The Snake Girl and The Silver-Haired Witch [dir. Noriyaki Yuasa]

Hoo boy, if I had seen this movie as a kid, I would have peed my pants and been afraid to ever sleep again. Snake Girl... is loosely based on a Manga by Kuzuo Umezu (it was called Scared of Mama), in which a schoolgirl discovers that her mother has been replaced by a snake woman.

The film adaptation's script changes the plotline a little, possibly because having the mother figure be an evil character would have been a much harder sell. So while the mother is still an oddball (attributed to a recent serious accident which affected her memory), she is not the snake girl of the title. Also, the film's protagonist little girl is adopted from an orphanage. Played by child actress Yachie Matsui, the girl Sayuri is cute and plucky, and thankfully just short of cloyingly goody-goody. She is delighted to find herself with a set of new parents and have her own room with scads of new clothes. Never mind that mama seems somewhat distracted...and Daddy's going to Africa on business for some weeks...there's someone else in the house that mama wants to keep a secret from Daddy...there's something very fishy about this person, no wait, make that scaly...and there's a scary witch too...and snakes...and spiders, hundreds of big hairy spiders.

In the feature commentary track included on the Arrow blu-ray for this film, horror film expert David Kalat laughs at what he considers Sayuri's impossible optimism, her cheerful good-nature even when she is being openly frightened and harried and her own mother seems helpless to intervene. But that can be attributed to this orphan's desperation to be part of a home and family. The family is decidedly strange, keeping the kind of secrets that would be impossible for any normal family to keep. But this also works to the film's advantage, perversely generating in the domestic space an oppressive alienating mood, where Sayuri finds herself unable to depend on what most children automatically rely on, their parents. The several scenes where she must face various freaky or terrifying sights are very well captured in the shadowy B&W cinematography (Akira Uehara). The creature models (when they aren't using real snakes) and other VFX are not super-convincing from a realism standpoint, but they are scary as seen from a child's POV. Kalat makes a very good point about it, that a large portion of the film can be something that we experience through Sayuri's perspective (there are also a lot of voice-overs where we hear her thoughts) and that she may not always be a reliable narrator.

Snake Girl...'s resolution does not tie up all its threads, and will induce in viewers some major "Hold on, that doesn't explain..." moments. But it is a lovely dark fairy tale with a personable child heroine (although as an audience very young children themselves may be too spooked by it), and some memorable scare scenes.

A few words about the blu-ray disc from Arrow Video:

The opening scenes on the film feature some significant amount of hair thin scratches, and I was wondering if this would be the experience throughout. Thankfully not, the bulk of the film is in pretty good condition. Good justice is done to the many night-time eerie elements. The Japanese mono soundtrack (DTS-HDMA) is clear enough and the spooky theme music (Shunsuke Kikuchi) comes across nicely. On-disc extras are limited but substantial. Apart from the aforementioned entertaining commentary from Mr. Kalat, there is a very nice half-hour introduction from an enthusiastic Mr. Zach Davisson to the influence of the Brothers Grimm, origins of Japanese manga, the work of Kazuo Umezu, the source manga and its differences from the film script, and comments on the film itself. A theatrical trailer and image gallery. I haven't yet gone through the booklet (limited to the first pressing), but it's a slim affair with just a single essay padded out with stills. As with their release of Sailor Suit & Machine Gun, my copy came with a slipcover that features the newly commissioned art, so I flipped the actual case cover to show the original poster art.

Avatar: The Way of Water [dir. James Cameron]

This opinion of Avatar: The Way of Water, which shall for purposes of retaining sanity be henceforth referred to as Avatar 2, assumes that you saw the first film back in 2009 when it wowed audiences with its visual splendor and for a fair spell, brought back 3D as a gimmick for drawing people into movie halls.

So about the movie, Avatar 2 is pretty much what I expected it would be. Story-wise, it is stodgy and contrived. After the events of Avatar, human soldier turned Na'vi rebel  leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) stays back in Pandora. His love interest and warrior companion Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) is now wife and mother of his several all-blue children. There is also one adopted child from Sigourney Weaver's avatar (when did she get the time to make whoopie in Pandora?) and, get this, a son from the wicked Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang). The son is human, but brought up among the Na'vi.

Once again exploitative humankind launches an assault on Pandora. This time Quarritch, who was killed in the previous film's climax, and his goons have been resurrected as Na'vi avatars. So the majority of the cast in Avatar 2 consists of motion captured performances later rendered as computer generated imagery (CGI). Apart from Quaritch's human son and a few others, there are few actual actors on the screen. To Cameron's credit, the level of immersion is high enough that this is not a distraction.

While in Avatar, we only saw Pandora as a forest covered planet, the sequel explores another environment. To escape Earth's attack on his people, Sully and his family leave the forest region and go into hiding along the seashore. This region is home to an aquatic species of Na'vi led by Tonowari and Ronal (Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet), distinguished by their aquamarine coloration and other anatomical differences.

While Jake's family adjusts to the new circumstances, giving the film opportunity to dole out lessons on racial tolerance and immigration, blue Quaritch and his squad are bent on hunting them down, even if it means casting their net of terror across the whole of Pandora, threatening the Na'vi and all other animal life upon the sentient planet.

So a fair deal of cliched sermons, and dialog choked with its own importance; Avatar 2 is not a film of subtleties. At upwards of 3 hours, it also cannot be described as brisk and breezy. But, you know what? It is such a seamless visual marvel I spent very little time hand-wringing over its cliches. Remember how we gasped at the beauty of the forests and cliffs in the first film? The submerged world in the sequel is equally amazing. Of course, it is derivative in the sense of being essentially an aquatic re-design of the fauna from Avatar. But even with the more than 10 years since the first film, Cameron once again shows why he is king of the large scale technological spectacle.

While staying true to the original design, the rendered visuals show impeccable fluidity and texture. Water is an infamously treacherous medium to convincingly render, and the process here required performance capture of the actors in submerged conditions. But the presentation betrays none of the edges or difficulties. Every object behaves as it should, with the appropriate weight and detail. Cameron's capture of the film's several action scenes is also masterful - there is total clarity in the action, no confused edits or shortcuts. In comparison the visuals from many of the Marvel superhero movies appear inconsequential. The visuals here ARE the story, and a gorgeous experience they make.

