Vishwak Sen launches teaser for Cult, billed as India’s first slasher film. Watch | Telugu News
2 min readHyderabadFeb 22, 2026 05:02 PM IST
Vishwak Sen released the teaser for his new film Cult on Saturday at an event held at Prasads Multiplex in Hyderabad. The film, which he has written and directed himself, is being positioned as India’s first slasher thriller.
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The teaser opens with a group of friends in Goa who are initially denied entry to a party. They then receive exclusive Cult Passes, which gets them in, but what appears to be a night out quickly turns dangerous. The party host reveals a deadly game where those who lose are killed.
A hologram figure appears and instructs the guests to start what it calls the real party. As they fail tasks, they are brutally eliminated. The teaser shows graphic violence including mutated body parts, and the makers had already warned ahead of the release that it was R-rated. Vishwak Sen appears later in the teaser as a character described as the game master.
This is Vishwak’s third time in the director’s chair. He previously directed Falaknuma Das and Das Ka Dhamki. For Cult, the story is said to be inspired by real events that took place in Vietnam.
The film features an ensemble cast of around 100 actors, largely fresh faces. Gayatri Bharadwaj, Tarak Ponnappa, Murali Sharma, and Srikanth Iyengar are among the prominent cast members. While the dialogues have been written by Tharun Bhascker, the music is by Ravi Basrur. The film is produced by Sandeep Kakarala under Tarak Cinemas and Vanmaye Creations.
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The slasher genre, built around graphic violence, survival scenarios, and a persistent threat, is well established in Hollywood but has had almost no presence in mainstream Indian cinema. Cult is an attempt to bring that genre into Telugu filmmaking. Whether the audience receives it the way they would a conventional action thriller remains to be seen. A release date has not been announced yet.
