Shaitaan Haveli – translation: “Devil Mansion” – is a 2017 Indian Hindi comedy horror web series created by Varun Thakur and directed by Ajay Singh from a script by Chirag Mahabal, Kautuk Srivastava and Karan Agarwal. It stars Varun Thakur, Bhupesh Singh and Hemant Kumar.
The web series is a spoof of low-budget Indian horror movies from the 1980s and 1990s.
When B-grade horror film director Hariman finds himself in debt with notorious gangster Ponty Khurana, he decides that the only way to repay the money would be to shoot another one of his legendary, low-budget, so-bad- that-they- are bad horror movies.
Hariman puts together an eccentric cast and crew. In the lead is the gangster’s son and protein shake enthusiast, Monty; his love interest, TV star and tantrum-throwing expert, Prarthana; token white person, Julia and side-hero, struggling actor Rahul Thakur. Together they embark on a journey to shoot Shaitaan Haveli, which turns out to be both the name of the film and the location of the shoot.
As shooting commences eerie happenings begin to plague the set. Little by little they realize that the Haveli they are shooting in has a long and terrifying past and their presence has rekindled all of it. All the horrors in their poorly written script pale in comparison to the terrors they face in real life…
Reviews:
“A 30-minute YouTube video was enough to exhaust all the B-grade film tropes used in the series and even top it off with witty commentary. An 8-episode web series to say the same thing feels like a bit of a stretch, IMHO. All in all, Shaitaan Haveli, in its effort to spoof the 80s horror films, takes itself too lightly.” Papri Das, The Quint
Main cast:
Varun Thakur, Bhupesh Singh, Hemant Kumar, Kanchan Pagare, Neha Chauhan, Anand Vikas Potdukhe, Pippa Hughes, Shweta Singh, Mukesh, Surender Thakur, Monica Gupta, Adi Irani, Hemant Koumar.
Release:
Shaitaan Haveli was released on Amazon Prime Video India on January 5, 2018.
IMDb | Image credits: The Quint | Saamri.com