Vikram Bhatt: Mahesh and I want to reinvent horror because reinvention is needed

Had the lockdown not been imposed, filmmakers Vikram Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt would have collaborated on a

horror film

, titled Cold. Mahesh is writing the film with Suhrita Sengupta and Vikram will direct it. The team was three days away from commencing their shoot inside a cold storage facility when the shoots were suspended in Maharashtra in April this year. Vikram, who has helmed films like

Raaz

, 1920 and

Haunted

, believes that this film is a departure from the usual horror films that one has seen the Bhatts associate with.
"Raaz 1 was the only film in the series that Mahesh Bhatt wrote. We decided to come together this time as the original Raaz team, where he writes and I direct. Mahesh and I want to reinvent horror because reinvention is needed. What we did with Raaz was novel at that time - songs, the tropes, and a mix of things. But we need something novel now because circumstances are crying for something new again. Three films, Haunted, 1920 and Raaz 1, have been benchmark horror films for me. The love story was woven within the fabric of horror. Cold is a different kind of scary film which has an emotional spine. We have kept away from the tropes and trappings of the old formulas where we use sound effects, intersperse the story with romantic songs and so on. That mishmash of genres has been consciously kept aside," says Vikram.
He adds, "Cold keeps you at the edge of your seat. The title comes from the fact that the spirit or the eerie element makes the apartment colder every day till the water in the taps begins to freeze towards the climax. We were creating a set inside a cold storage facility when the lockdown happened. We will have to rework and replan things on that front now. The set will have to be redone." Talking about whether he gets scared ever, Vikram says, "You know it’s scary but just before I fall asleep, there are times I think of the horror stuff I want to put into my films. I get so scared with some of my thoughts that I put on the lights immediately. I actually scare myself before I put it to paper and then, on screen."