They ruled the Indian horror film industry for more than two decades. Their sleazy, gore and sensuous films rocked the Indian box office and even today the brand of Ramsay Brothers is said to be the one and only production house which is devoted to only the horror genre.
The film making business was started by their father F.U. Ramsay and after making two films, which didn’t too very well on the box office, brothers Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay suggested to their father to try his hands at horror films. The father agreed and funded their first film “Do Ghaz Zameen Ke neeche” (two feet below the ground).
In those times an average Bollywood films used to take one year to complete at a budget of around of Rs 50 Lakh. The brothers shot their first horror film in a schedule of 40 days with a budget of just Rs 3.5 Lakh, which made possible because of a unique unit involved in the making of film. All the seven Ramsay brothers hired some small actors, took their wives and kids and drove on a bus to Mahabaleshwar where the film was to be shot and took a government guesthouse, which costs them Rs. 12 per room per day.
Lets have a look on the unit of the film. Apart from the actors, two brothers Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay were directing the film, father F.U. Ramsay and the eldest brother Kumar Ramsay wrote the script, Kiran Ramsay handled the sound, Gangu Ramsay took charge of the cinematography while Keshu Ramsay assisted him and handled production too. Arjun Ramsay took care of the editing, their mother Kishni and all daughters in law’s managed the cooking and handled the make up too. Costumes were not bought, they were just hand picked from the actors’ own cloths. In an interview to website motherlandmagazine, Tulsi Ramsay says they would sleep for four hours a day and shoot for eighteen. When it was complete, they publicized the movie on radio, mostly with faux-scary voice ads. The film ran to full houses in the first week after its release. It made Rs 45 lakhs and the rest is history.
