Vishal Furia, the director of horror fest Chhorii 2, now streaming on Prime Video, chats with t2 about the film and why he champions the genre.

From your perspective, how is Chhorii 2 a step up from Chhorii?

The social aspect part of it is the horror in itself. As a genre, horror has the ability to leave a long-lasting impact. It can point out what is evil in a more succinct way. The film does not preach anything, we are just telling a story of the fight between good and evil and we are hoping that the audience takes back something from it. The social evils that we have shown in the Chhorii films are pretty much prevalent around us and they are horrific in nature.

I feel that in the second film, we have gone more compact and more claustrophobic. We have created characters with a mindset which is more sinister and naturally evokes a higher sense of dread. We have very interesting characters, interesting scenarios and situations.

What do you think worked for Chhorii when it released four years ago?

The journey of Chhorii starts from Lapachhapi (2016), which is a Marathi film that I had directed. Lapachhapi released in theatres because OTT was very new at that time and it was anyway meant to be a theatrical film. The feedback was really encouraging. A lot of women related to the story and they reached out to me either with their own stories or things that they had heard from their friends and relatives, issues that are very close to the one spoken about in Chhorii. It really hit home and that made us think that we should take this story nationwide. Prime Video came in, and Chhorii went global.

The response was even bigger. Again, a lot of women connected with the story. Even though it was an adult film, they told me they wished their kids could see it. The franchise was designed in a way where, because it has an interesting mix of horror with the social evil angle, it lends itself to talking about more such practices, but using the genre of horror and scares and entertainment.

The response to the first one led us to think about the second part. We already had some ideas, we just put it together and then we took our time to write the story because the second part had to be worth it for everyone. And then when we were ready, we went into production. Post-production took time because horror is a very post-production-heavy genre. Chhorii 2 is a film that comes deeply from our hearts.

In what ways have you seen the audience base and demand for horror evolve over the last few years?

There is a very strong and loyal fan base for the genre and that audience has always remained loyal and never dipped. What has dipped is the capability of the Indian film industry or rather the Hindi film industry to produce good horror films. In horror, as a whole, we have traditionally been very weak in storytelling and depended on cheap thrills and other masala stuff to sell the space. We got templated in that space for a very long time and we lost the edge which we had earlier, whereas, globally, the genre kept evolving. With horror comedy doing good numbers, it has brought attention back to horror, and I hope that it now evolves into the classic horror genre.

It is very important to have a vision while you produce horror. One cannot have a myopic vision of just producing a cheap film with less budget and look at doing whatever business one can. That won’t work. Otherwise, it will again go back to being recognised as a cheap B-grade genre. I believe the audience has always been there. It is just the incapability of the makers to provide good horror, which is why the audience shifted its attention to Japanese, Italian and Korean horror.

Are you a purist as far as the horror genre is concerned? Will we ever see you make a horror comedy or even a creature feature?

I am a purist, in some ways, but I would like to try multiple sub-genres of horror.... creature feature is one of them. In fact, I have tried my hand at a little more than traditional horror in Chhorii 2. The film does not have the traditional tropes of horror that have been seen in the genre in India before. I am looking at the audience reaction to Chhorii 2 and then deciding what I can do further. If they feel that the film is interesting for them, then it will only lend us to expanding our horizons and looking at doing more interesting stuff creatively in the genre. Having said that, I am not sure if I will attempt horror comedy. I want to stay in the classic horror space with its sub-genres for a while.

Anything in the pure horror genre space in recent times that you loved?

I really enjoyed watching the Mammootty film Bramayugam (2024). I think it is a masterclass in art and craft and the presentation of the genre in almost each and every department. The more you watch the film, the more it grows on you... you understand the film better and you discover its layers. The same director (Rahul Sadasivan) had made a horror film earlier called Bhoothakaalam, which sent chills down one’s spine even while telling a compelling, emotional story.

You have another horror film, Maa, coming up in June, with Kajol. You have shot it predominantly in Bengal. What was the experience like?

It was an interesting experience because I was working with a star (Kajol) who has not worked in this space before. But a star is a star, and a star can excel in any genre. Kajol is an extremely talented actor and the emotional depth that she gives to her characters is amazing. It was a story which they (Devgn Films, Jio Studios) were developing and it just fell into my lap. It is an interesting hybrid horror genre which is very Indian in nature.