Bollywood star Yami Gautam dives into horror comedy land

Horror comedy is one of the hardest genres to pull off, and Bollywood stepping deeper into it is honestly exciting. Yami Gautam signing on to Nayi Naveli signals a real shift, not just for her career but for how Indian mainstream cinema is approaching genre storytelling.

Produced by Aanand L Rai and directed by Balaji Mohan, the project blends folklore, myth, comedy, and horror instead of treating scares as a novelty act. That matters. The strongest horror comedies, from Shaun of the Dead to Stree, respect both sides of the genre. They let fear exist alongside humor without defanging it.

Gautam’s move into this space feels calculated in a good way. Horror comedy lets actors stretch without being trapped by prestige expectations, and it often ages better than straight drama. Indian folklore is packed with eerie imagery and moral horror, and when filmmakers tap into that instead of copying Western formulas, the results can be genuinely unsettling.

This is one to watch not because it is a gimmick, but because it suggests Bollywood is getting more confident about genre identity instead of playing it safe.