MALLESWARAM: You walk through a dimly-lit lane and enter a room which has a banyan tree. You look up into its branches and an eerie apparition starts a conversation with you. To your left is a person with a haunted face and to the right, is a figure hanging down the branches.
This is no nightmare but simply the beginning of the Scary Village that has opened in Mantri Mall on Tuesday.
T Srinivas, who is the founder director of Scary House and Scary Village concepts, came up with the idea when he decided that people are bored of the haunted house and may need an entire village to spook them. “Scary House as the concept has been in since over a decade,” he said. He would know, he runs two Scary Houses in Garuda Mall and Mantri Square.
This village is India’s first animatronics walk-through village spread over 4,000 sq ft and has illusions, sound-effects and lighting through a mockup of a village. “Animatronics is the combination of mechanics, electronics, robotics, arts and programming,” he said.
What else will people get to see in Scary Village? While Scary House only has a confusing way and a few elements that will scare you, Scary Village has a set-up of a village with about 10-15 huts, wells, doors and a ghost popping out of those huts. What more?
A visitor gets to see dark illusions created with mirrors and hear the howling of spirits.
The company will change the set every three months to spook every regular visitor.
A walk through takes about five to 10 minutes. But you will leave dashing for the door. And the hangover will remain for days.
So how did the idea of Scary House come to him? “It was the horror movies, especially The Evil Dead, that inspired me,” he said. “Also I wanted to give people a different kind of entertainment apart from just going for a movie or to malls to shop.”
He is quick to add that it is his wife Narmada who actually conceptualises them.
He first implemented the idea at Prasads Multiplex (IMAX) in Hyderabad, Telangana. Once successful, he went on to set-up 27 more all over the country.