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| Images courtesy of Mondo Macabro |
In December of 2023, boutique label and self-proclaimed
curators of ‘the wild side of cinema’ Mondo Macabro put out a six-film blu-ray
boxed set entitled Bollywood Horror devoted to the Ramsay Brothers
collection. The sons and grandsons of
radio manufacturer turned wheeling dealing film producer Fatehchand U. Ramsay,
the group generated something over thirty horror films in India on shoestring
budgets with a small crew avoiding spending additional costs on wardrobe or set
pieces. The Indian equivalent of Hammer
Horror albeit often sprinkled with random out of place musical numbers, cribbed
footage from other films while also using borrowed equipment and costumes from
friends and family members, they were at once pioneering in the pantheon of
Indian horror while also being kind of maximalist in that
everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way.
Mondo’s Bollywood Horror box has long since gone out
of print with a hefty price tag from third party sellers ranging as far as the
$400 range. Since then, Mondo Macabro
has been planning to rerelease the films in the set individually over the next
few months with Purana Mandir: The Haunted Temple slated for November
and the recently released Veerana: Vengeance of the Vampire. A film that spent three years in censorship
Hell before finally getting released after heavy cuts in 1988 which alternately
created an icon out of Jasmin Dhunna that also caused her to leave the country
and resettle in New York, it is generally regarded as one of the quintessential
Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay directorial efforts.
Taken with considerable knowledge of the Bollywood formula of
maximalism, Veerana can be a colorfully almost Bava-esque ride. But running at 140 minutes replete with (I
counted) three musical numbers, an intermission and almost constant tonal
imbalances, it got to be a bit of a chore.
A group of priests worshipping a demonic statue in a hidden
cave-like fortress are intent on unleashing a witch named Nakita upon the
world, something which local landowner Thakur (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) strongly
objects to and goes out on a witch hunt for involving the use of the OM or
sacred symbol to ward off evil spirits.
However, the victory of vanquishing the witch is short lived when the
spirit inhabits the body of Thakur’s daughter who grows up into sultry
seductress Jasmin (Jasmin Dhunna) who routinely seduces (often prefaced with a
musical number of Jasmin frolicking on the beach in the waves) and drains men
dry of their blood. Thrown in for meta
comic relief is a horror writer who repeatedly drifts in and out of the narrative
and later on a television set becomes demonically possessed Poltergeist style. Part of a secret plot by the priests to
avenge themselves upon Thakur, it gradually builds up to a final showdown of
pyrotechnics and other manner of surreal visual effects bonanzas.
Featuring cribbed footage from Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, Scanners and The Thing, a hulking oversized giant
bumbling around and an almost complete lack of regard for tonal continuity, Veerana:
Vengeance of the Vampire with its funky and dance infused score by Disco
Dancer composer and songwriter Bappi Lahiri and hasty if not shoddy looking
1.33:1 cinematography by Gangu Ramsay is a batshit wacky outlandish Indian
horror smorgasbord that doesn’t always work but does offer viewers something a
little nuttier than usual. Critics at
the time took umbrage with the recurring tropes of the Ramsays namely involving
black cats and a hitchhiking girl getting into car trouble and the absence of
any real kind of production value. Still,
it transformed its leading lady Jasmin into a kind of screen goddess for a
little while until she was forced to relocate to New York following Indian extortionists
reaching out to her. Also worth noting
is Rajesh Vivek as the head priest with his ominous gaze implying nefarious
intentions.
The Mondo Macabro 4K disc restoration from the original
camera negative of this wild but nevertheless padded and overlong exhaustion is
less than stellar. As the film begins,
its prefaced by a note stating the conditions the prints were in and that
although they restored the picture and sound to the best of their abilities, it
is rife with damage and blotches all over the image throughout. Still, color retention is still present in the
Bava oriented fortress scenes and dialogue is audible. The disc itself is somewhat bare bones as it
was originally meant to be taken with the boxed set of films which also
included a collector’s booklet detailing the films’ respective histories. On its own, this is difficult to recommend to
the average horror viewer. Bollywood
fans will eat it up and fans of Mondo Macabro’s ‘wild side’ will have a lot of
crazy fun with its very regional DIY antics and genre mashing but the uninitiated
will have a hard time getting through it.
Glad the boutique label is making these Bollywood Horror films
previously out-of-print available to customers again but it helps to know what
you’re getting mixed up in before hitting the play button.
--Andrew Kotwicki
