Tia Bajpai is stepping back into horror, this time through a music video rather than a film. The actress fronts 'FANAA', a new track composed by Arian Romal, and the makers are calling it India's first horror music video, a claim that's bound to invite scrutiny but signals how far the format has drifted from its lip-sync-and-longing template.

Bajpai plays a character wrapped in mystery through the video, and the makers say they've skipped the usual song-and-performance structure for something closer to a short horror film. The suspense builds around her character across the runtime rather than around choreography or chemistry with a co-star.

She's no stranger to the genre. Bajpai has built a good chunk of her career around horror projects, and she says this one asked more of her than most music videos do. "Shooting 'FANAA' was a completely different experience for me because we were trying to create something that feels like more than just a music video," she said. "The atmosphere, the visuals and the emotions of the character required me to completely immerse myself in that world. There were moments on set that were genuinely intense, but that is also what made the experience exciting and memorable."

She added that she expects the emotional undercurrent in the story to land as hard as the scares. "I think audiences will connect with 'FANAA' because beneath the horror and suspense, there is a strong emotional layer to the story. It keeps you curious, makes you feel something and hopefully stays with you even after the video ends."

Romal's composition is being pitched as the counterweight to all that dread, a melodic, soulful track sitting against visuals designed to unsettle. The makers are pushing a "keep the lights on" line as part of the promotion, which tells you exactly what mood they're chasing.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Indian music videos have been drifting away from the standard romance-and-heartbreak template for a while now, and 'FANAA' is another data point in that shift, horror, suspense and an actual narrative arc stitched into something that used to just be three minutes of longing looks.

No release date has been announced yet, and neither has a platform. What's clear is that the makers want this watched start to finish, not skimmed for the hook. Whether "India's first horror music video" survives contact with the internet's fact-checkers is an entirely different matter.