At this point "a film crew working on a horror movie stumbles across an actual, supernatural horror" is not a new or original premise, and Shaitaan Haveli (2018) doesn't pretend otherwise. There is a twist, though: the movie within the TV series is a schlocky, exploitative gorefest inspired by the eighties output of the famous Ramsay brothers, and so is the actual horror they uncover.
B-movie director Hariman Singh (Singh Bhupesh) and his trusty cameraman Gangu (Kanchan Pagare) are in trouble. Hariman's last film, an attempt at a legitimate family drama (but sexy!), was a massive flop, and he owes money to violent and short-tempered gangster Ponty (Adi Irani), and the only way to pay himm back is to make a horror movie on an incredibly low budget and pray for a hit. Unfortunately, part of the deal is that the hero will be played by Ponty's musclebound and muscle-headed son Monty (Hemant Koumar).
Hariman also casts Monty's English girlfriend Julia (Pippa Hughes), but an Indian audience expects an Indian leading lady, so he recruits troubled TV actress Prarthana (Neha Chauhan) as the main love interest. Struggling actor Rahul (series creator Varun Thakur) is cast as the hero's friend. And faded actor Mukesh (Zahid Ali), who played the lead in Hariman's early hits, is cast as Dracula. And Hariman has found a great deal on a ruined haveli to use as a filming location; it's cheap because it's supposed to be haunted.
The shoot is an absolute disaster. Monty is not just arrogant, lazy, and easily distracted, he's also a terrible actor. Prarthana, meanwhile, is a terrible human being, and she immediately latches on to Monty as the apparent Most Important Person in the area, practically shoving Julia out of the way as she does so. Rahul is a great actor, but Monty insists on stealing all his lines and speeches.
And then there's Mukesh. Mukesh is increasingly frustrated because Hariman refuses to give him any lines, only letting him growl and laugh evilly. Mukesh is just starting to realize that he's never going to be the leading man again, and that's when the haveli's housekeeper Mahua (Shweta Singh) reveals that she is secretly an evil witch, and she offers to restore Mukesh's youth if he will help to secure five sacrifices in order to bring back her master, evil Tantric Chandaal (Surender Thakur). Mukesh eagerly agrees, but he's not very good at it, so it takes a while before the supporting actors start dying.
Shaitaan Haveli is a love letter to eighties Bollywood horror in all its tawdry glory, but it's also a very silly show. Chandaal and Mahua try, bless their monstrous hearts, but they're every bit as neurotic as the film crew, and it's hard to recline in dark satanic majesty when you're also squabbling about centuries-old relationship issues.
There is one exception to Shaitaan Haveli's devotion to the tropes of Ramsay horror. This series has an awful lot of zombies in it, and while they were called out of their graves through the power of Chandaal's magical gemstone, they're obviously Hollywood zombies, complete with a bite that causes rapid zombification. That particular species of walking dead just wasn't a thing in the Indian horrorsphere of the eighties, but if it had been a trend, the Ramsays would have happily exploited it.
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