The Hills Are Calling And The OTTs Must Go

At the back of a cupboard, at my parent¡¯s home, is a cover for an iphone 6S that says, ¡®the hills are calling and I must go¡¯. It¡¯s a line millennials have built an entire lifestyle around, over a period of time. The destinations may have changed from the hills exclusively to Goa or the northeast and if you could afford money then Maldives and Europe. However, the sentiment has remained the same - at all times, something, somewhere is calling us away from the desks and that¡¯s a call that must be answered. At all costs.

The Last Hour | Prime Video

This story is dedicated to the move away from hinterland India which had been the backdrop of everything in the last couple of years.

Raveena Tandon¡¯s character SHO Kasturi Dogra, Jimmy Shergil¡¯s SHO Manoj Hesi, Sanjay Kapoor¡¯s Arup in The Last Hour and Richa Chadha¡¯s DSP Ratna Shankhawar in Candy are all investigating mysteries in the hills, there are some drugs thrown into the mix (because Hills - hello!) and a generous dose of the supernatural which isn¡¯t a hard pill to swallow for the gullible people of the hills.

Aranyak | Netflix

As OTT platforms looked for newer locations, they narrowed it down to the majestic hills. The hills already have real fog, a bleak landscape and folklore that lends itself very well to thrillers.

The hills have been a common setting if you have been watching Undekhi, Aranyak, JL50, Candy or even The Last Hour. The other commonality is that barring Undekhi, the other three shows tried to unsuccessfully relaunch forgotten actors - Raveena Tandon (Aranyak), Abhay Deol (JL50) and Sanjay Kapoor (The Last Hour). But that kind of critique is for another time and another writer.

Undekhi | SonyLiv

The big question remains - are the hills really making their debut as a backdrop now? You could argue that heroes and heroines have been regularly and miraculously been teleported into the hills of Leh, Switzerland and Manali to sing songs and dance around in chiffon saris and colorful drapes. But the fact is, barring a few exceptions, the hills used in thrillers were in and around Ooty or featured in war films about Kargil, but they didn¡¯t play a character. What¡¯s happening right now in shows, is a bit deeper than what happened in the films, even though it's also a bit cliched. At the same time, it¡¯s a possibility that Kahaani 2 kicked off this current trend.

Aranyak | Netflix

Onto the shows themselves, no matter how much fun you make of Raveena¡¯s accent as Inspector Kasturi Dogra¡¯s in Aranyak, you can tell she is making an earnest effort, the story itself portrays those living in the hills of the fictitious town of Sironha as small town people who constantly remind you that ¡°it¡¯s a small town¡­yahan sab aisey hi chalta hai.¡± The story itself is tried and tested, someone spreads a supernatural story and the small town hill folks don¡¯t know any better. Inspector Dogra has shades of a Haryana cop in more places than just her accent, she believes all foreigners are bad and most of the town is in the thrall of a Raja-turned-drug dealer masquerading as a politician. At the centre of this are some firangi tourists - because hey, why not!

Aranyak | Netflix

Incidentally, this is a commonality between Aranyak and Undekhi, the show that kickstarted this shoot-a-thriller-in-the-hills craze. The Politician/Drug Dealer is at the heart of everything going wrong in a small town with big guns and the eventual coverup.

Candy, starring Richa Chadha is set in another fictitious city this time Rudrakund (it¡¯s shot in and around Nainital) and touches upon rave parties, a demon in the woods followed by a murder in a school. Incidentally, schools, colleges play an important role in many of these shows/films like Collar Bomb, Candy and The Last Hour.

Collar Bomb starring Jimmy Shergill, even though a movie as opposed to the others which have several episodes, portrays a lot of commonalities - there¡¯s a cop in the hills, trying to do some investigation with a side of personal crisis solving. Interestingly, Collar Bomb and Aranyak both have the lead characters playing SHOs as opposed to ACPs that Bollywood was obsessed with at some point of time.

The Last Hour | Prime Video

In films, which have also been released on OTTs, there¡¯s Parineeti Chopra - Arjun Kapoor¡¯s Sandeep and Pinky Faraar that also answered the call of the mountains starting from Nepal and ending in Rishikesh.

The Last Hour meanwhile, is a thriller bordering on the supernatural set in the hills in the NE, where Jakhris (Oracles meet Soothsayers) and murder mysteries aggresively intersect, all investigated by DCP Arup Singh.

Fast Rewind to JL50 where an investigator (Abhay Deol) is dispatched to the hills to investigate the disappearance of an entire aircraft. Again, it¡¯s a bit of a mystery meets supernatural with some hill cliches thrown in, the same exaggerated way the salt bae salts everything.

JL50 | SonyLiv

But what¡¯s ongoing and is it significant enough to write a whole blog over? The answer to both those questions is developing as we speak.

The hills do tick a lot of the boxes that make for a popular OTT series - there¡¯s some drugs, unsuspecting locals, some folklore, cops battling internal (and external) demons and a bleak landscape. It¡¯s the same sort of work that has made countless shows work in India and the West.

Whether this will be a one-night-fling and will OTTs return to their steady forever love - the Hinterland, only time or creative directors of OTTs will tell.

For the interim, the streaming beckons and we must go!