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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:
Veerana Vlog
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