Bombay cinema's science-fiction genre remains essentially an anti-science discourse.

What is it about?

Bombay cinema has remained largely aloof from the science-fiction genre. The indigenous Indian space program in the 1970s did not spark the invasion-mutation sub-genre in Hindi cinema the way it had done for Hollywood in the 1950s. Pakistan’s scientific endeavors did not prompt national anxieties in India. Yet Hindi cinema has presented viewers with monstrosities begotten by science. This article reconnoiters the Monster=Creature narrative in Hindi cinema and contextualizes the historically specific monstrous visions in two pioneering monster narratives of the 1980s. The horror-inflected Hindi science-fiction genre with its ‘‘moral tales of scientific excesses’’ remains essentially an anti-science discourse.

Featured Image