Others may have very different opinions, but I was engrossed enough in the world of Avatar 2 to not hugely mind its shortcomings in script and characters, and I wouldn't mind watching it again, this time on a bigger screen.

The Devil's Hour [Tom Moran]

Over the course of a week, I finished watching this 6-episode mini-series called The Devil's Hour (TDH, currently showing on Amazon Prime). It can be loosely described as Silence of the Lambs meets The Sixth Sense meets Groundhog Day. Check the Vlog to see my take on it. If you prefer reading to watching, the full transcript is given below the video:

Our protagonist Lucy (Jessica Raine) is a social worker and single mother who balances her job of counseling assorted abuse victims with a troubled home-life; her son Isaac (Benjamin Chivers) is a cipher, almost always silent, and curiously devoid of any emotion. While Lucy's husband Mark would like dearly to get her back in his life, he is far less enthusiastic about the son; with cruel sarcasm he refers to the latter as a "psychopath in the making".

Lucy also has a senile mother who watches television with the power off and talks to people that aren't there. And oh, it appears that Lucy wakes up every night exactly at 3.33am. This is evidenced by a bedside clock that glows a ridiculously bright purple; to me the bigger mystery here is how she manages to fall asleep with that light in her face.

On another story-thread detective-inspector Ravi Dhillon (Nikesh Patel) - whose schtick is retching at crime scenes and listening to the Beach Boys while studying them (hold on!). Along with his intensely Scottish cop buddy Nick Holness (Alex Ferns), Ravi is on the trail of a random series of murders and abductions, which hint at a diabolical serial killer. Together they discover that the murderer is in some way connected to Lucy and Isaac.

These two tracks are frequently interrupted by a series of scenes set at an unspecified time in an interrogation cell, where a bruised Ravi and Lucy are talking to a rather sinister, murderous looking character called Gideon (Peter Capaldi of Doctor Who fame).

The overall tone of TDH is what I call "Netflix Dark" - the characters have intense obsessive personalities and dark secrets, the crime scenes are gruesome and if a character smiles, you can be sure that smile will be wiped out before long. That said, it is not all misanthropic and it does have a sense of humor, which goes some way to making the atmosphere less miserable. It also helps that the actors fit their parts really well. Jessica Raine is empathetic as the single mother protagonist, but special mention must be made of child actor Benjamin Chivers, with his beautifully modulated depiction of the almost android-like Isaac. Capaldi and Nikesh Patel also embody their parts well.

For most of the season, TDH's narrative jumps around in time in a manner that is distracting, without making itself clear. Individual episodes have some strong moments but there are also seemingly random dream logic segments. It is in the final episode that the underlying concept is revealed, for which the clues had been strewn before. Without going too far into spoiler territory, this is where the Groundhog Day element dominates in a very far-reaching way. It calls for a significant suspension of disbelief, and renders certain characters and sub-plots less important than they initially seemed. How much that conceit appeals to you is a matter of individual taste. I thought it was decent, and they did go for a bold downer ending, which is not a return to status quo.

On the whole, TDH can be described as somewhat cliched and contrived. But it is also nicely polished and frequently effective. Fans of mystery/horror dramas might want to check it out, and it's only 6 hour long episodes.

Official trailer link:

Un-kvlt Vlog 5 - Ramsay Horror Special - Bandh Darwaza

Bandh Darwaza (1990) may not be the last film in Mondo Macabro's upcoming Bollywood Horror boxset, but it does represent the end of the classic cycle of Ramsay monster movies that began with 1984's Purana Mandir (PM), and I hope to do it sufficient justice in this Un-kvlt vlog. For those that prefer to read, the transcript is  given below:

In some ways, this end mirrors the beginning. In both films, the featured monster is portrayed by the Ramsays' most famous horror star Aniruddh Agarwal. While in PM, Agarwal was the devil-worshiper Saamri who is resurrected as a vengeful ghoul, Bandh Darwaza (BD) has him playing Nevla, a vampire who is also master of a satanic cult, and returns from the grave for his revenge.

Nevla's vampiric nature is emphasized in the introduction where he emerges after sundown from his lair to stalk the countryside for prey. His all-black costume with flowing cape, red lenses and fangs owe a great deal to Christopher Lee's ensemble in Hammer's Dracula movies. Nevla's den is the familiar dungeon set from previous Ramsay films, this time housing a striking bat statue.

Interestingly, the name Nevla translates as 'mongoose', a creature famous for its animosity towards cobras. Even those that haven't come across the animal may know it from the Rudyard Kipling story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (in The Jungle Book collection). The mongoose is not usually given negative or evil connotations, so it is unusual for a horror feature's main villain to be named after it.

As I said, Nevla is also a cult leader; he has a bunch of acolytes ready to perform any evil deed in his service (including a rather butch woman in an incongruous tigerskin coat). When the local big shot's childless wife (veteran character actor Beena Banerjee) visits him in her desperation to be a mother, Nevla obliges her - and the film makes no pretense about how he does this - but with the condition that any girl child must be handed back as his property (possibly to replenish the quota of female ritual dancers in his shrine).

Expectedly, the wife gives birth to a girl and tries to welsh on the deal. That turns out a fatally bad idea; a furious Nevla has her killed and the baby kidnapped. In turn her husband drives a dagger through Nevla's heart, putting him in cold storage for a while.

In the next segment of the movie, the girl child rescued from Nevla's clutches grows up to be the sexy but spoilt Kaamya. Kaamya has the hots for her childhood friend Kumar (Hashmat Khan). When she finds him unreceptive to her charms, she determines to bag him even if she must sell her soul to the devil in the bargain. You can see where this is leading to.

Kaamya is played by actress Kunika, who had previously worked in a couple of horror projects with the Ramsays' rival Mohan Bhakri (Kabrastan and Amavas ki Raat). Although she was frequently seen in cameos and supporting roles, BD is one of the few features where Kunika has a leading part and she makes the most of it. She doesn't match up to the stupendous sex appeal of Veerana's star Jasmine, but she does convey Kaamya's animal hunger for Kumar, and her willingness to cross all lines to possess him. In this sense, BD is probably a little closer to the Ramsays' earliest horror films, where characters invited doom upon themselves by their actions, instead of simply falling prey to an external evil.

