Exclusive! Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff director Sam Bhattacharjee on film, casting Priyanshu as parapsychologist, criticism and more!

The British crossover story Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff finally saw the light of the day in India with its recent digital premiere on Eros Now. The horror series, which was earlier released as a film in England on Halloween last year, has been in the making for close to two years as it faced several delays, caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The film marks the directorial debut of the UK-based VFX artist Sam Bhattacharjee and stars Priyanshu Chatterjee, Nyra Banerjee, Sid Makkar, George Dawson, and Tony Richardson, among others.   

In an exclusive interview with OTTplay, Bhattacharjee talks about the series, making it into a franchise, casting for the series, criticisms and more. 

The makers had plans for a theatrical release in India initially but decided later to go with a direct-to-OTT release due to the pandemic. Bhattacharjee says though they preferred theatrical release, they knew in the back of their minds that they might have to go with OTT release due to the demand from the Indian audience. "With the line of star cast from India, we were experimenting the film with, we had an idea that we need to have an option to be able to customise the plan. India is a big market and takes a major share in the entertainment industry. And since people were not going to theatres in India, we decided to go for OTT," he says. 

But when the story was released on the OTT platform Eros Now, it was presented in the format of a series with six episodes of about 20 minutes each. Bhattacharjee says that was decided strategically as he felt series to be a safer bet when releasing on the streaming platform in this 'TikTok generation', as he puts it. "We looked at the viewing nature of the Indian audience and found that they prefer to watch more on OTT. Barun Rai is a film of two and a half hours, where you need to use your brain and note the twists and turns in the movie as you put all characters together. So we thought it would be safer to break it up as a 20-minute chunk," he adds.

The series mostly received negative reviews on its release in India. Speaking about the criticism, Bhattacharjee says it found it surprising. In some reviews, certain use of VFX has been called 'cartoonish'. Bhattacharjee says though he is happy to see the criticism which will help him with his next project, he'd like to also understand on what parameters, was the film judged. "We cannot perfect it when we just start. It is a new format and it takes time for people to accept it. The idea of the first part of the series was to establish the character of Barun Rai. We had a 5 to 6-minute intro, showing his power. We would like to immortalise the character, which is not usually the trend in Bollywood. A lot of producers will not go down that road thinking that the audience will reject the movie. We face those problems but I feel Eros Now has done a great job and they have received positive reviews. When there are positives, there will be negatives too," he says. 

The filmmaker, who has produced films like Commando 3, Tuesday and Fridays, Hate Story IV, hails from Shillong but is now settled in London. He says it's been over 20 years since he's been in London and does not even hold an Indian passport now, so going back to roots and seeing people watch the series and comment on it is enough for him. "I come from a background where I grew up following Satyajit Ray's works and Byomkesh Bakshi and here, we have films like Doctor Who. Watching these works, I have put something together. The film is an attempt at experiments, which is underrated at this moment," he says adding that people in India might not be able to connect with the film more since it is based on a cliff town in the UK. He claims he has been receiving great responses from the UK and the characters are being much appreciated. "The idea of Barun Rai was to bring in stories which are real but in a fictional form. There exists a suicidal town near London where many paranormal activities of this kind have taken place," he says.

The film was shot in December and he says, winter in the UK can be life-threatening. Since they had a mixed cast and crew, they were facing problems due to the weather but Bhattacharjee says they were very cooperative. "Since it is an independent film, we did not have many facilities. We have put in a lot of hard work and finished the film. That was the only chilling experience we had. The house owners were fantastic. They are an old farmer couple. So we have all good memories of the shoot," he says.

The story is set in the town of Corvid's Head where the parapsychologist Barun Rai visits to help the police force investigate and solve some unexplained suicides. When asked if the location was given this name out of frustration due to the pandemic, Bhattacharjee laughs and says, the location where the story is set was named before the pandemic and he and his team too had a good laugh when they realised it rhymes with COVID. "We were thinking of calling the series, Barun Rai and Corvid's Head but later thought it was better if we stay away from it. I thought it is better to call it Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff as it gives a straightforward statement to the people," he says.   

Since the story is set in the '70s, the makers wanted to present the story like a '70s film. They used a different kind of VFX so that it appears like an old movie. The idea, according to him, was to get into a situation where they can say a story with VFX. The story was in the mind of Bhattacharjee and he says he found a lot about the relevance of lunar eclipse etc very interesting during the research. He decided to make horror for a crossover film so that it can connect with the Indian audience too. "We are British people settled in this country. We didn't want a totally Bollywood film, or either a Hollywood one. We wanted the film to work for both audiences. I am also working on another crossover film with actors from India. It will be announced next month," he says. But he says he always had Priyanshu Chatterjee for the role of Barun Rai as he was looking for someone who's mid-age, in his 40s, an alpha male sort of character. "We did not want a six-pack guy. When we got the proposal from the casting director for Priyanshu, it all worked. I had a narration with him and he liked it. The idea was to establish the character and now that we have done it, we can show more of what he can do. We have some interesting storylines for second and third series, which will also share snippets and storylines from Barun Rai's life. We are planning to tell each story set in the following decades to the present time," he says adding that he cannot reveal more before signing off.