New Delhi: The Gujarati film industry is enjoying a pan-India moment, and Krishnadev Yagnik is the man behind this unprecedented spotlight. Yagnik’s horror movies, Vash and Vash Level 2, have expanded the frontier for powerful cinema, and this one does not come from South India. The director has singlehandedly pushed Gujarati cinema’s boundaries, away from the usual, familiar, and popular family dramas toward a one-of-a-kind horror that not many were prepared for.
And box office numbers speak for themselves.
Vash Level 2 released in the same week as the much-publicised Param Sundari—with a fraction of the Bollywood film’s budget. While Param Sundari struggled to break even, Vash Level 2 has reached Rs 13.26 crore in India—a significant achievement for a Gujarati film. It also became the first Gujarati film to be released in Hindi as well, a departure for the industry.
“You have to take a chance. Before this sequel, no Gujarati film was released in Hindi too, and did well. I have heard that people are discussing my film in a lot of places, and it feels good to hear that,” said Yagnik.
Vash (2023) revolves around a family and their school-going daughter over whom an enigmatic stranger casts a black magic spell. Vash Level 2 takes place 12 years after the first movie, where girls in a school in an unnamed city in Gujarat are possessed by another man.
For years, Yagnik was told that horror would not work in Gujarati films, and he had no template to follow before he changed the game with the Vash series.
“Krishnadev Yagnik is truly a wild filmmaker. He takes it up a notch, and he really makes you sit up and take notice. I remember when I watched the sequence of the film with the 10 girls on the terrace, I was horrified, and when I glanced at Krishnadev, he had a smile on his face,” said Hitu Kanodia, who plays Atharva, the protagonist in the films.
Atharva is the father of Aarya (Janki Bodiwala), who is controlled by Pratap (Hiten Kumar) through black magic. A pilot, Atharva is a devoted family man who slowly gets desperate as Pratap makes Aarya commit horrible acts. In the sequel, he returns to confront the new man who has the schoolgirls under his control.
‘Don’t want to repeat content’
The success of Vash and Vash Level 2, along with that of Shaitaan (a remake of Vash), now indicates a trend of remakes that could move away from the south Indian film industries to even Bhojpuri, Punjabi, and others. Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions made their first Punjabi movie, Akaal, earlier this year.
“Earlier, southern-language movies would be made, and then people would go back and watch the originals. Drishyam is one recent example. Now with Vash and Vash Level 2, there is an indication that smaller industries will get more popular,” said film critic Ramesh Bala.
But Yagnik is not in a rat race to cash in on his film’s success and make another sequel, or unleash a franchise with similar tropes. Many in the business are trying to play it safe by building ‘worlds’ out of successful standalone films.
“My only concern in life is that I should not repeat content as a filmmaker. So I thought, why not horror?” said Yagnik with a benign smile.
Changes are already in motion in the Gujarati film industry. Filmmakers and producers are buoyed both by the commercial success of the two films and the National Award Vash won in 2023. The industry had the psychological thriller Nasoor last year and the horror-comedy Faati Ne?, which came out in January this year.
In 1990s and 2000s, no Gujarati films were even nominated for the National Awards yes. Even after that, the awards were intermittent. But with Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show (2022) and Vash, the awards committee too seems to have an eye out for the industry.
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A bold pivot
If Vash Level 2 is finding new audiences outside of Gujarat because of its Hindi release, the first instalment already inspired a Bollywood remake: Shaitaan (2024), starring Ajay Devgn, R Madhavan, and Jyothika. Janki Bodiwala, who played the possessed girl in the Gujarati version, reprised her role in the Hindi film. Directed by Vikas Bahl, Shaitaan made Rs 213.55 crore worldwide. It was a rare success in Hindi cinema’s horror universe, which has few films making big at the ticket counter. In recent years, barring Stree and Munjya, barely any project has delivered big on box office in recent years.
Yagnik’s decision to pivot from family entertainers was a bold move. Before Vash, the director himself made three films centred around the genres of family drama and romance, including the blockbuster hit Shu Thayu (2018). In the recent years, box office hits were emotional dramas such as Chaal Jeevi Laiye (2019) or comedies such as Bachu Ni Benpani (2024). But Vash is a film that sends chills. And despite trepidations, Yagnik backed his script to the hilt—not giving the audience a happy ending.
“I wanted that. The way Janki was traumatised for 24 hours, I wanted the audience to leave with that feeling. Only that would ensure that the audience had a conversation about the film. That’s why the film’s ending has no background score but silence,” said Yagnik.
In the sequel, too, he made the girls commit heinous crimes, not for shock value but to focus on the power of the new villain and how far he would go.
“Yagnik’s economy, complemented by Shivam Bhatt’s sharp editing, is most successful in its depiction of concentrated, clinical horror. By avoiding the distractions that mar Indian horror movies, Yagnik expertly turns the screws on his characters as well as his viewers,” wrote Nandini Ramnath in her review of the sequel.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)