Mondo Macabro Bollywood Horror Collection - Volume 1

Release Date: September 26, 2006

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When the mad geniuses at Mondo Macabro sent Dumb Distraction this two disc collection - promising "six hours of red hot Indian horror from the land of gods and monsters" - it went straight to the top of Micah's 'To Watch' pile. Featuring two horror movies from Bollywood's famed Ramsay family (the Indian equivalent of Britain's Hammer Studio), this DVD set is a great introduction to a world of cinema that most horror fans know nothing about.

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Bandh Darwaza (1990)
Directed by: Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay
Starring: Hashman Khan, Manjeet Kular, Ajay Agarwai

Mondo Macabro prefaces the film by warning that there may be 'minor picture faults' due to 'storage problems with the original elements.' Chalk it up to being overly cautious, because apart from a few seconds of minor hairline scratches, Bandh Darwaza looks great.

Every scene of Bandh Darwaza is filled with detail

Here's basic setup of Bandh Darwaza: A rich man named Pratap wants an heir, but his wife Lajo is barren. At one point Lajo displays her awesome mastery of metaphors by crying "I'm just a bed of sand upon which no flowers can grow!" The family's servant and part-time witch, Mahua, offers Lajo a dubious solution: offer her body to 'The Master,' a supernatural creature that lives on Black Mountain. As Mahua puts it "If you have a boy, you may keep it.. as our gift. But if you have a girl... it belongs to Black Mountain."

Of course Lajo accepts and gives birth to a girl. In the ensuing struggle for the infant, Pratap apparently kills the Master and the child returns home. But as Pratap walks away from the Master's dead body, a disembodied voice warns him that the "fruit of my loins will one day return to the Black Mountain." Amazingly, all of this takes place in the first 20 minutes of this 144 minute film... before the credit sequence!

The Master

The movie proper begins 18 years later as Kaamya - the now-grown daughter - pines away for a dreamy stud named Kumar. But Kumar's got his eyes on a girl named Saapna, and a scorned Kaamya turns to her evil heritage to get her revenge. Or, as she menacingly tell Kumar, "You have rejected Kaamya's love. Now feel her hatred." Incidentally, Kaamya discovers the extent of her evil powers when she finds this book:

Fear my bedazzled Neconomicon

Kaamya eventually returns to the Black Mountain and serves a vital role in reawakening the Master, a villain that has no direct equivalent in US or European lore. At quick glance, the Master has many of the physical qualities of a vampire (fanged teeth, long black cape, ability to turn into a bat, and a weakness to light). Notably, however, the Master lacks the overt womanizing qualities that we associate with Dracula and his ilk. In fact, his inhuman moans and tendency to crash through walls is much more reminiscent of Frankenstein.

You can definitely feel the US influences in this movie... bright, primary-colored 80's style outfits, Friday the 13th "ki-ki-ki ha-ha-ha" sound effects, a driving synthesizer-based score, and the constant use of English for simple phrases like "I love you" and "Hey, how's it going?

Ummmm..... yeah.

But even with those similarities to US films, Bandh Darwaza is unlike anything ever made in this country. Even people that have never seen a Bollywood film know that they're filled with singing and dancing. Bollywood horror is no different. Some of the bonus features in this set mention the fact that Bandh Darwaza is somewhat unusual because it only has four songs. And in fact, it takes a full 52 minutes before the movie gives us our first full-blown musical number, a fantastic sequence where Kumar and Saapna dance in the rain and declare their love for each other.

For those keeping track at home, the other three songs are: Torn, a dance/song featuring a bewitched Kumar, a lovesick Saapna, and an otherworldly Kaamya; Chained to the Master, a dirge-like solo where Kaamya rues her connection to the Master; and Contemplation, where Kumar sings about... something. For some reason, that final song isn't subtitled. It's pretty obvious he singing about Kaamya, though. And unlike the other songs that take place in 'real time,' Contemplation spans several days, as evidenced by Kumar's repeated costume changes.

With these frequent (to me) musical numbers, lengthy love-related subplots, and a 2+ hour running time, I felt like there were times when the movie dragged. For example, it seemed like Kaamya was kidnapped and rescued from the Black Mountain 3 or 4 times. For a guy raised on 90 minute horror, there were several times where I wished the movie would just get to the good stuff.

But when the 'good stuff' comes, it's really good. Perhaps because there is so much non-horror, the scary moments seemed unusually heightened. The film's most iconic scene has a recently-reanimated Master - covered in thick, after-birthesque fluid - slowly descending on a terrified Kaamya. And there are plenty of little moments that made my skin crawl: At one point Pratap expresses surprise that Mahua is still alive. She stares at him for a minute, then quietly says "Of course I'm alive... how else could I enjoy your suffering?"

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Purana Mandir (1984)
Directed by: Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay
Starring: Aarti Gupta, Mohnish Bahl, Puneet Issar

The fact that Mondo Macabro bills this movie as a 'bonus' and not a bona fide second feature might imply that the film is somehow inferior to Bandh Darwaza. But that definitely isn't the case... its arguably the better film. Nor is Purana Mandir less important from a historical perspective: it was the first major Bollywood horror film, was the movie that really launched the Ramsay's career, and remains their biggest box office success.

