The Ghost-Maker: Ram Gopal Varma

No matter how much we love to hate RGV, the fact remains that at a time when the best of roles went only to commercially viable, familiar faces, only Ramu had the balls to churn superstars out of nobody’s like Urmila Mantodkar, Manoj Bajpai and other aspirants who come in hoards to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood. Well, that’s not what we had in mind when we met the maverick director-producer, but it was important to remind ourselves of everything that this 50-year-old is capable of doing, especially after the crappy films he has made us sit through of late. But then experiments do fail and this time, the man who was once an underworld specialist, was just back with yet another horror-scary (yes, there is a difference between horror and scary film, and it’s explained later in the interview), and that too in a 3D format. Our concern – what exactly is exciting about 3D horror films, which have already been overdone by trashy Vikram Bhatt films like Raaz 3? As such, we are pretty bored of 3D, so, why should we be excited about Ramu’s 3D venture, we asked? “I have not overdone 3D, but t have shot it in a manner that will make you feel as if you are in the house where this 6-year-old girl protagonist is beating the shit out of her family. That’s what makes it different.”

Bhoot worked wonderfully, and made a lot of people believe that horror holds promise for both audiences and filmmakers. So isn’t it tough for the director to carry on the legacy? He firmly says, “If everyone starts thinking like that, sequels will never be made.” So, what exactly is the difference between Bhoot and Bhoot Returns? “ Suppose you are alone in the house at night, and you hear some sounds from the next room. Your walk from the bed to the door is a scary process because irrespective of the fact whether there’s a ghost in the next room or not, you start imagining things. When I showed Urmila sitting in a corner with her head down, I didn’t show a ghost, but forced people to think of her as a ghost. That’s a scary film. Now, if you open the door and spot a ghost in the next room or right outside your door, that’s a horror film, similar to what happened in Ramsay films. Bhoot Returns is a mix of a scary and horror film. I’ll let people imagine things, while also revealing the ghost.”

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While we do plan to watch this film, there is more to Ramu than just his upcoming films. We bombed him with questions like why doesn’t he smile, how does he face so much criticism and which are the films that he would like to re-do (not remake). “It’s not that I don’t smile, I do, but cameras make me conscious, so I don’t smile when I’m being clicked at press-conferences. Otherwise I find everything amusing, and my friends say that I’m really funny”, all this he says with a giggle – a rarest of the rare situation. “It’s like a race to demean people, so the criticism that you are talking about doesn’t really matter, so I don’t need any sort of courage to face it. See, I make three films every year, so you get more chances to put me down. I’m not Sanjay Leela Bhansali who is once trashed in 2010 for Guzaarish and then you get a chance to applaud or disapprove of him in 2014 when he releases his next film. As far as films that I would like to completely erase out of people’s mind and re-do are concerned, it has to be Aag because I screwed it up, so only I can correct the mistake.” That’s a bold confession, and something that can only come from such a man. Moving ahead, we gave him a situation where we asked him to imagine – it’s a day when he’s a nobody in Bollywood, how would his usual day be? He adds, “I can only imagine myself watching films, analysing them and imagine myself in it.” So how exactly do you analyse films? “There was a scene in Himmatwala where Sridevi is wearing shorts, and the director used a long shot to shoot this extremely vital sequence. Now when I saw this sequence, I got completely distracted by Sridevi’s thighs. The content and its importance in the film took a backseat, and all I could focus on was her thighs. Had I been there, I would have taken a close-up, and not showed her thighs at that point of time.” All this he says with absolute naughtiness in his eyes, and since we had anyways exceeded our time limit with him, we had to abruptly end our conversation. But nevertheless, it was fun chatting with RGV.

HINDI HORROR FILMS YOU MUST WATCH

13B, 2009: What happens when everything that’s in your favourite daily soap starts happening to you too, and that too in an exact sequence. A well-shot, intelligently written film that didn’t evoke scares, but still managed to create a disturbing atmosphere.

Bhoot, 2003: It was scary to see Urmila Mantodkar being possessed by a ghost. The manner in which the chills were created, combined with a solid star-cast and super-horrifying background, managed to make the film unforgettable.

Raat, 1992: No matter how many horror films are made in India, this RGV directed flick remains the most intelligent of them all. It had the silence of the dead, the superstitious angle and the gore needed to create a scary affect.

Ragini MMS, 2011: Inspired by a true story, this film made a lot of people leave the theatre mid-way because the horror scenes were really powerful, and you felt like a part of that house that was haunted by the ghost of a maid. People who watched it on pirated CDs obviously didn’t like it.

1920, 2008: There was nothing new in this film that hadn’t been told earlier, but still we loved the manner in which the pretty looking leading lady, Adah Sharma transforms into a horrifying ghost. Probably the only Vikram Bhatt horror flick that didn’t look tacky.

From the November 2012 issue of FHM India.