MUMBAI: Making your skin crawl, your hair rise and giving you sleepless nights. That's the objective of entertainment company Percept Picture Co (PPC). And at a time when Bollywood is getting cautious, PPC is getting aggressive about foraying into the horror genre.

The company has floated a new movie production arm, 'PPC Horrotainment' that will focus only on producing small and mid budget horror flicks.

PPC will pump in approximately Rs 1 billion into its newly launched banner out of its internal accruals to roll out a slate of 10 movies over a period of three years.

The first project to be launched under the new arm will be 'Grrrr....' directed by Priyadarshan. This will be followed by releases like Mumbai, Vehem, 13 and 888.

"We are looking at making investments in the region of Rs 800 million to Rs 1 billion to produce 10 films, to be made over three years and released over four," says PPC CEO Navin Shah.

The entertainment company plans to keep the cost of its productions in check and not get too adventurous about budgets, as has been the case with some other filmmakers recently. "The budget of the films will be stringed at around Rs 80 million," Shah explained.

According to Shah, the invest requirements of any Bollywood horror flick is still minimal in India and hence, companies can remain optimistic of a higher return on investments while keeping the production costs tight.

When quizzed why PPC had opted for the creepy and crawly genre, Shah ventured, "When it comes to Indian consumers, the horror genre definitely carries huge potential amongst all. However, it still remains highly untapped in Bollywood. As the demand is more while the supply remains almost nil, we decided to explore this new space."

The new banner also plans to acquire and distribute films based on supernatural, folktales, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories and other popular horror sub-genres.

Added Percept Limited joint MD Shailendra Singh, "The business model at PPC is based on identifying gaps and exploring their potential. This is done through a continuous understanding of consumer-entertainment-consumption patterns. We have been presenting movies of all genres and believe that: if one sticks to one brand, success will be lower."

Cinema goers had better gear up for the blood and gore.