From Khooni Monday To HorrorCon: Divay Agarwal On Building India's Next Horror Entertainment Universe- EXCL!

Call me a zombie-head or a horrorist, but I enjoy watching horror films. It might be my guilty pleasure. As I attended the Khooni Monday event in Noida, I got an opportunity to discuss my love for the theme with media entrepreneur and storyteller Divay Agarwal.

In a digital landscape often dominated by fleeting trends and viral moments, few creators have managed to transform a niche genre into a thriving community. Divay Agarwal has achieved this through Khooni Monday, the horror storytelling platform that has grown into a fandom-driven ecosystem with more than 10 million followers across platforms.

In an exclusive conversation with Filmibeat Assistant Editor Abhishek, Divay got candid about collaborating with PVR INOX, building a horror entertainment universe in India and turning audience in to active participants rather than passive viewers.

1. Your recent collaboration with PVR INOX for the immersive screening experience of HOKUM brought together horror storytelling, fandom culture, creators, and live interactions under one roof. How important do you think experiential cinema is becoming for younger audiences today?

I think young audiences today, especially Gen Z and younger millennials, are looking for participation, not just consumption. Traditional cinema is largely passive, but formats like the Hokum screening we did with PVR INOX Pictures transform that into something far more interactive and social.

With PVR INOX Pictures teaming up with HorrorCon India and Khooni Monday as Exclusive Experience Partners for a first-of-its-kind immersive horror fan experience in India with the screening of HOKUM, that shift was very intentional. We designed it in a way that fans attending the screening entered a specially curated horror-inspired environment designed to extend the movie beyond the screen. From a tarot card reading zone that extended the mystique of the narrative, to a movie-themed hotel-style check-in desk, creator engagements, to horror-inspired installations and photobooths, every touchpoint was built to blur the line between cinema and experience.

Globally, horror fandom has always thrived on community experiences, whether it's conventions, cosplay, haunted attractions, or interactive screenings. India is now beginning to move in that direction as well. What's exciting is that audiences are responding very organically to these spaces. What we saw firsthand is that when you layer storytelling with community, creator interaction, and immersive elements, the experience becomes a part of the audiences' memory. I believe experiential cinema will become a much bigger part of how entertainment is consumed going forward.

2. You started Khooni Monday in 2018, at a time when horror storytelling on Indian digital platforms was still largely untapped. What made you believe that horror could become a long-term community and not just a niche internet genre?

When I started Khooni Monday in 2018, horror in India as a genre was very fragmented online. What was missing was consistent, high-quality storytelling that people could build a habit around. Growing up, horror storytelling was already part of our cultural fabric, whether it was nani-dadi ki kahaniyaan, folklore, or local urban legends we heard in different parts of the country. The insight was simple: horror is one of the few genres that naturally creates shared emotional experiences of fear, suspense and curiosity. These emotions are inherently social. People don't just want to consume horror, they want to discuss it, react to it, and experience it together. Within this deep cultural connection, I saw a fandom ecosystem that had potential for enormous growth.

So when we launched Khooni Monday, the idea was simple: create immersive Hindi horror stories that felt relatable and cinematic in their treatment. Over time, we realised audiences were not just watching for jump scares; they were returning for the community, the discussions, and the emotional experience around the stories.

The comments, discussions, theories, and community conversations became just as important as the content itself. That's when it became clear that horror was already a deeply familiar emotional language. And once you start showing up consistently and building trust with the audience, it stops being content and starts becoming a fandom ecosystem. Today, seeing Khooni Monday evolve into a 10M+ community across platforms reinforces that belief, that audiences were simply waiting for a dedicated universe they could consistently belong to.

3. HorrorCon has quickly evolved into a large-scale pop-culture experience with cosplay, live storytelling, creators, and fandom-driven participation. What do you think younger audiences today are seeking from immersive entertainment that traditional formats are missing?

Younger audiences today are looking for identity, participation, and belonging as much as entertainment. Traditional formats are one-directional where you consume content and move on to the next. But today's audiences want to step into the world of storytelling, express themselves within it and engage with it. What they're really seeking is a sense of belonging to a universe, not just consuming a story.

That shift is what shaped HorrorCon India. From cosplay and live storytelling to creator interactions and community-led engagement, the goal was to create an entire ecosystem where audiences become active participants in a shared horror universe rather than spectators.

Globally, fandom culture has already proven this, whether through conventions, gaming festivals, or immersive pop-culture events. In India, that evolution is accelerating rapidly, especially with a genre as sticky as horror, the audiences are embracing it naturally. At The Mad Virus (TMV), what we consistently see, whether through Khooni Monday or HorrorCon or any of our other content and event IPs, is that people are not just looking for content anymore. They are looking for cultural spaces they can enter, express themselves in, and return to year after year. That is what makes immersive entertainment so powerful today.

4. Your content consistently blends Indian cultural references, psychological fear, and cinematic storytelling. How do you approach creating horror that feels both locally rooted and globally relatable at the same time?

For me, the most powerful horror always comes from emotional truth and cultural familiarity. India already has an incredibly rich storytelling tradition filled with folklore, superstitions, local myths that have an instant recall. We try to build our stories around those rooted emotions and experiences because authenticity is what makes audiences emotionally invest in horror. The more culturally specific storytelling is, the more universally it resonates.

What I have understood in building the Khooni Monday community and the horror universe is that the science of cinematic storytelling lies in decoding the "Friend-to-Friend" Storytelling Format. My unique creative philosophy is to tell a story like I would narrate to a friend, this is what makes our content addictive and high-retention. Our success is based on a specific storytelling format designed and engineered to include authenticity, relatability, and technical precision to keep the audience immersed in the digital environment.

We also pay a lot of attention to cinematic treatment with physical emoting, sound design, pacing, and visual immersion because modern audiences consume content across multiple platforms globally. Whether someone watches on YouTube, Spotify, or eventually through gaming and live experiences, the storytelling needs to resonate. That's how we approach building horror that feels rooted locally but can still travel internationally and retain a unique identity.

5. You've often spoken about building original IPs rather than just creating viral content. What is your larger vision for TMV and Khooni Monday over the next few years, especially as India's creator economy becomes more focused on fandoms, franchises, and entertainment universes?

For us, the focus has always been on building original IPs that can extend beyond a single format. We are following the "Disney of India" Vision with Khooni Monday and TMV, by creating a full-stack entertainment ecosystem where stories don't just live on one platform, they evolve across formats and IPs. We were inspired by Disney's mindmap and so our 4C model follows Capability, Content, Community and most importantly Culture. That is what makes TMV a specialized IP focused studio.

I think the creator economy is entering a phase where long-term multi-platform IPs will matter far more than short-term virality. Viral content can get attention, but original IPs create recall, community, licensing opportunities, and cultural longevity.

For us, today, that ecosystem spans podcasts, original animated characters like The Clown, HorrorCon, creator collaborations, and now gaming and multilingual expansion as well. HorrorCon India, across its two editions in Delhi and Mumbai cumulatively, has already brought together over 25,000 attendees, which reflects how strongly audiences are responding to immersive, fandom-led experiences.

We believe India is now entering a phase where communities and characters will become more valuable. Our focus over the next few years is to continue building culturally rooted IPs that audiences don't just consume, but actively participate in, becoming part of worlds they return to, year after year.