Gehrayee (1980)

Uma (Kolhapure), the daughter of a businessman (Lagoo), spews abuse and reveals uncomfortable secrets from her father’s past. The father arranges psychiatric treatment for her, including electric shocks, to the disapproval of the mother (Mukherjee) and son Nandu (Nag) who prefer the more traditional interpretation that Uma is possessed by a rogue demon. To perform the exorcism, they employ a potentially dangerous Tantric (Puri) who practises black magic on virgins. The daughter’s exorcism is then followed by the son’s effort to track down the demon whom he finds living in the body of a woman. He strangles her as the film ends, literally, with a question mark. Although The Exorcist (1973) was an unofficially acknowledged influence, the film is more a mystificatory engagement with religious ritual than with the conventions of the horror film.