Ramu unapologetic about hanging dead bodies around Mumbai

Perhaps Ram Gopal Varma doesn't need to get noticed any more after he created panic by getting dummy dead bodies hung at 15 locations in Mumbai. And the unapologetic filmmaker says it was merely for more publicity for his supernatural thriller "Agyaat".

"The whole thing was to create publicity. And this sort of an idea came up to garner publicity which represents the concept and context of the film. Now since 'Agyaat' is a scary film - and has people dying - this was a good way to create that sort of an atmosphere," Varma told IANS.

Varma and the creative team of UTV, which has co-produced the movie, planted the hoardings with the dummy on Sunday (August 2) night.

The dummies apparently had blood-like substance oozing out from their mouth - scaring the onlookers the next morning to no end. People gathered at the locations and even called police. Once policemen brought the dummy down, only then did everyone realise it was Varma's mischief.

The filmmaker, who has earlier made films like "Bhoot" and "Phoonk", says this sort of publicity was chosen to stand out from the clutter.

"In today's time, all people are inundated with thousands of pieces of information - not necessarily film related. Media is constantly hammering the public with information. In that, to be able to stand out and to be noticed, you need to do something really unique. So, this hanging of dummies of dead bodies was part of that exercise," he said in an unapologetic tone.

Varma said a lot of logistics went behind facilitating this stunt.

"It's a thought process that the UTV marketing team started discussing. But then there were a lot of logistics to be kept in mind - how to make the bodies, how we would take them up the banners and whether or not they will look real. We even had a trial run for it a week back - it looked real and that's when we thought of going ahead," he said.

After narrating the process, Varma quipped: "Did you think I have gone mad?" and added: "Anything you do out of the box garners attention. It's okay."

"It would be a bizarre sight for anyone. Imagine you are traveling in a car and suddenly you see dead bodies hanging."

"Agyaat" tells the story of a film unit on a shoot in a dense forest where the crew members start getting killed one by one under mysterious circumstances by an invisible creature. The film stars actors like Gautam Rode, Priyanka Kothari and Nitin Reddy and will hit theatres on Friday.

Indo-Asian News Service

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