Horror filmmaker Shyam Ramsay dead

New Delhi: Film director Shyam Ramsay, who introduced the pleasure of getting spooked to a generation of moviegoers with

films

like Purana Mandir and Veerana, passed away at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday. He was 67.

“He was hospitalised two-three days ago. He passed away in the hospital due to pneumonia around 5am,” a relative told PTI.

“He was the badshah of

horror

films. Even today films like Veerana are shown regularly on satellite TV,” says actor Hemant Birje, who played lead roles in Veerana and Tahkhana.

Shyam’s brother Tulsi, with whom he jointly directed most projects, died last year. The duo was among the seven Ramsay brothers who combined to draw and frame the map of horror in Hindi cinema and turn it into a profitable family enterprise in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The Ramsays pioneered the genre. They achieved success but did not get the credit they deserved. They were very clear-headed about the story and their work,” says lyricist Amit Khanna, who wrote for them in films such as Saboot and Purana Mandir.

Distributor-cum-exhibitor Sanjay Ghai sums up their contribution: “Like Maruti in cars, the Ramsays were a trademark in horror films.”

Moviegoers in search of a good scare and a dose of titillation, returned again and again to watch familiar Ramsay tropes: Haunted mansions, smoke-filled cemeteries, monsters with rolling eyes and twisted nose, screaming young women and sinister background music. These films were generally shown at grind-and-scrap theatres but box-office records show they enjoyed decent returns.

The Ramsay brothers, whose father had moved from Karachi to Mumbai after Partition, moved with the times. In 1985, at the peak of the 3D craze following the super success of Chhota Chetan, they came up with 3D Saamri, a modest success. And they joined the satellite TV bandwagon early with a long-running, late-night horror show (1993). Shyam’s latest work was Gentayangan, an Indonesian horror film.

The Ramsays first tasted success with the scary suspense flick, Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1972), which again was jointly directed by Tulsi and Shyam. The brothers also directed absorbing murder mysteries (Saboot, Telephone, Sannata)—all had pleasant tracks. “They did not interfere with the creative process and gave the music director and me the freedom to do our work. They were nice people too,” recalls Khanna.


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