Vikram Kumar, who won a National Award for his short film 'Silent Scream', made his presence felt in the industry after the disastrous Alai, with Yaavarum Nalam / 13B.
Vikram Kumar teamed up with cinematographer PC Sreeram for Yaavarum Nalam.The film's crew consisted of PC Sreeram, editor Sreekar Prasad, sound designer AS Lakshminarayanan and art director Sameer Chanda, who all happen to be National Film Award winners.Produced by Suresh Balaje and George Pius, the film was simultaneously filmed and released in Hindi as 13B: Fear Has a New Address with a slightly different cast.Esha Deol and Kareena Kapoor were first approached for the lead role, which eventually went to Neetu Chandra.Neetu Chandra made her Tamil debut with Yaavarum Nalam. She had then starred in successful Hindi films like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Traffic Signal.While Ravi Babu played Inspector Shiva, Murali Sharma did the role in the Hindi version.While Saranya played Madhavan's mom character in Tamil, Poonam Dhillon portrayed the role in 13B.Veteran Marathi actor Sachin Khedekar, who made his debut in Tamil with Yaavarum Nalam, took great effort in learning his lines. A voice CD was sent to him with his lines read out to familiarize him.The majority of the film takes place inside an apartment. A temporary shooting floor was created from scratch in Egmore, Chennai inside which an elaborate apartment set was erected.The first horror film of R Madhavan.Veteran Bengali actor Dhritiman Chaterjee made his Tamil cinema debut in Yaavarum Nalam, but Tamil was not a new language for him, as he is a resident of Chennai.Dhritiman played the same role in the Hindi version of the film, also.The film's Tamil version was given a 'U/A' certificate by the Indian Censor Board, but the Hindi version got a 'A' certificate from the Censor Board.The film, made at a budget of 6 crore, turned out be a huge hit at the box office, with the Tamil version alone grossing 16 crore.The Hindi version netted 56 crores, proving to be a blockbuster.The film's music was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy while the lyrics in Hindi and Tamil were penned by Neelesh Mishra and Thamarai respectively.Tubby-Parik provided the background score for both the versions.The film was also later dubbed into Telugu as 13-Padamoodu, with a few scenes reshot with Ravi Babu.Here are a few more snapshots and posters from the film...