Horror is a seminal genre, with a clearly perceptible intent. Above the layers of themes, plot intricacies, and character evolutions, a horror film has to excel at one major element above all else; making the audience feel the thrill of fear.
Asvins, the latest Tamil horror film has done just that, and the critical and commercial acclaim stands testament to the same. Director Tarun Teja, who made his debut with Asvins, seems to understand the central allure of the horror genre very well. “Just like how a comedy film’s primary aim is to make the audience laugh, a horror film must make the audience feel fear.”
Asvins strikes this fear right from the first scene. The film opens with 20 minutes of uninterrupted jump scare sequences. While a traditional approach would have a horror film slowly ramping up to its spooky elements, Tarun opts to open the film by pushing the audience along with the central characters into a mansion drenched in darkness, followed by a haunting replete with jumpscares. “I wanted the audience to be psychologically prepared for the film. I thought opening the film with an intense scene might help set the tone,” he says.
A number of elements have to work in perfect harmony for the film to transpose this fear onto the audience. The chiefest of which is the performance of the actors. The director reveals how every actor went through an extensive acting workshop to prepare for their roles.
“If you observe the first half of the film, most of the scary elements, like the sounds, are non-diegetic, the actors had to imagine most of the things and react accordingly. I used to sit with the actors during the workshop to explain what I wanted to see on the screen. The basic intent was to carry the primal emotion, fear, onto the minds of the audience.”
Another element that played a crucial factor in the success of the film is the stellar sound design. “I developed the scenes based on sounds,” he says, before elaborating, “I wanted low-frequency vibrations and I was clear about the kind of reverbs I wanted. There are two different realms in this film and I differentiated them based on sounds. I also wanted the music to be atmospheric. There are places where you hear isolated whispers and sounds. It was all planned from the scripting stage.” Tarun’s extensive knowledge of sound design comes from his background studying noise and vibrations in Germany. That is perhaps why he understands and feels immense pride in the depth of work done by his sound mixer Harish. As a proponent of not revealing the ghost until later in the film, Tarun says he used the sound to allude to the demonic entity’s presence throughout the film. “Sound is my weapon. Every department from sound to cinematography works to add to the depth of storytelling. That’s how you not just watch but feel the horror,” he puts it succinctly.
Apart from these controlled elements, factors like location and time constraints also helped influence the making of the film. He says, “When we hunted for location and came across the mansion, we had limited time to film so everything had to be planned on paper well before we started rolling the camera.”
Interestingly, the mansion also helped him draw inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. “When my production team showed me the mansion and the island it is set in, I immediately remembered the opening scene of The Shining. We see the family driving to this isolated hotel in this gorgeously stretched-out helicopter shot. The scene stretches for so long to show us how the characters are going to this remote place, it makes you feel like they might never return from this place. The scene in the beginning of Asvins where we see the characters going to the mansion, is an homage to the opening scene in The Shining.”
With all eyes on what he has to offer next, Tarun claims that he’s a big fan of thrillers. While he has not yet settled on the story for his sophomore effort, he asserts that whatever he does next will be a complete theatrical experience. “You can’t feel the vibrations in a laptop or a cellphone. Theatrical experiences are what cinema is all about. Moreover, Tamil cinema audiences love watching films in theatres. I will work to give them a complete theatrical experience” he signs off with excitement.