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Ghost Protocol: Inside The Chennai-Based Production House That Exclusively Makes Horror Movies
With Night Shift Studios, producer Chakravarthy Ramachandra proves there’s serious money in making audiences scream.
It isn’t off-brand for Chakravarthy Ramachandra to say he grew up watching Hindi movies made by the Ramsay Brothers, alongside a healthier diet of classic Hollywood horror. He recalls several Sunday afternoons spent with cousins and friends, when he would pop open the lid of his imported video cassette recorder (VCR) and slide in tapes of The Evil Dead, The Exorcist, The Omen, The Shining, Bees Saal Baad, Woh Kaun Thi?, Kohraa, Gumnaam, Purana Mandir, Veerana, Purani Haveli, Raat…The windows had to be kept open because of how terrified they would get. Thirty years later, the same boy has launched a studio exclusively devoted to his undying love for the genre.
Grave Business
Night Shift Studios, based out of Chennai, is Ramachandra’s production company, one that has delivered two consecutive horror blockbusters in Malayalam — Bramayugam and Dies Irae. What Blumhouse, Shudder and Hammer are to Hollywood is what he aims for Night Shift to be to Indian cinema. But before he set his eyes on horror, he worked — and still works — as chief executive officer of YNOT Studios, the acclaimed production house behind Tamil hits such as Vikram Vedha, Irudhi Suttru, Mandela, and Game Over.
His work at YNOT is what he now calls his “day shift,” the part of his cinema brain that explores all other genres. Night Shift, however, was created to push the envelope and go where most producers rarely dare.
“The moment you decide to make horror, you’ve decided to ignore 90 per cent of the movie-going audience,” Ramachandra explains, noting that he is the only one in his family who will watch films of this genre. “You also have to be prepared for an A certificate, which means you’re refusing revenue from multiple income streams, including satellite.” He describes the 10 per cent who love horror as a purist bunch — viewers who sharpen their tastes on the darkest Korean, Japanese, and American films. “If we make a horror film without an A rating, the audience feels it’s not scary.”
Black (and White) Magic
It’s a strange beast Ramachandra has chosen to wrestle with. His first film, Bramayugam, despite having a megastar like Mammootty in the lead, didn’t find any takers among distributors. What didn’t help was that it became the first Indian black-and-white movie to release widely in over 42 years. Eventually, Ramachandra had to distribute the film in-house — a move that reaped rich rewards. The movie went on to earn over ₹85 crores in total, a miracle given the specificity of its genre and its monochromatic aesthetic. But the idea wasn’t to make a black-and-white film “just for the sake of it”.
“Imagine setting a scary movie in a place as beautiful and green as Palakkad in Kerala and then shooting it in colour. Instead of feeling trapped or wanting to escape that big mansion, the viewer may feel like they want to live there with the chathan (ghost).” Even with a director such as Rahul Sadasivan, fresh off the success of Bhoothakalam, it wasn’t going to be easy to convince Mammootty to take such a risk.
To do so, the director and crew went to the film’s actual location with real cameras and cranes, shooting reference material exactly as they intended the final film to look. “Mammukka is a man who has already done everything in his career. He has worked with legends. We needed to show him what we had in mind and that we could pull it off.” In just 52 days, they completed the film they set out to make. Mammootty went on to win the Kerala State Award for Best Actor for his performance. The film is also scheduled to be screened at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on 12 February 2026, as part of the Where the Forest Meets the Sea: Folklore from Around the World series.
Next, Ramachandra made the film Dies Irae, starring Pranav Mohanlal. Another blockbuster, it earned ₹83 crores despite its adults-only rating. “I don’t think one can make horror movies without truly believing in the supernatural,” he says. “Of all genres, someone who can make great horror will also be great at making comedy. You need a special rhythm for both.” His collaboration with Rahul Sadasivan will continue, he says, and he’s excited to work with talents across other languages — this time to explore even more specific subgenres within horror.
Genre Exorcism
But horror wasn’t always a part of the plan. As strange as it sounds, Ramachandra says he once dreamt of setting up a studio label exclusively for devotional movies. He recalls a period around 2021 when he read script after script without finding a single one that interested him. “Either the people who can still make good devotional films had retired, or the youngsters just couldn’t think of making a rooted film that wasn’t trying to be the next Kantara.”
All he was looking for was a cleverly told story about an atheist finding faith, or even “an origin story of one of our gods — any one of the thousands of them.” When that search failed, he tried finding a film made exclusively for children. “I struggled to find a writer for that too. I may have met dozens of writers and directors across the country over four years, but not one pitched a children’s movie to me. It’s always either a thriller or an action drama. With a children’s movie, you really need to be able to think like a child. It’s not a film you can commission.”
Horror, then, offered a beat diametrically opposite to both genres he had been exploring. “I guess the idea is to be pure to my genre. I will never force an item song into my films, nor will I stuff comedy in just for the sake of it. If I need to make a compromise to sell even one extra ticket, I’d rather lose that money.”
And as a man who loves cinema and the purity of genres, he says there’s only one he simply cannot wrap his head around. “Romances! I mean, it’s always the same story: a boy meets a girl and they go through some issues — all to the beautiful music of A.R. Rahman in the background. As a producer, how do you gauge such a script, and how do you know if it will work?” he asks, puzzled. “The guys who can make a romance come alive…those are people I have a lot of respect for.”
Unboxing Ramachandra’s Fears
1. Biggest professional fear? Fear of underperforming. Fear of succumbing to the typical tricks of the trade.
2. Biggest personal fear? Time. I have too many movies to make and need to stay “relevant” (trade terminology) in terms of time.
3. The scariest film you’ve ever seen? All the movies that scared me became my favourites. Let’s say I haven’t made one yet.
4. Would you spend a night in the Bramayugam house? Hell NO. If I were transported there forcibly, I would befriend the cook for free drinks, delicacies, and to hear his stories. Strictly stay out of the central courtyard...
5. What keeps you up at night (besides horror scripts)? Excitement. From reading the first synopsis to the movie’s release, the journey is long. The wait for the world to witness what we have to offer keeps me up all night. Otherwise, the budget spreadsheets and diving into sub-genre ideas.
6. An underrated horror movie you’d recommend? John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994).
7. The craziest horror movie buff you’ve met? Writer and director Ashwin Saravanan. He not only watches movies but also reads extensively, including books, articles, and graphic novels. It’s only a matter of time before he speaks to one of the entities.
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