Images: Ekta Kapoor’s hero Emraan Hashmi and his daayans!

The trailers of Ekta Kapoor's next, Ek Thi Daayan have spooked audiences already, and even more so at a unique, first-of-its-kind themed event at Mumbai's Film City on Wednesday night. Discarding the staid press conference routine, Balaji put up an electrifying act by Emraan Hashmi and his daayans, at midnight, in an elaborate setting, featuring daayan dolls hanging from tree tops and daayans at the entrance handing out 'misfortune' cookies. A bus, aptly titled Bus to Hell, ferried the media from the entrance of City to the studio floor where the press conference was held. The act was opened by Emraan Hashmi who performed a series of illusion stunts along with his leading ladies - Huma Qureshi, Kalki Koechlin and Konkona Sen Sharma. Who is the daayan among them? Well, naturally you'd have to see the film to know! The audience couldn't stop whistling and cheering for what was clearly an unusual event to launch the film on a mammoth scale. In fact, film maker Anurag Kashyap who made a surprise visit, was completely floored and termed it the best he had seen in a while. Director Kannan Iyer, creative producer Abhishek Chaubey (of Ishqiya fame), producers Ekta Kapoor and Vishal Bhardwaj and the entire star cast of the film engaged in a joint interaction with the media following the main event. The supernatural thriller, inspired by a short story by Mukul Sharma (Konkona's father), offers an interesting mix of suspense, drama and jump-scares and is being tipped as the next big hit of Emraan Hashmi and Balaji. Ek Thi Daayan releases in cinemas worldwide on April 18 this year.