Through a convoluted set of circumstances, Kaamya's desire takes her down the forbidden path and, like her mother before, she too comes under the sway of Nevla's cult. There's a standout scene in which a resurrected Nevla, covered in a slimy primordial goo rises from his coffin and slowly approaches her. Given the story behind Kaamya's birth, Nevla is her biological father. At the same time she is involved in his 'rebirth' and in satisfying his immediate hunger. I doubt the Ramsays factored in all these ramifications while doing the scene, but it creates a strange incestuous vibe. For Dracula fans, another exquisite bit is when the Lucy Westenra equivalent character is summoned by the vampire at her bedroom window and submits to him while her husband slumbers nearby.

Unfortunately, BD is not without its flaws. When Nevla is not on screen the film's energy noticeably dips. While not slumping as much as their previous release Purani Haveli, BD's screenplay has an inefficient, ad-hoc quality, with several slip-ups in continuity and tone. The lead romantic pair, whose survival we are meant to root for, are too bland to care about. For some reason, the trademark rousing Ramsay musical theme is only used once and in a minor key, although they do recycle other tunes from their previous pictures.

But all this notwithstanding, BD is one of the top offerings from the Ramsays in this period. Every scene with Aniruddha Agarwal's Nevla is worth savoring for his towering, terrifying presence. Even simply looking in through a stained glass transom window, captured lovingly by Gangu Ramsay's camera, he can send shivers down your spine. This was the last major feature film that Agarwal did with the Ramsays, and I am happy to report that he bows out with a killer turn.

Next up, I hope to tackle the last title from this much-awaited boxset, Deepak Ramsay's Aatma, which in many ways represent a shift from the other films included here. Till then, farewell and take care.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Aatma Vlog

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Tahkhana Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Veerana Vlog 

Thampu [dir. G Aravindan]

The only films I'd previously seen of Malayalam auteur Govindan Aravindan are Chidambaram (repeatedly shown on  the national channel Doordarshan in the 80's) and Oridathu. From these, it seemed to me that Aravindan as film-maker was most interested in the cinéma vérité element - of documenting, and in the process looking at the inner stories of the ignored sections of society. Even his mythology inspired feature Kanchana Seetha was known for a very grounded treatment. Aravindan was, along with Mrinal Sen and Shyam Benegal one of the prime figures of the Indian New Wave film movement. His films are definitely of the sort which some people admiringly, and others dismissively, regard as "award-winning".

Thampu (1978), an early feature in his career, is heavily concerned with the documentary element. The film primarily observes the goings-on in a traveling circus that sets up in a small town. We become privy to the behind-the-scenes of their routines and get hints of their personal lives: the painstaking rehearsals, the last-minute preparations, the wordless friendships, the drunken soirees. There is a beautiful synchrony when an old clown putting on his make-up is juxtaposed with the primping up of the trained monkey. Another kind of resonance is achieved when the lure of the circus must compete against the attractions of the town's temple festival with its fireworks and drumbeats (ironically, the circus manager - played by Malayalam arthouse favorite Bharat Gopi - was previously steered into giving a donation for the festival).

There appears a larger "life is a circus" motif when the film looks at the life of the local industrialist and his family. Our man divides his life between furthering his business and guzzling drinks with friends while longingly reminiscing about his time in Malaysia and complaining about "this accursed country". His traditional wife sits ignored in the inner room, while his estranged son (a rather hip-looking Nedumudi Venu) spends time imbibing Indian classical from a local musician. I was not too taken with this facet of the film. It moves away from the circus milieu without being very interesting in itself.

Nedumudi Venu

Thampu has all the hallmarks of the Indian parallel cinema style. It severely eschews the exaggerations and embellishments of mainstream films. The bulk of the casting is composed of non-professionals (including actual members of the Great Chitra Circus, which is featured here). Shaji Karun's B&W photography is very naturalistic, not afraid to embrace darkness - In film restoration activist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur's discussions with him, Shaji Karun revealed that Aravindan forbade him to use additional lights for the night scenes. The sound design is digetic, including all the music and songs heard in the film. Editors Rameshan and Selvanathan give a lot of time to capturing the rhythm and atmosphere of his settings, and this is where the film shines. Given the episodic non-dramatic nature, there is no elaborate climax or lead-out; when the circus packs it in (including a lovely night-time shot of the tent being taken down) and leaves for another place, the film wraps up as well.

Interest in Thampu was revived after its restoration and screening at the 2022 Cannes film festival in the Classics section. Yesterday, I bunked office, and went for the screening of the restored Thampu at Regal cinema as part of the Film Heritage workshop on restoration. Although I had been suggested to come a half-hour before the scheduled time as there would be a queue and first-come-first-served, I was skeptical about a non-Hindi non-Satyajit Ray vintage Indian film filling the large-size auditorium and I was right in there being no difficulty over finding a good seat (Apparently, In the Mood for Love screened the previous night had been a packed affair).

Lucky for me, Shivendra Singh was also present for the screening. I got my Celluloid Man DVD signed by him and chatted a little about that film and Czechmate, his mega-documentary on Czech New Wave cinema maestro Jiří Menzel.

Regal Cinema in Colaba, Mumbai

With regards to the restoration, one thing to keep in mind is that Thampu was a low-budget arthouse film shot with natural light, and the restoration was sourced from a dupe negative. So the visuals are not ultra-crisp. There is softness and the blacks can appear somewhat diffuse (I can't say if the hall projection limitations had anything to contribute to this). But the most striking benefit is in how absolutely stable the image is. There is no flickering, warping or prominent scratches. The gray-scale is not exceptional, but it is quite solid all the same; I imagine some of the night scenes are looking the best they did since the original release. Similarly, the sound is not absolutely pristine (there is a floor hum and some clipping), but it still sounds very lively when called for, especially in the scenes of the temple festival. Aravindan paid a lot of attention to developing a credible audio atmosphere to complement the scenes and the restoration does the best possible justice to his vision.

