Jay Krishnan: Emraan Hashmi knows the rhythm of the genre

By - Uma Ramasubramanian

OCTOBER 22,2021

Emraan Hashmi has done more than his fair share of horror films in Bollywood. The actor is gearing up to send a chill down the audience's spine again with his upcoming release, Dybbuk. The film, which also stars Manav Kaul and Nikita Dutta, is a remake of Prithviraj Sukumaran's Malayalam film Ezra (2017). For director Jay Krishnan, Hashmi was an obvious choice for the project, given his familiarity with the genre.

'Emraan has mastered the genre. He had asked me for the script in advance, and prepared thoroughly for the role. Since he has done three to four horror films, he knows the rhythm. Horror films can be a little tricky mdash you need to be subdued in some scenes, and go slightly overboard in others. Emraan knows how to balance it,' says the filmmaker, who had helmed the 2017 original as well.

The Amazon Prime Video offering borrows its name from Jewish mythology in which 'dybbuk' is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the soul of a dead person.

Krishnan, who is making his directorial debut in Hindi cinema, says that horror movies have remained untapped in India. 'These days, most films made in this genre are horror comedies. We need to attempt more subjects in the [traditional] horror genre. As a country, we have a lot of content in our culture [that can lend itself to] such films.'