Art & Entertainment

The Merchants Of Nightmare

Nothing attracts like horror, if TV shows are anything to go by

Advertisement

The Merchants Of Nightmare
info_icon

CAN the 100th episode of a money-spinning serial ever be a routine affair? No way. So the producers of Aahat, which has of late emerged as the principal source of Sony Entertainment Television's growing clout in the cable and satellite television market, have pulled out all the stops. They've assembled an impressive cast of actors headed by Om Puri, thrown in the best special effects and camerawork that TV can afford and, most important, conjured up a storyline that vociferously pleads for a willing suspension of disbelief but, predictably, doesn't always get it.

 But who cares? The show goes on: an evil tantrik—Om Puri in a classic ham job—picks out his hapless human prey—a journalist, played by Neha Sharad—and attacks her repeatedly in her dreams, reducing her to a mental and physical wreck. The brutalised lady turns to a psychiatrist (Kanwaljeet) for help. But it's far too late. The black magician uses his voodoo powers and finally does her to death. Yes, in her dreams. The blood-splattered nightmare is of the tantrik's making, the death is for real. Bizarre? That is precisely what Aahat is meant to be.

Advertisement

In an earlier episode of the serial, director B.P. Singh and scriptwriter Shridhar Raghavan had narrated the equally bewildering tale of a woman who lives within a gilt-edged mirror and possesses the power to suck in anybody who stands before it. In what must surely be one of the high points of the long-running serial, a lady sits in front of the posessed mirror only to discover that her 'image' has a mind of its own. So while she combs her hair, her image puts the comb down and defiantly folds her hands. The magic of special effects? Yes. That is what sets Aahat apart from the competition, says Singh, who is also the show's co-producer and cameraman.

Advertisement

 "The appeal of horror shows," says P.C. Lahiri, vice-president, Zee Telefilms, "lies in the fact that they deal with situations that go beyond the normal." So the nightmare factory is working overtime. Ghouls and ghosts, bloodthirsty zombies and evil sorcerers, the living dead and the deathless: they are all on the prowl on the small screen. And every  week, on prime time and on virtually every major satellite channel, their deeds are translating into impressive revenues and television rating points.

 "There has always been an audience out there for big-screen horror flicks," says the high priest of the genre, Tulsi Ramsay, who made his first horror film in the early seventies. "It has now moved to television and grown in size. Unlike in the past, even women and children watch horror shows today."

Which perhaps explains the resounding success of Sony Entertainment Television's Aahat, currently cable and satellite TV's most watched show. And of The X-Files, which consistently ranks among Star Plus' highest-rated English-language shows. Fox Television's globally popular show devoted to paranormal experiences has, apart from making a huge international star out of David Duvochny, given Star Plus' late-night non-Hindi fare a surprisingly high level of visibility. Its TRP hovers around 2, which for an English-language show on a satellite TV channel is nothing short of phenomenal. "The X-Files is particularly popular among the youth, our college-going viewers," says a Star TV source.

Advertisement

But the biggest success story of them all is, of course, Aahat. The 101-episode-old serial, which began as a straightforward crime thriller and then evolved into a programme dealing with tales from the twilight zone, is still going strong, notching up an average weekly rating of 10. Last month, the show's rating went as high as 11.8, sending Sony Entertainment Television's bosses into raptures and the two-year-old channel's stocks soaring.

Aahat arrived stealthily on the scene in October 1995. So it is only as old as the channel.The Zee Horror Show, on the other hand, has been peddling its wares for over four years now, but its popularity shows no signs of flagging. "The secret of our success," claims Ramsay, "is that each story in our serial runs no longer than four or five weeks. So every month, there is a new story to keep the interest of the audience alive. It's like watching one horror film every month."

Advertisement

The Zee Horror Show is, in fact, the longest surviving serial on any satellite channel. "Even Tara is no longer on air," says Ramsay, who has decided to respond to the threat posed by Aahat by upgrading his show's production values. "We've brought in some never-before-seen masks and make-ups from London," he reveals. "They will be used in our future episodes."

There is, however, a certain degree of uncertainty looming over the future of horror shows in India. The Punjab and Haryana high court, in response to a public interest petition seeking a ban on horror shows, has issued notices to the Union government and three satellite TV networks —Star, Zee and SET. The petitioner has argued that horror shows encourage superstition and blind beliefs and pollute the minds of the youth. The high court's notices, issued by chief justice Amarjit Chaudhary and justice V.S. Agarwal, are returnable by November 28.

Advertisement

While a ban on horror shows will certainly constitute a rather extreme step, it may actually be in perfect order, as the Chandigarh petitioner has argued, to make it mandatory for such shows to be aired only after midnight. A cable TV network in south Delhi, Satellite Vision, has, in fact, already shown the way with a special channel for its subscribers, called Haiwan TV. "We telecast two horror films in Hindi every night—one at 9.30 and the other at 12 midnight—after the children have gone to bed," says Satellite Vision's Rajeshwar Lal Chaudhary.

Despite the flak that the content of TV's horror shows has been attracting, there is no doubt that they are more popular than anything else the satellite channels have to offer at present. "Aahat," Singh points out, "is rated higher than soaps and musical countdowns. That's no mean achievement." "The Zee Horror Show," says Ramsay, "has been on Zee's Top Ten list for four years virtually without a break."

While Chaudhary, who launched his Haiwan TV on October 1 with a library of 40-odd horror films, warns that the market might not be ready yet for an exclusive channel for horror shows, his six-hour-a-night innovation has met with encouraging response. "There's great demand for horror films and programmes," he says. But now that children and women have joined the viewership base, the content of horror shows has undergone a distinct change. "Aahat has no gore, no white eyes, no Dracula fangs," says Singh. The change in name for The Zee Horror Show too has been prompted by market pressure. With Colgate, whose products are aimed at children and women, sponsoring the show, it was felt that the word horror in the title wasn't suitable. So the serial is now simply called Anhonee.

Advertisement

Enthused no doubt by the continuing success of its Horror Show, Zee TV has now introduced a one-hour slot, titled Saturday Suspense. Two episodes a month are delivered by the Ramsays, while the remaining two are done by other producers. "We are confident of its success," says P.C. Lahiri. Zee also has Aakhir Kyon: The Horror Hour, telecast at 9 pm every Thursday, to wean viewers away from Aahat, which begins at 9.30 pm.

Where Aahat did tend to score over The Zee Horror Show was in its relatively subtler handling of the genre. "We don't call ours a horror show for it's not a horror show," explains Singh. The programme relies not so much on grotesque masks and crude make-ups as on suspense, and a sense of mystery. "Only special effects and make-up cannot carry a serial of this kind. One has to work hard on the script to ensure that the viewer finds something new everytime he tunes in," says the director of Aahat.

Advertisement

Zee's horror show, in contrast, hinged on tried-and-tested conventions that were borrowed from such '70s Hollywood hits as The Exorcist and Omen and indigenised by the Ramsays in films like Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche and Darwaza. But of late,The Zee Horror Show, directed by Ramsay's 24-year-old son, Deepak, is slowly but steadily entering the era of computer graphics and hi-tech wizardry.

The battle of the ghouls is hotting up as the Ramsays bolster their little shop of horrors. May the better gallery of ghosts win.

Tags

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement