Ghost Stories Trailer Sets Up India’s Next Netflix Original

Netflix is celebrating the fact that it's Friday the 13th by releasing a full-length trailer for Ghost Stories — the next Indian original — the supernatural horror anthology movie from directors Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar, and Dibakar Banerjee. The new Ghost Stories trailer gives us an idea of the horrors that its cast — the likes of Sobhita Dhulipala (Made in Heaven), Janhvi Kapoor (Dhadak), and Mrunal Thakur (Love Sonia) — will face. Ghost Stories is set to be the third such collaboration for the four directors, on the back of 2013's Bombay Talkies, and 2018's Lust Stories.

The Ghost Stories trailer opens by setting up the wedding night of a new couple, which is rudely interrupted by the groom's grandma. Except there's a problem: the bride (Thakur) can't see her. Elsewhere, Janhvi Kapoor plays a nurse called Sameera who's filling in for her colleague to take care of an old woman. And in another story, a boy wonders if his pregnant aunt — played by Sobhita Dhulipala — won't love him once she has her baby. And in the fourth and final tale, a man visits a rural family, whose patriarch has allegedly been eaten.

As the Ghost Stories trailer introduces the four Indian directors at the helm through title cards, it ratchets up the horror and the women — including Thakur, Kapoor, and Dhulipala — spin out of control as they come to terms with what's happening around them. The trailer hints that a couple of stories will involve some kind of monsters as well, though it's not unclear if they actually exist or are only in the minds of the ones being tortured.

The new Ghost Stories trailer arrives two weeks after Netflix revealed a New Year's Day release date for its next Indian original, and a week after the 30-second teaser trailer. In addition to Thakur, Kapoor, and Dhulipala, Ghost Stories also stars Gulshan Devaiah (Hunterrr), Vijay Varma (Gully Boy), Raghubir Yadav (Peepli Live!), Avinash Tiwary (Laila Majnu), Surekha Sikri (Badhaai Ho), Sukant Goel (Ribbon), and Internet star Kusha Kapila. It has been produced by RSVP's Ronnie Screwvala, and Ashi Dua Sara of Flying Unicorn Entertainment.

When Ghost Stories was announced as one of 10 new Netflix original movies from India in April, Screwvala had said in a prepared statement that they are on the lookout for “many more stories and sequels from India” and added: “The overwhelming success of Lust Stories — which still has people talking about it a year after it launched — made us want to repeat the magic with our second anthology called Ghost Stories. With Netflix, we have a partner who complements the strain in RSVP's DNA — to lean into risk when it comes to bold content narratives and creative freedom.”

Ghost Stories is out January 1, 2020 at 12am IST on Netflix worldwide.