Shyam Ramsay: The horror film specialist of Hindi cinema

From chocolate boy romance to violence and action, Hindi cinema saw a great range of films in the 1970s and 1980s. Social and family films and fluffy romantic entertainers were reducing in this era as it was action star Amitabh Bachchan who was dominating the filmi landscape then.

Even then, with a low-budget outlay, nondescript star cast and a rip off from various foreign films, the Ramsay brothers (seven of them) kept up an assembly line of horror flicks in Hindi cinema. They had a great mix of spooky visuals and generous skin show which made their films a cost-effective one, loved by the audiences of the small towns of India. Hindi film watchers of that time would not have forgotten films like ' Darwaza', ' Veerana', and ' Purana Mandir' which were typically shady kind of ventures yet a winner for the producers.

The Ramsay brothers quickly moved on to the small screen and produced serials for satellite television too. India's first horror TV series, the Zee Horror Show was started by them. Shyam Ramsay (1952-2019) was considered the head of all such initiatives. His 68th birth anniversary falls today.