Yali dream Creations, an Indian comic book and graphic novel publishing company, made an announcement a couple of weeks back, which took the Indian comic book world by storm! Their most famous offering till date, “The Caravan”, was like a boon for an industry which was on its last toes. And now, according to the reports, a Bollywood production house has acquired the rights to make a live action movie based on the horror saga.
Mere words can’t do justice to the feeling surging through the hearts of thousands of comic book fanatics in India, for whom such a news was nothing more than a pipe dream. Comics have thrived in India since several decades, but apart from a TV serial based on the cult classic, Chacha Chaudhary, the comic book industry never succeeded in getting a chance to reach the mainstream audience. One of the finest directors in India, Anurag Kashyap, planned on making a movie on Doga, a rabid antihero vigilante who has graced the pages of Raj comics since the past 2 decades. Those plans never came to fruition and the fans, including me, were left fantasising the live action scenes of Doga going on a killing spree at the expense of Mumbai’s fierce villians.
But all of that comes to an end NOW.
If things transpire well, we’ll FINALLY get a chance to feast our eyes on the blood hungry vampires who seduced the innocent villagers by presenting themselves as voluptuous beauties in the pages of The Caravan- on the BIG SCREEN!
Eveb though The Caravan gives off a flavour of the classic B-grade horror movies produced by Ramsay brothers in the 80’s and 90’s, there’s no reason why this story can’t wow today’s audience. All that’s needed is a tight script which remains faithful to the original story, a strong cast (not necessarily big names) and last, but certainly not the least- the setting. The Caravan gives off a creepy vibe which scares the reader at many points over its 80ish page count. The dark night equipped with the shine given off by the Moon and stars, the old village setting, and finally the utter cruelty shown by the otherwise raunchy and seductive girls of the Caravan, when preying upon the helpless villagers.
There have been tons of characters and stories made over the course of several decades- Nagraj, SCD, our own Chacha Chaudhary to name a few. But none of them could do what the characters of The Caravan did-
Manage to convince a production house to invest in their story because it is THAT DAMN GOOD!!