Thampu would not come in a favorite movies list for me, but it is an important contribution to the Indian arthouse and this restoration makes it doubly worthwhile for cinephiles to try and catch this when they can. For those interested, the restored version is currently available on Youtube here:

Black Panther - Wakanda Forever [dir. Ryan Coogler]

While watching the new Black Panther film Wakanda Forever (WF) I could not help but think back to the 2018 predecessor. At the time this is what I had thought of it:

"Black Panther is another fun action-packed superhero movie that holds its own, managing to mostly avoid the cookie cutter feel of other Marvel adaptations. The first half feels more like a James Bond adventure (if Bond had access to a Crysis-style exosuit). Second half has family intrigue and some standard Chosen One yarn, but done efficiently enough to not be boring. In fact, this is one movie that went by without my feeling any urge to check the time. The depiction of the fictional Wakanda with its mixture of African art and fashion motifs with futuristic design makes for a production and costume designer's wet dream. Chadwick Boseman delivers charisma and substance for the title part, and all the women are badass and sassy. Definitely recommended for superhero action movie fans."

Fans of Black Panther will of course be aware that work on the sequel had been brought to a halt by the tragic early death of lead star Chadwick Boseman from cancer. Undoubtedly a hard act to pull off after the sudden death of its mascot, the sequel is a thoughtful expansion of the narrative, very respectful of the actor's impact with the character of King T'Challa / Black Panther. Instead of recasting T'Challa, the story passes on the role to his sister Shuri (Letetia Wright - this is not a spoiler because the trailer itself shows Shuri in the Panther suit).

But WF takes a long while to get there. Beginning with the funeral of T'Challa, it soaks in the grief of the characters, mirroring the real-world tragedy of Boseman's passing. Queen Ramonda (a commanding Angela Bassett) holds the throne while Shuri is still struggling with T'Challa's death and her conflicts with Wakanda's beliefs (she considers the Panther an outdated relic). But tragedy or not, the struggle for power is an unceasing one. After rebuffing attempts by real-world countries like France and the US to steal their Vibranium, Wakanda must now face the threat from the undersea nation of Talokan.

Talokan is a Mesoamerican culture inspired civilization occupying the ocean depths. They are a mirror to the Wakandan way of life, having their own vibranium resources, as well as a herb that gives superhuman strength to its users. The Talokans are led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), a mutant with pointed ears and wings on his ankles which give him flight. Namor wants Wakanda to join with Talokan against the other nations, who have in the past been oppressive colonizers. Initially, it seems like an alliance to protect their combined vibranium resources from the rest of the world, and there is the difficult moral choice of whether or not to kill a teenage prodigy (Dominique Thorne) that has built a device to locate vibranium ores. But soon Namor shifts to a vengeful "I wanna burn the world" mode and issues Wakanda with a "You're either with us or against us" ultimatum.

Whether Wakanda is able to overcome this threat, and whether Shuri is able to get over her grief and take on the responsibility of Wakanda's protector forms the rest of the film.

There are somber threads of loss and grief running through WF, always in a moving and dignified manner. The interaction between Wright, Bassett, Danai Gurira and Luptia Nyong'o makes for some of the film's best moments. But this is also where its spirit clashes with the Marvel Movie Template - the number of jokes may be a fraction of those thrown at us in the last Spider-man movie, but each time they land they jar with the tone of the film.

Namor is an interesting character and the film has a gorgeous, even when indulgent, flashback detailing his backstory. But he is soon converted to a boilerplate villain with his plans of global destruction. Shuri's wearing the Black Panther mantle also comes too easy. T'Challa was trained as a warrior, and his taking of the herb and suit only enhanced his innate combat abilities (as that of rival Killmonger). Shuri is primarily a tech genius. Having her fight her way out of peril as easily as him makes the transformation a cheap gag.

WF's biggest achievement is in how it embraces the death of the franchise star and moves forward while paying tribute to his contributions. I didn't have a huge problem with the 161 min running time, and the film was certainly more interesting than the last couple of Avengers movies for me, but it undercuts its own potential for a richer narrative and leaves one dissatisfied at the conclusion.

As could be expected, the production design has a ball, showing new sides of Wakandan life (with detours to Haiti) and exploring the Talokan's submerged realm. Ludwig Göransson, who scored the first film, continues with a distinctive blending of tribal and synth rhythms identified with the Black Panther films. At the cinemas, least in 3D a large part of the film is quite dark, so I would suggest either trying for a 2D screening or going to the best 3D venue you can find (where they don't skimp on the projector brightness). The 3D is decent in most part, although in mid and long shots it doesn't escape the "cutouts in a diorama effect".

Official trailer below:

Un-kvlt Vlog 4 - Ramsay Horror Special - Purani Haveli

After the previous Un-kvlt vlogs dedicated to Veerana, Purana Mandir and Tahkhana, this site takes a look at 1989's Purani Haveli. For those more inclined to read than watch, a transcript of the vlog is provided below the video link:

With Purani Haveli (Haunted Palace), there are two likely factors that guided its construction. The first is the Ramsays' insistence to stick with the Purana Mandir (PM) formula, which had brought them great returns, even if by this time those returns had begun to diminish. The second was the nightmarish battle they fought with the Indian censor board for the release of Veerana.

Like in PM, the young lovers, rather the ostensibly young lovers - since lead actor Deepak Parashar was in his late 30's at this time - are traveling with other friends to a decrepit old palace to resolve the knotty obstacles to their romantic future. But once there, they find themselves having to fight for their very lives against the demonic forces that prevail in the place.

So once again we come to the sprawling abandoned mansion with the stuffed animal trophies that served as the backdrop in PM, Tahkhana and even Veerana. The elaborate dungeon/crypt is the same that was used in Tahkhana. A similar set of visual tricks is employed to suggest supernatural activity. The ominous Ramsay musical motif that originated with PM is once more trotted out. There's some major déjà vu here.

While the Ramsays are at fault for this wholesale recycling, there is an interesting "variations on a theme" element that plays out across this series of films on account of the repetition. After all, even more universally celebrated horror artists like MR James and HP Lovecraft recycled several elements in their fiction. In any case, the Ramsays never made any claim to being trend-setting artists. They were in the business of quick returns for modest investments, and if they saw a trend that worked, they milked it for what it was worth.

