Watching and working in a horror flick scares the pants off Mugdha Godse. Yet, the actor admits that she thrives on the chills

Watching and working in a horror flick scares the pants off Mugdha Godse. Yet, the actor admits that she thrives on the chills

Cobwebby attics and mysterious barred rooms have for long been used as motifs of horror in films and novels. Remember the screeches and wails that echoed from a closed chamber in Bhool Bhulaiya? Or Daphne du Maurier's hugely successful novel, Rebecca, in which a locked room, fiercely guarded by an ominous maid loyal to her master's deceased wife, became the bane of the second wife's life.

Now, in Mugdha Godse's upcoming horror thriller, Help, an old house safeguards a dark secret. Godse says she got goose bumps while shooting for the film in an expansive bungalow in Mauritius. Despite its lovely garden overlooking a beautiful valley, the house with its French architecture and high ceilings gave the actor the chills.

She says, "It's so huge it takes five minutes to walk from one room to another. It is very spooky, especially with the lights out."

Fear on the sets
While the crew roamed the rest of the house, they stayed away from one part of the house -- the attic. "People in our unit would dare each other to go to the attic and come back -- the pay off was an all-expenses-paid-for dinner. But everyone was too scared to accept the challenge," recalls Godse, who admits to being petrified of the attic.

Godse attempted it once though and even went up to the attic door. "If I had gone in with my make-up from the film, I would have shocked the life out of whoever braved it after me," she chuckles. But eventually she chickened out.

The actress wasn't spared on the sets either because co-star Bobby Deol, director Rajiv Virani and producer Sanjay Ahluwalia would spook each other with ghost tales.

Godse got a panic attack every time she thought about the attic because she believes in spirits and ghosts. "When I read about ghosts and spirits, I start feeling them around me. I haven't seen a ghost yet nor have I experienced the presence of a spirit," she says.u00a0

Spook screen
Though Godse veers clear of trysts with ghosts, she thrives on horror flicks. The scariest watch till date, she admits, has been the John Cusack-starrer 1408. "I was really shaken up after Ring and Ring 2, but 1408 takes the cake. I believe in the supernatural and the paranormal, so these films really affect me deeply."