Darna Mana Hai (English: Fear is Forbidden) is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language anthology horror film.
[3][4][5][6] Later in 2006, Ram Gopal Varma, the producer, spawned Darna Zaroori Hai, a sequel with a different ensemble cast, six new cinematographers, and seven different directors.
The film opens up with seven friends (Shruti, Suman, Romi, Mehnaaz, Neha, Amar, and Vikas) going on a road trip to Goa.
Unable to fix it, the group decides to seek help after spotting a lighted house off in the distance.
During the trip, Karan is constantly trying to scare Anjali by playing pranks such as driving in the dark with lights off.
She guesses that it's yet another prank until she finds Karan's flashlight covered in blood and feels she's being stalked by an unseen person or supernatural being.
Karan seems completely normal and fine, while Anjali, whimpering, attempts to tell him that she heard him screaming.
After seeing Anjali's anxious and worried state, Karan puts his arm around her as she leans on him and closes her eyes.
He then smirks and looks into the rearview mirror of the car, in which his reflection doesn't exist and Anjali is leaning on nothing (implying that he is a ghost, and that Karan actually did die in the swamp).
The manager and owner of the lodge is an eccentric man who insists that smoking is strongly prohibited in his inn.
When Anil tries to leave the hotel completely, the owner then locks him inside, holds him at gunpoint, and tells him that in a matter of six months he can cure his addiction to smoking.
The owner takes Anil to a basement and shows him piles of corpses, telling him that he tried to prevent them, but these people would not quit smoking.
The story ends with Anil and the owner sitting together, enjoying the Tom and Jerry show airing on the television and watching a commercial about the effects of smoking.
Back at the bonfire, Amar thinks he may have heard Mehnaaz scream, but again the group dismisses the concern.
Upon a suggestion from a coworker that she might be receiving help from her parents or a tutor, Pandey calls upon Pramila's mother.
By the following morning, Pandey loses his sanity, scribbling basic mathematics on the road with cars driving.
After reaching the car he finds Vikas alone and is shocked to see that he's dead with a slash wound on his neck.
Up until this point in the film there were red herrings that implied Vikas could be the killer, but now it's apparent there's another person involved.
Gayatri's husband Sanjay eats one of the apples and finds it very tasty while watching a cricket match on tv.
In the fifth story, an elderly man named John Rodrigues is standing near a graveyard by the highway at night.
John apologizes and shakes hands before showing that he's bleeding from gunshot wounds and gets blood on Amar.
The sixth and final story is about a young student, Purab, who has unrequited feelings for Abhilasha, but is frustrated for being a social pariah.
Purab contemplates suicide (by slitting his wrist in the washroom with a razor blade but is interrupted by his father saying that he’s late for work, drinking lots of tablets with a stinky smell in his room and jumping off from a high cliff outside) but vents about not being special in front of an idol, the idol then blinks a light and Purab leaves for school.
His father and his mother finds him like that in his room, with a victorious smile frozen on his face, he shakes him but he does not reply.
Labelling himself a genius, he says that he cannot stand fear as it blocks progress, and he would kill anyone who is scared, and tells Shruti and Suman that their friends are all dead.
When day breaks, Shruti awakens and walks up to the main road to find the place swarming with policemen and her friends' corpses being taken into ambulances and sees the killer sitting on a car.
The "Stop" segment was further developed into a feature film titled Gayab (2004) by Suresh Nair of The Times of India, Kona Venkat and Raman.