Now let's talk about the monster in the room. While PM's demon Saamri had a personal grudge driving his evil deeds, the  monster in Purani Haveli (PH) is, like Tahkhana's undead ghoul, a more amorphous entity. A flashback in the middle of the movie reveals that he is simply the result of a pregnant woman giving birth under the malign influence of the palace; so the true source of evil is the location rather than the creature.

The monster is played by actor Manek Irani; he has good presence and unlike some of their cheaper imitators, the Ramsays certainly deliver the goods on his makeup. Irani was a regular supporting player mainly doing henchman characters in Hindi movies of the 80's and early 90's. He didn't work in many horror films overall, but in 1990, just a year after PH, he did a film called Amavas ki Raat (Moonless Night) in which also he plays a demonic origin killer, but in a very different style.

Apart from the monster, there is also a delightful iron statue that periodically comes to life and snuffs out whichever unlucky fool happens to be nearby. I quite enjoyed this statue's shenanigans, he reminded me of the knight from the game Quake. I wish the movie had either a tag team or a versus match with the monster and the knight statue, but sadly in the movie no real connection is drawn between them.

While it was never an original creation, PH still had the ingredients to be a cracking Bollywood horror. But for the longest time, it only hints at its potential. At least Tahkhana's treasure hunt plot was interesting on its own when the monster action wasn't happening. This one unfortunately features a lot of tedious and repetitive filler. Apart from the musical numbers you have a barrel of crude homophobic comedy that wasn't very funny to start with and translates even worse.

The narrative can be alarmingly disjointed. After one person dies in an unexplained fashion in the palace, the gang of friends just buries him in the nearby grounds and carries on with their holiday like nothing had ever happened. There's almost an element of gaslighting in how each time the lead girl claims to have seen something strange, she is dismissed with a "That's just your imagination" putdown. It doesn't help that lead girl Amita Nangia has a bland oatmeal quality, lacking the spunky charm of the Ramsays' best-remembered heroine Aarti Gupta.

Most people who've seen PH will mainly remember its last 20 min when the monster bursts out from the crypt and proceeds to kick some major ass, including attacking a busload of the escaping friends. And for good reason, because especially after the slack middle-section, this sequence has a relentless pulse-pounding feel that resonates with some of the Ramsays' best work. In keeping with the Christian motifs used throughout the film, the final showdown takes place in a church, drawing from both classic Hammer Horror and films like The Omen. Interestingly, since it is the palace itself and not the creature that is the source of evil, there exists the possibility for it to rise again.

So the last section of PH is great, but it is lacking in one thing - Gore. I have a theory about this. As I described in my Veerana Vlog post, there was an almost 2-year struggle for the theatrical release of that film because the censors repeatedly denied them a certificate. It finally came out after more than 40 cuts, that too for an Adults Only rated film. I feel either the censors became more scissor-happy with the subsequently released PH or the Ramsays became extra-cautious in its making. So even when the monster is in full rampage mode, there are  few overt displays of the red stuff in comparison to their previous films. Most of the time, he just gropes people roughly and leaves the rest to your imagination. 

But still it's an energetic final act that raises the film from its midsection slump and renders it overall a worthy second-tier Ramsay horror feature.

In the next Ramsay Horror Special episode, I hope to tackle 1990's Bandh Darwaza, which was the last major monster film in this series, and a fitting swan song from their iconic horror star - Aniruddha Agarwal.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Aatma Vlog

Bandh Darwaza Vlog

Tahkhana Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Veerana Vlog

Un-kvlt Vlog 3 - Ramsay Horror Special - Tahkhana (1986)

...where we continue with this mini-series of Vlogs dedicated to the Bollywood Horror flicks being released on the upcoming blu-ray boxset from Mondo Macabro. The films that we previously talked about - Veerana and Purana Mandir - represented the heavy hitters from the Ramsays in terms of recognition and commercial success. What I'd like to get into now is some of the lesser-known films they put out in that same era - Tahkhana and Purani Haveli - where we try to look at how the responses to the bigger films possibly affected the shaping of the ones that followed.

Below the video link is the full transcript of the Vlog, for those more inclined to read:

First up is Tahkhana (1986), which came to screens after Purana Mandir (PM) and Saamri 3D. The name refers to a subterranean construction like an elaborate cellar or catacomb. In the film it is a grotto like structure under a palace with rows of pillars and even a sort of bath-house. Incidentally the palace is the same one that is seen in PM - by this point the Ramsays had started to recycle sets, props and musical motifs from that film in the hopes of repeating its box-office success.

Plot-wise Tahkhana is an interesting mishmash of genres. A large part of the film is an involved pulp adventure in which the protagonists hunt for buried treasure. To reach this treasure they must assemble a map that is a combination of two pendants worn by sisters that were separated in childhood.

The other narrative thread is that of a black magic practitioner, the evil uncle of those poor sisters, raising an undead entity in whom he invests his soul. Think Mackenna's Gold meets The Golem, and you have some idea of the unwieldy scope of this film.

In Tahkhana, you can see how the success of PM influenced their further work. While previously they'd developed several kinds of horror plots, the huge impact that PM's monster Saamri made on the audience seems to have decided them to have a similar monster character in all their subsequent horror movies. To be fair, Tahkhana's nameless boogeyman does look good. Played by Shamsuddin, who normally did bit parts as henchmen, he is imposing in size and the makeup job lives up to the usual Ramsay standards. There are some solid kills as well.

But unlike PM, the monster in Tahkhana does not have a strong identity or purpose, and seems somewhat tacked on to the treasure hunt plot, which takes up the bulk of the running time (with the accompanying slapstick and romance elements). There's a good bit of creature mayhem in the climax, when he whacks his way through a sizable lot of torch-waving extras. The climax is also interesting in terms of not having any religious iconography for destroying the monster.

