Director Venkat Siddareddy's CASE NO. 666/2013 Marks Telugu Cinema's First Foray Into Found Footage Horror

While found footage may have largely worn out its welcome in the west, India has yet to exploit it to its full potential. Over the last couple of years a couple of Hindi language films have attempted to bring the style to the mainstream. The first, Ragini MMS, was more of a Paranormal Activity supernatural horror film, it seemed to strike something of a chord, thanks in no small part to some controversy surrounding the amount of sex in the film.The second film, micro-indie "?", barely made a dent at the box office and whether it was good or not, has been mostly forgotten.

Case No. 666/2013 marks Telugu cinema's first attempt at a found footage horror film, and the trailer makes it look better than either of the two films mentioned above. ScreenAnarchy was able to get in touch with the director, Venkat Siddareddy, and get a few words from him regarding his project, which opens this week in Andhra Pradesh:

"Case No. 666/2013" is the first Telugu Film ever made in "Found Footage" genre in its 80 years span.

As per the story,  Three buddies Bhaskar, Chaitanya and Durga along with a stranger, venture into a forest and stay in a haunted guest house. They carry two cameras through which they start recording interesting and mysterious happenings.

As the mystery unfolds, the friends go missing one after the other. After six months of their disappearance, police investigate the case and recover three memory cards from their cameras which reveal a shocking truth. All these footage from the memory cards form the content of this film.

The basic idea is similar to many films of this genre, Unlike many found footage films we have a very gripping story and narrative.It is a thriller told in a found footage format. We also tried a non-linear screenplay where the footage we are seeing is from sources which are recorded over two different time periods...that way we tried something different

I love it when a director tries something new, and while this style may be old hat in the west, I wish him the best! The trailer itself very clearly echoes the style of The Blair Witch Project, however I see just enough cultural specificity to make it an interesting watch, and I really like what he's done with the sound design in the trailer as well. I love abrasive, aggressive mixes for these films, keep you off balance.

As an aside, Director Siddareddy sent me a couple of cool notes regarding the film's distribution and promotion. The first is that Case No. 666/2013 will be released to the international audience via a site called ZingReel at the link below in the "More From Around the Web" section. Also worthy of note is the first ever promotional music video for a Telugu film to utilize Death Metal! What's not to like about that??