Ghost stories beckon small time divas

With most of the A-listers shying away from horror movies, Telugu filmmakers are casting small time divas in their ghost stories. The new entrant to this pretty divas-turned-ghosts bandwagon is talented actress Avika Gor of 'Uyyala Jumpala' fame, who transformed into a terrifying ghost in 'Raju Gari Gadhi 3' to revive her T-town career.

Earlier, Rashmi Gautam (Shivaranjani), Raai Lakshmi (Where is the Venkatalaxmi), Nandita Shwetha (Prema Katha Chitram 2) and Nandita Raj (Viswamithra) played ugly ghosts to keep the spooky genre alive and kicking. "Pretty damsels are the best bet for ghost stories any day more than a male ghost because distributors buy such stuff.

However, the success of the film depends on the novelty in the story and the fear factor. But now-a-days horror movies are becoming a laughing stock due to overdose of slapstick comedy taking the sting of horror element," says director Raj Kiran, who tasted success with 'Geetanjali' featuring Anjali, who swept the audience of their feet with her performance in dual roles.

However, Anjali's subsequent spooky thrillers like 'Lissa' failed to set the box office on fire, leaving the career of Anjali in a precarious position. "One big hit, actresses will be flooded with similar kind of offers which pushes their career downhill if their movies crash at the box office. Not only Anjali, the careers of Nandita Raj, Rashmi Gautam and Raai Lakshmi are not happening either," says director Samudra.

Apart from scaring the audience, some filmmakers try to titillate viewers with skin show but even that has backfired. "Filmmakers purposely cast divas with oomph factor to pull in the masses but sometimes it goes awry due to lacklustre plots. And also true blue horror flicks work along with horror comedies but overdose of skin show has failed in the recent past," says writer Gopi Mohan.

It seems to be true as Tamannaah's over-the-top glam show in 'Abhinetri 2' had few takers. Even well-made spooky thriller 'Game Over' revolving around the trauma of a rape victim couldn't draw in crowds. "It shows that big stars can't guarantee success and even spooky films demand strong storylines and not just big names," he adds.

However, C Kalyan claims that A-listers raised the bar on horror movies and brought some respect to hitherto B-grade genre. "Until a decade ago, horror movies were considered inferior stuff meant for front-benchers.

However, Anushka and Nayantara made horror movies mainstream and changed the game for good. Now, small-time actresses want to give it a shot and push their career upwards, so nothing wrong in it," concludes C Kalyan.