Two sisters perform an inauspicious prayer to the anti-god Lord “Mautya”. They ask of him a simple boon – that their mother’s soul be returned to her body so she may come back into their lives. Although the prayer seems to work, but every prayer has an offering.
Asura was a film born out of two things. The first was my love of horror movies. The second was my desire to see horror movies from different cultures on screen. American horror films that depict religion are often based in Catholicism: holy water, upside-down crosses, biblical demons, etc. Growing up in a Hindu family, I always wanted to see horror films that pulled from my own religion. Hinduism has a vast mythology, and for its many gods, Hindu texts also make mention of several demons and anti-gods, or asuras. With this film, my goal was to take a simple premise that horror fans had seen before – a forbidden prayer or ritual – and present it using imagery they may not have seen before to leave them yearning for more South Asian horror films going forward.