FORMAT: DVD
The Ramsay brothers, the directors of Bandh Darwaza, made this frustrating and uneven horror flick. Hundreds of years ago a creature named Saamri roamed the countryside killing women. The king finally put a stop to him by cutting his head off and hiding it away. Now in the present day, the king’s last descendant is a pretty college student with no idea of her family’s past with Saamri. When her father forbids her to see her poor boyfriend, they defy his wishes. He then reveals to them the family secret, and the determined lovers set out to break the curse once and for all.
In some ways this feels like a warm-up to Bandh Darwaza as they are both thematically similar. (Both films contain chases involving a horsedrawn carriage.) However. there’s just too many characters (like the comic relief bandit) and subplots (including one stolen from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) that get in the way of the fun. Even more disappointing is the fact that the film often forgets about its main baddie for long stretches at a time. (His head doesn’t reappear till about the hundred-minute mark.) While I’m not a Bollywood expert or anything, it just seemed like the musical numbers occurred at the least opportune times. (Save for the awesome, albeit brief, disco dance number.)
That said, there’s still plenty of goofy shit here. We get Kung Fu fights, a freaky birthing scene, a fantasy love sequence where a guy and his girlfriend have a literal roll in the hay, a headhunter attack (one wears a Frankenstein mask), a bloody shower, and a bug-eyed possessed servant. Nothing really sticks, but it does have a silly charm about it. The monster is cool looking too as he resembles a cross between a werewolf, Evil Ash from Army of Darkness, and Frankenstein from Frankenstein Conquers the World.
Ultimately, the unwieldy running time gets the better of it. In fact, this might’ve been a ** ½ flick if it ran a brisk ninety minutes. At nearly two and a half hours, it just doesn’t know when to quit.
AKA: The Haunted Temple. AKA: The Old Temple.
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