No... it seems the only reason this film doesn't receive equal billing with Bandh Darwaza is that Mondo Macabro couldn't locate a print that met with their exacting standards. Its great to see a company that's so devoted to its product and its customers that it'll downplay the release of what is, in truth, an incredibly important Indian film.

Purana Mandir starts off introducing us to Saamri - a supernaturally-powered baby-killer, virgin-raper, and corpse-eater. An ancient king manages to capture Saamri, but instead of destroying him with fire, the king decapitates him and stores his head and body in different locations. Before the sentence is carried out, Saamri curses the king's family: for as long as Saamri's body and head remain separated, all of the king's female heirs will die horribly in childbirth, and on the day Saamri's body and head are rejoined, the king's dynasty will end. Talk about a lose-lose.

Skip forward 200 years, as the last of the king's heirs desperately tries to keep his daughter Suman - who doesn't know about the curse - from getting married. When the father's efforts to separate Suman and her boyfriend Sanjay fail, he reveals the horrible truth behind her mother's death: at the moment Suman was born, her mother transformed from a beautiful woman to a hairy pus-covered monster.

But young love can't be denied, so Suman and Sanjay decide to go to the old king's castle to break the curse. Unfortunately for them, all the young lovers manage to do is bring Saamri back to life. Saamri is wonderfully played by Ajay Agarwal, the same actor that starred in Bandh Darwaza as the Master. Agarwal's an inhuman force of nature here, and its easy to see why the Ramsay brothers immediately went back to the well for the 1985 sequel 3D Saamri.

The second half of the film is a solid 'friends trapped in a haunted castle' story that - with its possessed wheelchairs, blood-spewing showers heads, and creepy paintings with moving eyes - displays influences ranging from The Changeling to Suspiria to Scooby-Doo. There's also an extremely offsetting song and dance sequence where local villagers get ready to ritually sacrifice Suman and Sanjay to Saamri. A girl that Sanjay had been flirting with leads the proceedings, cheerfully singing "The one that I was dying for has to die today."

Purana Mandir doesn't suffer from the same pacing problems Bandh Darwaza did... between the haunted castle, the rampaging villagers, a bodybuilding madman that single-handedly takes out said villagers, musical swordfights, chase scenes between a horse-drawn carriage and a convertible... there's very little wasted time in this film. One word of warning to viewers (like me) that aren't intimately familiar with Indian cinema. There's a 'humorous' subplot in this film involving a criminal named Machar Singh that parodies a famous Indian film called Sholay. Apparently, Indian audiences found these scenes to be hilarious. Unfortunately, without the necessary context, American audiences aren't likely to find these scenes to be funny or particularly relevant to the story.

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The Extras

As always, Mondo Macabro has loaded this set with tons of great extras:

::About Bollywood Horror - A mini-essay by Pete Tombs that briefly explains why so many Bollywood movies contain song and dance numbers... Tombs makes a nice comparison between these films and the Hollywood spectacles of the 30's.
::Ramsay Family Values - A second mini-essay by Tombs about the Ramsay family and how they became India's foremost horror factory.
::Freddie, Jason... & Saamri - This 13 minute featurette shows how, in Saamri, the Ramsay brothers created the first homegrown Indian horror icon.

The best special feature is the South Asian Horror Documentary, a 24 minute master class on three major Bombay genres: 1980's Hindi Horror, 1990's Pakistani Action Cinema, and 2000's Southern India CG-based Mythological films. For Bollywood newbies like myself, this documentary - featuring clips, interviews, and background info on dozens of films - is invaluable. It is by far my favorite thing about this 2-disc DVD set.

The interviewed filmmakers are refreshingly practical about their approach to making movies. For example, one filmmaker notes that because it can take "months" to develop a good story idea, "the easiest thing is to just give two or three writers a VCR and a few American films and say 'I want the same, just 'Indianize' it. Add some songs to it.'" Another talks about how India's rigid social code results in a form of "twisted clothed pornography." Amazing doc.

And finally, there's a mind-bending Mondo Macabro preview reel featuring all the best goodies from current and upcoming releases like Snake Dancer, The Devil's Sword, Lifespan, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, Satan's Blood, Virgins from Hell, For Your Height Only, French Sex Murders, The Deathless Devil, Living Doll, The Killer Must Kill Again, Lady Terminator, and a dozen more. This reel, featuring "sex, violence, and midget assassins" is a great look at the diverse range of Mondo Macabro's offerings, and is guaranteed to have you fishing out your credit card and heading to DVD Empire's Mondo Macabro page.

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You can find out more about the Bollywood Horror Collection at Mondo Macabro's website or pre-order the disc for under $20 at DVD Empire. To tide you over until the September 26 release date, Mondo Macabro has posted the "Freddie, Jason... and Saamri" documentary on YouTube: Part One // Part Two.

- Micah