Horror franchise 1920 into its fourth installment

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The horror game continues.

Producer Anand Pandit presents 1920: Horrors of the Heart, which is director Krishna Bhatt’s feature debut. Krishna is the daughter of well-known film director Vikram Bhatt and has earlier directed TV series and mini-series. This is the fourth film in this franchise after the hit 1920 (which Vikram Bhatt directed), 1920: The Evil Returns and 1920 London (both of which Vikram produced and wrote).

Veteran producer Anand Pandit, along with Mahesh Bhatt, is presenting the film, slated for release on June 23. Vikram is synonymous with the Raaz franchise, and directed three of the four films in the series—Raaz, the 2002 blockbuster that began the series, Raaz 3 and Raaz Reboot.

The trailer of 1920: Horrors of the Heart was released on June 1 and shows a  daughter (played by Avika Gor) returning to a sprawling estate to avenge her father, but soon, she too gets caught in a horrific quagmire. Are demonic forces at work here or is this a deep conspiracy conceived by a twisted human mind?

Says Pandit, “Be it the Raaz franchise or the 1920 series, Vikram Bhatt has never failed to elevate the horror genre in Hindi cinema. Krishna too is a very promising, young talent and will shine for sure with this film. It has a fantastic plot and plenty of chills to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, and I am looking forward to its release with bated breath.”

The film also stars Rahul Dev, Barkha Bisht, Danish Pandor, Randheer Rai, Ketaki Kulkarni, Amit Behl and Avtar Gill in prominent roles. The film is produced by Vikram Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt, Raj Kishore Khaware and Shwetaambari Bhatt.

Horror films, as a genre, have been popular in Hindi cinema for decades. The first horror film on record was the 1935 Shadi Ki Raat. Often blending the supernatural with crime or mythology, and including films inspired by the West (both books, like Bees Saal Baad from The Hound of the Baskervilles, and movies like Gehrayee from The Exorcist), this genre has been dominated by the Ramsay family, most of whose movies (especially the B-grade ones) did well.

Ram Gopal Varma also has made a name in this genre. In the last 50 years, there have also been hits like Rajkumar Kohli’s Jaani Dushmun (1979), Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot (2003), Darna Mana Hai (2004) and the horror comedies Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022), Ragini MMS (2011) and Ragini MMS 2 (2016), Go Goa Gone (2013), Golmaal Again (2017) and Stree (2018) besides another Vikram Bhatt film, Haunted 3D (2011).

Incidentally, Golmaal Again has been a part of a 4-film franchise as of now. Other film franchises that have touched four are Housefull and Hate Story.