Un-kvlt Site: Un-kvlt Vlog 3 - Ramsay Horror Special

...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: