A moment from Raat Barota Panch, and (below) Tota Roy Choudhury in the film

It?s supposed to scare us out of our wits and, well, we are all waiting. Raat Barota Panch, which feeds off the Hollywood format of avenging spirits on a murderous prowl, will be the second horror film in the span of a month when it releases on October 7 at Prachi, Mitra and Bharati. And though Rabiranjan Moitra?s Mantra, a remake of the Hollywood horror film Child?s Play, bombed at the box-office, the makers of Raat Barota Panch are upbeat about its sense of scare timing.

?Mantra was a different kind of film and had a different kind of treatment. Our film is very very scary and in your face; it has a lot of violence and gore because people like to be scared. My inspiration has been films like Evil Dead, which I used to see a lot before. The story follows the zombie film format where the ghost kills almost everybody one by one, who also turn into ghosts,? says debutante director Saron Dutta, having conceived the story and written the screenplay, too.

So, Raat Barota Panch takes off on a stormy night when two criminals and a pair of lovers take shelter in a haunted north Calcutta mansion, where the spirit of a girl long dead wakes up to avenge herself. Though the spirit preying on each of the characters is the focal point, the romantic aspect of the film, necessary to sustain viewers through the blood-and-gore, has not been entirety diluted. ?I have to keep the Bengali audience in mind and so it?s a positive story where good triumphs over evil,? adds the man who assisted Goutam Ghose for 10 years, from Gudiya to Abar Aranye.

But Dutta acknowledges the influence of Ram Gopal Varma on him and the film. ?We definitely have been influenced by him? The fact that one can make small-budget films without stars and with the emphasis on treatment?. The film should be commercially successful and entertain people.?

Hence, Raat Barota Panch has a host of small-screen faces ? Paran Bandopadhyay, Shantilal Mukhopadhyay, Kanchan Mullick, Shagnik, Ananya Chattopadhyay, Aparajita Ghosh Das and Tamal Roy Chowdhury, plus Tota Roy Choudhury.

For followers of Bollywood horror movies ? like the film?s producer Nitesh Sharma ? Raat Barota Panch may revive memories of the Eighties, when the Ramsay Brothers had carved a niche with a slew of successful ghost films.

?I have been inspired by their work, films like Purani Haveli and Veerana, which were characterised by low budgets and gripping stories,? says Sharma. ?Those were very successful at the box-office and we are trying to create something on those lines.?

The crew comprises several film school hands ? editing is by SRFTI?s Sharmistha Jha and camera by FTII graduate Samik Halder.