It’s still not a cliché to say that Pakistani cinema has grown a lot in past few years. We have seen a few video and drama directors making their big screen debuts with genres including romance, comedy and thriller but hardly a couple of them have gone for horror movie in last more than a decade and failed miserably. The latest name in the list of such directors is Emran Hussain, who has actually attempted to make Pakistan’s first found footage horror movie named Aksbandh.

The official trailer of the movie has already been released while the movie is set to hit cinemas from May 20, 2016. It is a story of six friends – Ayaz Samoo, Bilal Yousufzai, Danial Afzal Khan, Saud Imtiaz, Shehzeen Rahat, Mahrukh Rizvi and Arshad Ali – filming a horror feature film in a jungle. We have caught three of them to talk about their experience of shooting Aksbandh.

‘Horror movies have failed before but reason behind their failure was that they were made in conventional way, which actually does work with our audience, we are not technically equipped, brutal truth but it is, we can’t help it,’ affirms Danial Afzal Khan. ‘We have attempted found footage genre because it has never been picked before and secondly, we do have audience who likes watching Hollywood horror movies, even the ones coming from Bollywood,’ adds Ayaz Samoo.

Shahzeen Rahat is playing the character of a tomboy, who is very strong and straight forward. ‘My role motivated me to do Aksband because somewhere, I can somehow relate myself with the character which I am playing in the movie,’ she says.

The cast of the movie assures that it is being treated like a movie, and there would be no drama feel in it. ‘They would not see a drama feel, it is being treated like a movie, it looks like a movie, it is a movie,’ assures Khan. Furthermore, it promises new faces. ‘Aksbandh is here to give you some new, brand new faces,’ claims Samoo.

The fact that the movie is being shot in real location, a dense jungle some 15-20km inside Larkana district of Sindh, it claims to offer some very interesting yet horror scenes. ‘It is being shot a Drigh Lake in Larkana, a place which was visited by British people before independence,’ reveals Khan.

‘We were shooting in real location but luckily, there was no such horror incident but sometimes we used to feel a little of some stuff but there was nothing serious,’ says Rahat. ‘We all had loads of fun and it was more of once in a lifetime sort of experience,’ she adds.

Interestingly, there is no other Pakistani or Bollywood movie releasing near to Aksbandh, which leaves an open ground for it. ‘We will boost our promotions in last week and it will be enough,’ claims Samoo.

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