Just a thought experiment. People usually say comedy doesn’t translate well, but with films like those kamal-crazy mohan combos, they have proven that it is possible to adapt foreign comedies to local tastes. But what about horror?

Each country has their own folklores, superstitions and beliefs, so there is that barrier. Plus, in Tamil cinema now, even though there are some good horror films, there are also a lot of run-of-the-mill ones that follow the horror-comedy trend and make the horror genre quite stale as of late. A lot of movies also incorporate horror into a masala movie and don’t respect the genre. If you were to adapt a horror movie from another country and introduce something new to the audience, how would you do it?

I think it has to be done tactfully, since films like Ambuli, while being heavily-inspired by western horror, never really tried to be relatable to our audience, and probably didn’t create that much buzz when it came out as a result. Also, I think it shouldn’t pretend to be something else, like how Shankar’s I was made into a grand romance-fantasy despite being an exploitation horror movie at it’s core, I think because of Shankar’s brand.

How would you take something high concept, like Event Horizon, In The Mouth Of Madness, Annihilation and turn it into a Tamil movie? Would something like cosmic horror, or gothic undertones go over well? I would love to see a big, dramatic, crazy 80s Hollywood horror movie like The Thing or Videodrome adapted, because Tamil audience are used to larger-than-life movies already.

Comment your dream horror adaptation and how it would be changed, who would you cast, style changes, to fit Tamil cinema/ audience.