Dark Fear, Eerie Cities: New Hindi Cinema in Neoliberal India

Dark Fear, Eerie Cities analyzes a film form that began to emerge in Hindi cinema in early 21st century - a form that is marked by realism, by focusing on urban life and culture of the new middle class, as well as pessimism, violence, fear and the presence of the ‘other’ in many forms. The author locates new cinematic developments in a much broader context of sociocultural change in contemporary India, and traces the roots of imagining India ‘darkly’. The book looks at the new Hindi cinema from different angles and through analysis of crime thrillers and horror films aims to answer some fundamental questions, Why is there so much of pessimism?; What impact does neoliberalism have on the city and cinematic representations?; Why does the darkness, actual and metaphorical, proliferate?; What haunts the city, and why?; Why is the city so dark and eerie?; And what is the relationship between fear and violence on screen and the actual dark side of urban life, crime, insecurity one may feel while living in a metropolis, physical insecurity as well as a psychological, one of competition, a desire to succeed and to belong to ‘global India’.