My first tryst with horror was The Zee Horror Show. One would argue that Duck Tales and TaleSpin were more suitable for an eight-year-old. But the intriguing charm of the new horror show, the first of its kind on Indian television, was hard to ignore. Most episodes were rooted in superstition and dark magic. The actors who played the roles of ghosts were almost always in low-budget prosthetic makeup – a desperate attempt by the makers to scare the audience. That didn’t scare me at all. What really scared me, however, was the reaction of the characters to the situations they were often thrown in. Stand behind a door and say ‘Boo!’ and you may startle a few. But if you were to tell them a backstory about a young man who never left his room and went mad before strangling himself to death. If you were to then guide them into the room, slowly, they will imagine the rest and scare th...
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