Can Netflix’s Ghoul With Radhika Apte & Manav Kaul Save India’s Relationship With Horror?

In case you're reeling from how Sacred Games got over in a weekend, the folks at Netflix India are ready with Ghoul, starring Radhika Apte and Manav Kaul.

By: Tatsam Mukherjee |
July 10, 2018 1:43 pm

In case you’re still reeling from the fact that Sacred Games got over within the span of a weekend, the folks at Netflix India are ready with another one of their India specials. Ghoul, starring Radhika Apte and Manav Kaul, is a co-production between India’s Phantom Films and Hollywood’s Blumhouse Productions.

The show (apparently from the trailer) is set in a dystopian future, where martial law has been imposed in India. It follows the events around a bunch of military personnel interrogating a terror suspect, who might also have a connection to a certain kind of evil from the past. So Ghoul can be summed up as a military outfit trapped in an interrogation setting with a supernatural power.

Phantom Films have not made ‘horror films’ per se, but they’ve come *sort of* close with NH10 and Ugly. On the flip side, Blumhouse has given us films like Get Out, Insidious and The Purge franchise. Blumhouse makes it a point to take on contained productions and thus ensure profitable films, which is something Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane are championing in Bollywood. And therefore, this could very well be a match made in heaven.

Here’s the trailer for Ghoul:

It surely looks interesting, and it’s definitely leagues above the content on Indian web. But will it be more Phantom than Blumhouse? Will it fall into the trap of the umpteen bad Blumhouse films, which adhere to a kind of formula? We’ll have to wait and watch.

Ghoul will start streaming on Neflix from August 24.