Compared to the Ramsay's other horror films, the screenplay for Tahkhana has a hurried, sloppy quality. In one scene, the female lead (Aarti Gupta), after being startled in the night is running all through the palace the treasure hunters lodge at, banging on doors with no response; you kind of wonder where everyone else is. She then rushes down to the grotto, has an adventure there. When she gets back, they're all assembled in the living room, ready for action (I doubt the Ramsays had any kind of Lynchian surrealism in mind).

Some words about the cast. One of the male leads in this film was played by newcomer Kamran Rizvi. A model-turned-actor with a pleasant screen presence, he would have possibly made a good stock leading man for the Ramsay studio, but in a bizarre incident just a few years later, he was stabbed to death in a family dispute. People who've seen PM will notice that in Tahkhana actor Puneet Isaar plays the exact same role that he did in PM, and even bears the same screen name - Anand.

Another actor that makes an impression is Imtiaz Khan - his brother Amjad is more famous as the bad guy in one of India's most famous mainstream movies - Sholay. Amjad and Imtiaz were both intelligent theater-trained actors, but in Hindi movies they were stereo-typically cast as heavies. Even in the Ramsays' Do Gaz Zameen ke Neeche (1972), Imtiaz's portrayed his character's gray shades with marvelous nuance. But here he's just a reckless lecher who paws literally every woman he comes across, even his on-screen cousins.

All things considered, Tahkhana doesn't stand with the most distinctive Ramsay movies, but there is a certain charm in its cobbled together nature that makes it an interesting watch for Bollywood Horror enthusiasts. For those interested, the full film is available (without subtitles) on Youtube:

Other Vlogs in this series:

Aatma Vlog

Bandh Darwaza Vlog

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Veerana Vlog 

Un-kvlt Vlog 2 - Ramsay Horror Special - Purana Mandir (1984)

This Vlog series focused on  monster features produced by the Ramsay family commenced with the discussion on Veerana (1988). Now we go back in time to the breakthrough horror hit that made their name in Indian cinema and largely cemented the formula they would apply in their later films - 1984's Purana Mandir (PM) aka Ancient Temple. For those more inclined to read, I have provided a transcript of the Vlog content below:

In PM, an 18th century sorcerer/devil-worshipper called Saamri is caught and tried by the royal court for crimes that include practicing black magic, grave-robbing and necrophagy. He is sentenced to death by beheading, after which his head and body are to be stored in different locations such that the twain shall never meet. In return, Saamri swears vengeance on the royal family, with a curse that each of its women would die during childbirth. He also warns that when his head and body are reunited he will hunt down and destroy every last member of the line. Somewhat extreme, but then you can hardly blame him for losing his head over it.

Cut to modern times and urban locales. Suman (a charming Arti Gupta, who did 3 films with the Ramsays), the daughter of the last blueblood wants to marry and make babies with her photographer fiance (Mohnish Bahl), but her royal papa (Pradeep Kumar) is wholly against this because of the family curse. Now the young lovers must go to the place where it all began and find a means of defusing the curse so they can live happily ever after.

In the plot point about the sorcerer's separated head and torso being reunited, horror fans might recall older films like Will Cowan's The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) and more importantly, Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy's 1972 chiller Horror Rises from the Tomb (HRftT). Naschy's film, which in itself owed a debt of gratitude to Mario Bava's Mask of Satan (1960), was the likeliest inspiration for the outline of PM. But that's where the similarity ends. HRftT has a languorous, sepulchral air; some might even describe it as boring. On the other hand PM, its detours into song breaks and comedy tracks notwithstanding, is a thrilling, kinetic narrative. In its best parts the style is Bava meets Hammer Horror. The scene where Saamri's severed head is carried through the night in a chase sequence and joined up with the body in a demented blood ritual ranks among the most memorable moments in horror for me. Even now, it makes my hairs stand.

And Aniruddha Agarwal...as Saamri the 6ft+ actor has a genuinely menacing air. In an intelligent move, once his character is resurrected from the dead, he has no lines of dialog. He is a towering implacable presence whose eyes radiate pure malevolent energy. At one point, when the martial arts expert friend of the lead pair (Puneet Issar), the one guy expected to have a fighting chance, falls victim to Saamri's rampage, an unmitigated hopelessness permeates the scene. His reign of terror seems inevitable. Fortunately for the film's protagonists, Saamri is eventually vanquished in a dramatic climax that echoes Terence Fisher's work.

At the time of release Purana Mandir was another in the line of low-budget shockers the Ramsays had been putting out since the 70's, but it turned out a surprise blockbuster, garnering several times its making cost at the box office, and after four decades it continues to rake in royalties and recognition for the Ramsays. So in spirit Saamri still lives on as the most known face of Indian horror cinema.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Aatma Vlog

Bandh Darwaza Vlog

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Tahkhana Vlog

Veerana Vlog  

Un-kvlt goes to the Movies - Veerana screening by Bollywood Crypt

Warning, long-ass post ahead. If you want to skip my rambling childhood horror movie reminiscences and go straight to my impressions of the event, scroll to below the event poster image.

Although I consider myself a fan of vintage Indian horror cinema, particularly from the Hindi film industry, I have actually seen few of these films at the cinema. This was inevitable since I was merely a schoolkid in the 1980's and early 90's when the Ramsay family studio - led by the director duo of Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay - had their crowning moment as the Czars of the Indian horror scene and were spawning imitators like Mohan Bhakri, Vinod Talwar etc.; going to the cinema to see a scare flick was out of the question. 

Also, this was the age of VHS rentals. Middle class Indian homes were discovering that, for a fraction of the cost of a cinema outing, you had the option of watching films in the comfort of home, albeit on a much smaller screen. You also had access to a far wider range of Hollywood films than were screened in the halls. At the time, I was lucky enough to have parents that were quite liberal about what their kids could watch and didn't believe in minute supervision. So long as it wasn't outrageously raunchy (even there I actually got away with Roger Corman's gleefully sleazy Humanoids from the Deep), anything from Bollywood masala to martial arts to bullet-fests to splatter fare was fair game. Alongside Hollywood horror staples like The Omen, The Exorcist, The Evil Dead, and Nightmare on Elm Street it was on VHS that I first saw several Ramsay horror / suspense flicks, including Saboot, Purana Mandir and Veerana.

