Purana Mandir

The Ramsay brothers were a family firm that cranked out horror the way other studios crank out sequels, and this is the hit that proved the formula paid. A two-hundred-year-old curse laid by the fanged demon Saamri means every woman in a royal bloodline dies giving birth, so the modern heirs go back to the crumbling ancestral haveli to break it, bringing songs, a comedy sidekick and a romance along with them. That is the Ramsay recipe in full: gothic dread and a warty monster spliced into a Bollywood masala, so the fright scenes share a runtime with musical numbers and slapstick. It made a fortune, launched a whole shelf of Hindi horror, and Saamri drew enough of a crowd to headline his own sequel. As a monster he is pure rubber, and that is most of the fun.