Shyam (left) and Tulsi Ramsay with Om Shivpuri. Pics courtesy/Ramsay family/HarperCollins India

What worked for the Ramsays at a time when Hindi commercial cinema was booming?
Their masks and monsters and [hint of] sex was a winner. That's what they sold and that's what became successful. They stumbled on a genre that didn't exist in mainstream Hindi movies until then. The story is that when the brothers were watching the film, Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi, an F U Ramsay production, they were surprised by the audience's reaction to the scene of Prithviraj Kapoor scaring the wits out of everyone because of his horrible mask. The audience was jolted, again and again. So, the brothers went to their father and suggested horror as a possible theme. And it worked, Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche onwards. Purana Mandir was a massive hit; many others did well too. They identified low budgets and streamlined production processes. They kept the costs and margins low, and almost always made profits. The other reason was that they reached out to the non-urban centres, where superstitions witches, monsters and zombies were likely to find an audience.