I believe the first Indian horror film I saw in a theater was Ram Gopal Varma's Raat (1992), and it made a big impression at the time. But Raat's was more aligned with Western horror film tropes and represented a shift from the traditional Indian horror flick pioneered by the Ramsays. So when Deepak Ramsay in 2006 directed Aatma, I felt compelled to visit the cinema at least to get the experience of a Ramsay movie on the big screen. Coming off the experience of directing the majority of the 300+ episodes of the anthology format Zee Horror Show, Deepak served up a nicely done latter day Ramsay horror feature, alongside Shyam Ramsay's Ghutan (2007). But there remained a yearning to experience one of the classic Ramsay features in a cinema hall with an audience.

Unfortunately, while India has had a highly prolific film output spanning multiple states and languages, it rarely bothers to preserve and celebrate its legacy. And genres like horror are like the 'differently-abled' stepchild the industry would rather not acknowledge. Horror stars and makers in the West enjoy the adulation of fans decades after the original release of their films, but the concept of genre film related merchandise, fan conventions and retrospective events barely exists here.

So when Bollywood Crypt founding owner and (confession) my good friend Sandesh Shenoy announced a screening of the Ramsay's monster classic Veerana (1988), it was for me a not-to-be-missed opportunity. This event came about as a spinoff from several Ramsay films being restored in high-definition by renowned cult horror / exploitation video label Mondo Macabro. These are intended for release as a lavish blu-ray boxset that will provide horror fans across the world a full-blooded entry into the wacky sub-genre of 'Bollywood Horror'. It seemed only appropriate that the premiere screening of one of these restored versions should happen in India.

Setting up for the show.

Not content with just showing the film to an audience, Sandesh made it an event evening, inviting Deepak Ramsay as a special guest to represent the Ramsay family, and Bollywood horror / suspense genre historian and trivia expert Dhruv Somani to give some context about the film and its lasting legacy (My own brief impressions about Veerana can be obtained in this Un-kvlt Vlog post).

The obvious advantage of watching a film in a convention / festival milieu is of course that the audience is here for the love of the film. This was immediately reflected in the experience. Within the plushly appointed cozy 80-seater screening room of Suchitra Cinema & Cultural Academy, the atmosphere was electric. Veerana's bombastic opening was met with hearty whoops. All through the film, people responded to it, applauding the horror segments, laughing at the slapstick bits, enthusiastically endorsing lead girl Jasmin's charms, cheering the explosive finale where good manages to win over seductive evil. One can act all snooty, but there's something to watching a crowdpleaser in this kind of setting, you find yourself enjoying elements which in a more isolated setting appear gauche or cloying. In short, the showing was a blast.

Visually, the new master for Veerana looks miles ahead of any previous video release. There's still a fair amount of film damage, mind - some discoloration, some vinegar syndrome - that would either be beyond repair or take too much effort and money to correct. But you can see a lot more texture on objects & faces. In-house cinematographer Gangu Ramsay's Bava/Argento inspired use of garish primary colors is beautifully represented. I hope this degree of rejuvenation will hold true for all the other releases on the upcoming blu-ray set.

(L-R) Dhruv Somani, Deepak Ramsay, Sandesh Shenoy

The delicious cherry atop the cake was the post-screening interactive session, when Dhruv Somani came up on stage to discuss the work and legacy of the Ramsays with special focus on Veerana. For those relatively new to the Ramsay horror phenomenon, there was much to chew on here, including the mystery of the voluptuous Jasmin, who despite making huge waves as Veerana's lethal succubus dropped out of sight and was never heard of after. When the session was thrown open to the audience, both hardcore Bolly-horror nerds and relative newbies eagerly bombarded Dhruv with questions. For several of these queries, additional clarification and personal perspective came from Deepak Ramsay; the best was an amusing anecdote of when Aniruddha Agarwal - Purana Mandir's towering monster Saamri - was accidentally locked inside an actual coffin during the film's making. By the time he could be rescued, he had been reduced to tears while still caked in his fearsome makeup. The soft-spoken Deepak seemed genuinely pleased with the audience response to Veerana and hinted at some major announcements from the production house that would build on their legacy.

Equally exciting, Bollywood Crypt is working on the possibility of having a touring theatrical retrospective of all the restored Ramsay films. I don't know if this would be everyone's cup of tea, but so far as I am concerned they can...

Un-kvlt Vlog 1 - Ramsay Horror Special - Veerana (1988)

 The Un-kvlt Site steps into the realm of Vlogs with this piece on the classic Ramsay horror Veerana. Apologies for the poor webcam audio. I still need to figure out how to get my computer to take input from a dedicated mic.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Aatma Vlog

Bandh Darwaza Vlog 

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Tahkhana Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Kantara aka The Forest [dir. Rishabh Shetty]

Thankfully, after the initial wave of generic spectacle 'pan-India' films from the South Indian film industries, we are seeing the distribution of more culturally rooted narratives. Maniratnam, one of the first southern film-makers to hit mainstream national fame way back in the 90's, recently unleashed the first installment of his pet project, a lavish and sprawling two-part adaptation of the Tamil historical fantasy adventure novel Ponniyin Selvan. But the other film making waves across the country in its multiple dubbed avatars is on a wholly different end of the scale in terms of magnitude and budget: Kantara aka The Forest from Kannada movie-maker Rishabh Shetty.

Unlike Ponniyin Selvan's 10th century milieu, Kantara is majorly set in the present (or as contemporary as it gets in the narrative's remote rural settling), but it begins from a centuries old tradition where religion and myth are inextricably intertwined. The 'Bhoota Kola' (Spirit Dance) is a ritual in which a chosen one acts as conduit for the deity or guardian spirits and speaks for them. In olden times, the proclamations of the Bhoota would be taken as divine judgement. But as modernity and the ensuing corruption seep through society, even divine judgements start to be questioned. Thus, when the village's Bhoota conduit reminds the descendants of the erstwhile ruler that their forefather had given away the forestland under his jurisdiction to the original settlers, they respond with scorn and threats of legal action. Then there is the conflict between the age-old tribal way of life, in which they take resources from the forests for their needs, and federal-government mediated  measures that deny them access to those very forests in the name of conservation.

