Netflix India’s latest original offering Betaal will be out on 24 May. The series explores the zombie genre. From the makers of 'Get Out', 'Insidious', ‘Bard of Blood’ and ‘Ghoul’ comes another boundary-pushing and genre-elevating horror series. While on a mission to displace the natives of Campa forest in order to build a highway, Sirohi and his squad unwittingly unleash the curse of Betaal mountain that wreaks havoc on the people and threatens to end civilization as we know it.
Starring Viineet Kumar, Aahana Kumra, Suchitra Pillai, Jitendra Joshi, Jatin Goswami, Manjiri Pupala and Syna Anand, the series is produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, Blumhouse Television and SK Global Entertainment.
The Quint spoke with writer and director Patrick Graham and the co-director of Betaal, Nikhil Mahajan, about the challenges of making a zombie series set in India.
When asked about the comparisons being drawn between Betaal, Tummbad and the Netflix Original series The Kingdom, Patrick Graham says, “There’s a tendency in this country to kind of look for comparisons and look for copying. I think it comes from Bollywood films which sometimes take scripts and film them without crediting the sourcing material, perhaps that’s the reason people sort of try and point out as many similarities as they possibly can.” Patrick Graham, the writer and Director of Betaal was also associated with Ghoul on Netflix.
Director Nikhil Mahajan tells The Quint that he was excited about making a series based on zombies in India because we have never seen anything like this before. “The most important thing that struck me was the interpersonal connection and drama between the characters and then zombie thriller was an added advantage,” says Nikhil Mahajan who has co-directed Betaal with Patrick Graham.
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