Shivalinga breathes life into dying ghost stories

Veteran director P Vasu of `Chandramukhi’ fame revives the sagging fortunes of spooky films in T-town since his latest release `Shivalinga’ starring Lawrence and Rithika in the lead, turned out be a hit by grossing more than Rs 12 crore before `Baahubali 2’ craze engulfed two Telugu states. However, for the last eight to nine months, it has been a disastrous run for horror flicks due to lacklustre plots and overdose of eerie sounds.

“I am glad that `Shivalinga’ has revived the confidence in horror movies since Lawrence did a fabulous job and Rithika matched strides with him. Even spooky films demand novel plots to draw in crowds. There were a few really bad films, but you can’t run down the genre, since it has its own set of viewers,” says director P Vasu.

Even ultra-glamourous Tammanah couldn’t save multilingual horror flick `Devi(L)` from sinking and ghostly act of actress Anjali in `Chitrangadha’ failed to impress, even though her earlier horror film `Geetanjali’ was a big money-spinner. Whereas, it was worse for glam diva Trisha since her spooky films `Chandrakala 2’ and `Nayaki’ tanked at the box-office.

“Actually, `Nayaki’ was a good enough script, but when it was under production, she unnecessarily did a special appearance in `Chandrakala 2 ‘claiming that its success could give a fillip to `Nayaki’ business, but her plans went awry and both the films tanked.” rues producer Giridhar. Despite a dud like `Dora’, producer C Kalyan feels that nail-biting spooky flicks will always find its viewers.

“For instance, `Mayuri’, which garnered good collections, since the fear factor was not compromised and it went to become one of the best horror movies which sent chills down the spine of viewers,” he points out and adds ‘Comedy should not be blended in horror movies, unless the script demands it, otherwise, the genre will be diluted,” he concludes.