When a resort is haunted by a deathly beauty

Inspiration for a full-length feature film can come from anywhere. In this case, it came from a horror serial which premiered in Malayalam television in the year 2000. Ranjith Shankar, who was behind the path-breaking move later went on to showcase it on the big screen with his 2016 release 'Pretham' a horror comedy film which went on to earn laurels for itself. Initiatives of these kinds automatically gain traction all over. It did in Telugu, which has the doors kept open widest when it comes to hit ideas from anywhere. King Nagarjuna, who has always been known to pick the right films now and then to give his onscreen image a makeover, succeeded this time too. His new daughter-in-law, Samantha , whose marriage had taken place a week before the film got released on October 13,2017 was seen alongside him essaying the pivotal female lead.

Combining ambitious youth power who decide to turn entrepreneurial by investing in a resort and planning to make their futures secure with an unexpected twist of events, the film was heavily dependent on the powerful performances of the lead pair. Nag played Rudra a mentalist, who obtains parlour tricks, mental tenacity to make clever guesses, special powers of contact with the spirits, and cold reading techniques.

A spooky and paranormal kind of an ambience was threatening to go above the heads of the frontbenchers. However, the routineness of the plot which fixed itself on the mystery of the dead woman made them feel interested in the narrative. Star names did manage to keep the box-office appeal steady and despite a few changes to the main story to make it more 'local', the film was given the green signal to proceed to the box-office terminus without much fuss. Ohmkar, the director has specialized in the franchise of the film since then, with the first release in 2015 and the third version in 2019.

With a production cost of around Rs 25 crore, this film managed to make Rs 35+ crore in the end, which can be considered a safe zone. Obviously, the size of success of the Malayalam original was better, given that it was made under Rs 4 crore, yet went on to amass Rs 18-20 crore in all.