Victoria Taying raised the bar cosplaying as Lisa from 1920
“The Indian horror landscape has evolved significantly from passive screen-based viewing into an active, participatory cultural movement, scaling HorrorCon from 5,000 attendees in 2024 to over 20,000 in 2025. When you interact with it, it becomes more real than, say, comedy or any other genre,” he said For Neeraj Parihar, 25, HorrorCon marked his first attempt at cosplay. Because you have created a certain energy (film), told a story assuming it would connect with the audience.
Fandom is rapidly diversifying beyond young adults into family demographics and children, driven by massive organic participation in cosplay, Halloween culture, and immersive offline communities,” he said. Explaining his fascination with the character, Harsh said, “Usually, people’s evil is guided by some kind of a backstory, that the world was not kind to them. “Igris is so powerful that he just destroys the main character for once without taking any weapon into the fight,” he said.
Divay Agarwal, creator of the Hindi horror storytelling platform Khooni Monday and founder of HorrorCon India, has witnessed the genre evolve from screen-based entertainment into a participatory cultural movement. He believes that Halloween and horror are also moving beyond their traditional seasonal appeal to become part of a year-round pop-culture ecosystem. “A major emerging trend is the mainstream adoption of Halloween and horror as a year-round participatory pop-culture ecosystem rather than a niche seasonal novelty, blending live music, gaming, creator meetups, and family-friendly cosplay. Sukuna, on the other hand, is just pure evil. That’s just how he is. Agastya Virmani chose to embody Agamemnon from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “Horror as a genre has always been attractive. It’s one of the most visceral genres. He believes horror has several dimensions, from outright scares and suspense to what he describes as power-disparity horror. Every Friday, when a film releases, I am scared. I think you can call it fear. So, you wait for people to go to the theatre, and see if the story connects with them. Imagine waiting for a judgement, it is the fear of the unknown that scares me Online marketplaces have made gaming, anime and film-inspired merchandise increasingly accessible. But conventions such as HorrorCon offer a chance to meet independent artists and studios creating collectibles themselves, rather than simply reselling merchandise.