By couching its Chosen One story against this engrossing backdrop, Kantara aims to rise above the common herd of 'mass' movies. Of course, it takes a while to fulfill that potential. The protagonist Shiva (Shetty, who also writes and directs) is painted in HERO shades right from his dramatic introduction as the champion of the Kambala, the traditional buffalo race. In the grand tradition of mass heroes, he is charismatic, generous, hot-headed, flirtatious...the works. In that same tradition, he has an entourage of comic relief sidekicks and a mother constantly frustrated by his pranks. But Shiva is also the defender of the locals and their traditions against external forces even though, to the mother's vexation, he has refused to act as conduit for the Kola ritual. 

The first challenge to Shiva's people comes from the forest department led by the rule-bound stubborn Murali (Kishore). Shiva responds to this in the manner he knows, by carrying out guerilla raids into the forest and frustrating Murali's attempts to enforce his dictates. But then, an old and insidious enemy rears his head, threatening to disgorge the villagers from the land they have occupied for centuries. This is when Shiva transforms into the role the film has till then hinted as his destiny, a transformation that superbly infuses the hero trope with a mythical flavor and pushes it into a remarkable niche for the genre.

This transformation is for me the center-piece of the film, one that raised it above all my previous reservations. Till then Kantara was a reasonably strong mass entertainer. But after an astounding opening and the legend created around the Bhoota conduit, the film seemed to have cast aside its ambitions in that regard. Too much time was spent in giving Shiva the standard mass hero treatment. The film's humor started to repeat itself, sometimes in very ill-placed situations. Also, the manner in which some major characters shifted direction were done in an abrupt and unconvincing manner, suggesting either weaknesses in the original writing or material left on the editing table. 

But by God, once that transformation begins, when Shiva takes on the role of spirit conduit and delivers divine retribution to the oppressors of his people, all those nits were simply swept away. In the depiction of that sequence, the astounding visuals of a dust and violence streaked night, the guitar riff-driven strains of the Varaha Roopam song, Shetty's body language and facial contortions, we get a demented and incredibly visceral piece of heavy metal performance art. Watching at the cinema I was left breathless and shaking in my seat, goosebumps forming over my goosebumps. In that transcending moment, Kantara for me rose from mass movie to class entertainment.

Thazhvaram aka The Valley [dir. Bharathan]

If the Italian cowboy films are Spaghetti Westerns and their Bollywood inspired counterparts like Sholay (1975) are Curry Westerns, then this Kerala-born take on the genre should probably be called an Idiyappam Western. Jokes apart, the team of writer MT Vasudevan Nair (MTV) and director Bharathan have done an excellent job of transmuting the Western into a new milieu. It's not as wholly seamless as Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni's (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro) work on molding the Western into Japanese culture, but a solid effort nonetheless.

The genre inspirations are (ha!) hat-tipped from the beginning when the silent protagonist Balan (Mohanlal) walks alone across landscapes - no horses or Stetsons here - stared at by vultures while a mouth organ based opening theme plays. Very early on, Balan's objective is made clear - he wants to kill Raju/Raghavan (Salim Ghouse, dubbed). In either a moment of conscientious hesitation or a narrative contrivance (since there would be no film otherwise), he does not avail himself of the first opportunity, but goes over to the settlement where Raghavan lives.

This place is even more remote than the stereotype rundown cowboy town with the dusty central avenue and the fly-infested saloon. Hidden behind hills, the titular valley is virgin farmland with few inhabitants. Balan only meets widower Nanu (Sankaradi) and his daughter Kochooti (Sumalatha), who work their farm with some daily-wagers. Balan pretends to be an old friend of Raghavan, casually visiting. Likely a consequence of loneliness, Nanu is garrulous and extends effusive hospitality to the stranger. In fact he has also not so long ago also coaxed Raghavan to buy land and settle down near him, looking upon the man as a prospective match for Kochooti.

The brooding small-scale revenge drama (think Sergio Corbucci, not Sergio Leone) is mainly about the cat and mouse game between Balan and Raghavan. Shortly after making acquaintance with Nanu's family, Balan suffers a murderous attempt by Raghavan and is badly injured in the process. Rescued by Kochooti, he is brought back to the house, but must now guard himself against further attacks - each night becomes a test of survival. On the other hand, Raghavan is worried about his shady past being revealed to his new neighbors, especially since he hopes to marry Kochooti. Alongside these maneuvers we get periodic flashbacks to Balan's old life, which reveals the nature of the tragedy that led to his seeking revenge on Raghavan.

MTV's screenplay is a thing of joy, skillfully juggling the tense interplay between its male leads while delving into the backstory of their conflict. The motifs of the Western - the stubble-chinned taciturn protagonist draped here in unwashed Veshti and poncho-like shawl, the remote setting, the sometimes savage practices (like killing wild pigs with crude mines), the long shots dwarfing the characters in the landscape, the extended standoffs - are incorporated into the narrative without seeming out of place in the Kerala setting. While the film is obviously centered around the two enemies, both Nanu and Kochooti are well-etched characters, the latter displaying a pleasing level of sass even when she has to oppose her father to be true to herself. Venu's evocative cinematography and the thoughtful editing by B Lenin and VT Vijayan (who had previously collaborated on several of Maniratnam's early films) keep the film engaging. Without spoilers the ending is faithful to the bleak, roving spirit of the landmark Italian westerns.

Thazhvaram's weakness mainly lie in its flashback / exposition elements where you have a throwback to a more conventional hero. The colorful outfits and aura of brash naivete Mohanlal dons here are not enough to convince you that his Balan is an eligible lover for the excessively ebullient Raji (former child star Anju). Wikipedia's page on the actress, tentatively puts her year of birth as 1978, suggesting that she was 12 at the time of this film; this lends a wholly icky pedophilic spin to their on-screen romance. Balan also seems to have a rather shaky moral compass, only mildly chastising his then-buddy Raghavan for even such crimes as murder, until it comes to bite him on the ass.

These niggles notwithstanding, Thazhvaram comes highly recommended as a South Indian Western which draws deeply from its inspirations, but is not a slavish imitator.