Comedian and Youtuber ASHISH CHANCHLANI recently released his debut horror film Aakhri Safar that has garnered 10 million views. He speaks with SHALINI SAKSENA about why he chose horror as a genre for his film among other things
What is your film about?
This is my directorial debut horror film for YouTube. I usually do comedy sketches for the channel. But I wanted to do something different. Horror as a genre on YouTube has not exactly been explored much. There have been horror-comedies but not pure horror. I wanted to experiment and therefore the always say that 26-minute short film.
How tough was it to work in the genre?
I used to always say that it was easy to deal with this genre. But when I started exploring it, I realised that it was not as easy. What one thinks is going to be scary need not necessarily be scary when you get it down on the screen. I understood it was not as easy as it looks and one had to go that extra mile to make things scary. But as I explored more, it became easier. I definitely learnt a lot with this movie.
India doesn’t make as good horror films. Where is the gap?
I would say that we have had our fair share of good horror films. There was Bhoot by Ram Gopal Varma. Then there is a film by Pawan Kripalani — Phobia — starring Radhika Apte. There are a few directors who have done some good work. Some of our horror films have sex and romance and we deviate and loose track of the story. When we concentrate of the story, we do a better job.
How did your comedy journey begin?
I have done Civil Engineering. Like any other person in Mumbai, I wanted to be an actor as well. My father would tell me that I needed to wise up and realise that there are millions of people who wanted to be one and I should give up my dream. I used to watch vines and thought that India had so many topics why not make something on those topics that were fun. From vines I switched to Insta to Facebook to finally YouTube and became a career.
Is it possible to make a career in comedy today?
I think it is tough because the genre is getting saturated. One has to do something out-of-the-box to stand out make good money from it and go places.
Have Indians learnt to laugh at themselves?
Indians get offended easily. Todd Philips director of Joker and Hangover series stopped making comedies because he felt that people get offended easily. People need to understand that there are people who love to joke around. Just because one made a joke about a serious issue, it doesn’t mean that we are making of the issue at hand. It is meant to be taken as a joke. I have been roasted many times for my jokes. You are a bad comedian if you can’t take a joke on yourself. Sometimes people cross the line which should be avoided.
Can you share a few instances where you were roasted?
I have been roasted by 18-19 year olds. I think they are just being teenagers. Once they are past this phase, they will understand things better.
What is keeping you busy?
For now, it is comedy. It is my comfort zone. But I am looking to explore murder-mystery as a genre. It will take time to put it out on paper but hopefully it will be a short film as well. One day I hope I can make a full-length movie as well.
Where do you get inspiration from?
It is all around me. Have you ever tried to make a video of people on Holi day with faces covered with colour? I make content from what is around me. I made a video on the face of people with colour on their faces and it went viral. One just has to sit with paper and pen and one will get content. Sometime, it gets exhausting since I am looking for content. But I really down get down to making it till I am convinced that it is good to go.
What was your parents’ reaction when you quit?
They have always been supportive of what I am doing. They were worried for me because they felt what I was doing was not going to go anywhere. But they settled don once my popularity rose.