Having surprised even ardent critics with his 2010 film, Jugari, director SD Arvind has consciously decided to showcase his prowess in making experimental thrillers
His latest film also falls in the same genre and his recently revealed teaser shows the audience a glimpse of the director’s vision.
According to Arvind, Last Bus, which was made under the Goals and Dreams banner and is in the final stages of editing, is a psychological thriller with a lot of visual effects. “The effects are a very important part of the film and will take a month to be completed. I plan to have the film ready by mid-April,” he says.
The young director states that he had been working hard on drawing a thin line between the genres of psychological terror and standard horror. “Horror is an invisible energy whereas the psychological aspect is a weak mind’s imagination. My film has a bend towards the latter,” he explains. The film is based on an original idea and he has given it a realistic and commercial approach. “We have made a film which has come out of the clichés associated with regular thrillers or horror movies,” he says.
The director is confident about the film. “It has come out much better than what we visualised. We are confident and that is when we thought of going to the public with the film. The entire team is positive about the film,” he says.
Location has been given a lot of importance in the film and according to the director, all the spots are never-before-seen locales. He says, “We went to Madikeri, Kushal Nagar, Somwarpet, Dandeli, Dharwad and even Goa, looking for houses that looked haunted. We found at least 25 such houses but not many were ready to give us permission to shoot there because they didn’t want their houses to be branded as haunted after the release. However, we captured the elements of those houses and replicated it in our sets.”
The director also reveals that a huge chunk of investment has gone into the art work for the film. “We committed about 20 days for the art work, which hollowed our pockets. My brother Avinash Narasimharaju, who is also the hero of the film, was responsible for scouting the locations and also in charge of the art work,” he says.
For a wider reach, the director has ensured a multilingual format for the film. “We have shot portions in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. We plan to dub the film in all the southern languages and release them along with the Kannada version,” he says.
Apart from Avinash, the film stars Prakash Belawadi, Meghashree Bhagavatar, Manasa Joshi, Deepa Gowda, Samarth Narasimharaju.