaz . The final part, 'Cultural Horror,' analyzes elements of horror in Indian cinema's depiction of human trafficking, shifting gender roles, the rape-revenge cycle, and communal violence."--

Haunting Bollywood is a pioneering, interdisciplinary inquiry into the supernatural in Hindi cinema that draws from literary criticism, postcolonial studies, queer theory, history, and cultural studies. Hindi commercial cinema has been invested in the supernatural since its earliest days, but only a small segment of these films have been adequately explored in scholarly work; this book addresses this gap by focusing on some of Hindi cinema's least explored genres. From Gothic ghost films of the 1950s to snake films of the 1970s and 1980s to today's globally influenced zombie and vampire films, Meheli Sen delves into what the supernatural is and the varied modalities through which it raises questions of film form, history, modernity, and gender in South Asian public cultures. Arguing that the supernatural is dispersed among multiple genres and constantly in conversation with global cinematic forms, she demonstrates that it is an especially malleable impulse that routinely pushes Hindi film into new formal and stylistic territories. Sen also argues that gender is a particularly accommodating stage on which the supernatural rehearses its most basic compulsions; thus, the interface between gender and genre provides an exceptionally productive lens into Hindi cinema's negotiation of the modern and the global. Haunting Bollywood reveals that the supernatural's unruly energies continually resist containment, even as they partake of and sometimes subvert Hindi cinema's most enduring pleasures, from songs and stars to myth and melodrama.

First book to study the horror genre of Hindi cinema in all its forms and expressions Filming Horror: Hindi Cinema, Ghosts and Ideologies bridges the gap that currently exists in the field of genre studies in Hindi cinema. Analyzing more than 80 horror films from Mahal (1949) to Ragini MMS 2 (2014), the book uncovers narrative strategies, frames unique approaches of investigation, and reviews the revolutions taking place within this genre. The book argues that Hindi horror cinema, which lies at the intersection of myths, ideology and dominant socio-religious thoughts, reveals three major strands of narrative constructs, each corresponding to the way the nation has been imagined at different times in post-colonial India. Moving beyond establishing the theoretical framework of horror cinema, the book intends to demonstrate how this genre, along with its subsets, provides us with the means to contemplate the nation and its representation.