Halloween in India this year was marked by the release of the Malayalam supernatural film Diés Iraé (The Day of Wrath), the third in a successful horror series from filmmaker Rahul Sadasivan.
Following a man encountering strange goings-on at his home after a visit to his dead friend’s family, the slow-burn feature is among the top 10 earners of Malayalam cinema in 2025 with a gross of $7.35m. It is also appreciated for taking horror beyond its conventional tropes.
Horror has been on a growth curve in South Asian cinema since Rahi Anil Barve and Anand Gandhi’s Tumbbad premiered at Venice in 2018. A striking period folk horror, it failed to make the expected splash on its festival debut. But it was recut and released to critical and commercial success, taking $7.05m over two runs. A sequel has been announced by actor-producer Sohum Shah.
Further festivals have cottoned on to the trend. In Flames, Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn’s debut feature on the horrors of gendered violence, premiered at Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight.
Seemab Gul’s debut feature Ghost School, which premiered in the Discovery section of Toronto, uses elements of fantasy, the supernatural and magic realism, to explore the social horrors of corruption, illiteracy, superstition, bureaucracy, class divides and deprivation in Pakistan.
Horror is working at the box office too.
Over the recent Diwali weekend, Aditya Sarpotdar’s vampire romance Thamma landed in theatres marking a first in Hindi cinema for devils and demons attempting to cash in on the festive period. Thamma is the fifth in Maddock Films’ successful horror comedy universe comprising Stree (Woman, 2018), Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank (Terror Of The Headless, 2024), Bhediya (Wolf, 2022) and Munjya (2024) and earned $20.7m. Stree 2 was the biggest Hindi hit last year with a gross of $92.8m and is the most successful Hindi horror of all time.
The second biggest Marathi hit this year is Hrishikesh Gupte’s psychological thriller Jarann (Bewitchment) with $1.2m. Writer-director Krishnadev Yagnik’s Vash: Level 2, a sequel to his own 2023 film Vash, is among the top 10 earners of Gujarati cinema this year with $2.12m to date.
Tackling issues
Many independent South Asian filmmakers are leveraging horror to talk about contemporary socio-political issues.
“Good horror goes beyond suspense and scares. [English-language psychological horror films] The Others and The Babadook have gone deep into our minds and vulnerabilities,” says Amruta Subhash, who plays the lead in Jarann.
According to Bangladeshi filmmaker Nuhash Humayun, jump scares still have their importance. “But it is liberating to access deeper themes through them. Like, what is wrong in society around me?” he says.
Humayun’s first attempt at genre was short Moshari (Mosquito Net), an ecological horror that won the Midnight Short award at South by Southwest and got traction internationally when filmmaker Jordan Peele and Riz Ahmed boarded as executive producers. Humayun followed up with horror anthologies Pett Kata Shaw and Dui Shaw, both using Bangladeshi folklore and myths to probe issues like religious bigotry.
In India, genre is also going hand in hand with feminism. Several films have been either written or directed by women, with women in the lead or deal with gender issues. Mumbai’s Wench Film Festival is dedicated to independent, feminist and queer genre cinema.
The second biggest Kannada language blockbuster this year on $14.4m is JP Thuminad’s Su From So, a comedy that plays with supernatural elements like spirits and possession to explore sexual exploitation of women within the family. Recent Amazon Prime Video series Khauff, directed by Pankaj Kumar and Surya Balakrishnan, brings the horrors of patriarchy and violence against women to fore. “Genre is the body, the soul is what I want to say through it,” says Singh.
Upcoming projects
More are in the pipeline. At the Waves Film Bazaar Co-Production Market was Aarti Neharsh’s No Onions, a psychological horror project about a woman’s craving for onions – forbidden in her faith – and looks at a woman’s desire and spirit of resistance against the terrors of morality and piety. “No Onions plays in the quiet violence of domestic order, creating eeriness through gradual unravelling,” says Neharsh.
Film Bazaar last year featured Kunjila Mascillamani’s Malayalam project Guptam (The Last of Them Plagues), which is being backed by filmmaker-screenwriter-actor Jeo Baby (The Great Indian Kitchen), filmmaker Payal Kapadia and actor Kani Kusruti (All We Imagine As Light).
Mascillamani’s upcoming project, about a single mother in a conservative society, occupies the psychological space, “where the haunting is by the patriarchy”.
“I find a perverse pleasure in using horror as an allegory for the state of things,” she says. “All women are familiar with the feeling of dread every time we hear footsteps behind us in a dark alley, or a vehicle slowing down.”
“My film is a metaphor for taking that harsh realism into the realm of fantasy and turning it into a fable”, says Ghost School director Gul.
Mascillamani too feels genre is best used the way it was in Peele’s Get Out. The essential horror principle for her is universal, simple and deeply profound. She adds: “Ghosts aren’t scary, primarily because they don’t exist. People are.”
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