From Zombos Closet

May 10, 2007

Freaks (1932)
Still Freaky After All These Years

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Freaks movie scene with Baklova descending wagon steps, fearful of Johnn Eck and Angelo Rossito looking at her.
Courtesy of Dr. Macro High Quality Movie Scans

Zombos Says: Classic

A peal of thunder echoed outside, followed by a flash of lightning. Rivulets of water started sliding down the narrow windowpanes of the library; a perfect setting in which to view one of cinema’s more outré movies, Freaks. Zombos passed the bottle of claret over to Uncle LaVey, the blackest of the black sheep in Zimba’s family tree, and I inserted the DVD into the player. Dressed in his black shirt and pants, and with his black widow’s peaked hairline and black goatee, he presented quite the look of the Satanist about town.

As we watched the movie I could not help but wonder what Tod Browning and MGM were thinking when they made this movie? Browning definitely wanted to shock and unsettle his audience, and MGM wanted a horror movie that would rival his earlier Dracula success; but what both eventually achieved was an exploitation styled B-movie with flashes of brilliance and disgust that has entertained, insulted, and outraged audiences since 1932. The story of little Hans (Harry Earles) and his futile infatuation with the considerably taller Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), set against the backdrop of the sideshow and its singular denizens, still manages to make one ill at ease upon viewing.

No other movie has embraced the participation of real-life freaks like Browning’s film does here: Prince Randian, the Living Torso; Pete Robinson, the Living Skeleton; Olga Roderick, the Bearded Lady; Martha Morris, the Armless Wonder; Joseph/Josephine, the Half-Man, Half-Woman; the Pinheads; the Hilton Sisters; Johnny Eck, The Half-Boy; Angelo Rossitto (Master in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) and the others were well off the bell curve average. While Browning was heading down a less traveled cinematic road with movies like The Unholy Three and The Unknown, his need for showing the unconventional hit its zenith in Freaks.

Taking Tod Robbins’ story Spurs, Browning (who had already used Robbins’ novel The Unholy Three with critical and financial success), weaves a tale of murder and revenge that’s more unsettling and ends more horrifically than its source material. Adding a sexual overtone that undoubtedly offended his ‘normal’ audiences when it first hit theaters, and portraying his actors as regular people with incredible physical characteristics, then unleashing them as demonic angels of vengeance when mistreated, Browning makes you squirm and sweat watching it all unfold.

“Gooble, gobble!” LaVey chanted as the infamous wedding feast scene began. “Zombos, this scene always reminds me of your wedding,” he joked. Zombos was not amused.

Come to think of it, it reminded me of his wedding party, too. How odd.

The wedding scene is the highlight of the movie. It is here Cleopatra humiliates Hans and his friends, thereby sealing her doom. Falling back on his more comfortable silent movie direction skills, Browning even introduces the scene with an intertitle card announcing “The Wedding Feast.” While he may be comfortable, we aren’t as unsettling close-ups of the circus friends enjoying the festivities are juxtaposed with Hans’ growing realization he’s made a mistake. The drunk Cleopatra openly shows her affection for Hercules, the sideshow’s strongman. As Hans sits, humiliated, the oblivious revelers begin chanting “gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble, we accept her, we accept her one of us.” While the chant continues, Angelo Rossitto jumps on the table and passes around a large goblet overflowing with wine so everyone can take a sip from it. Cleopatra looks in horror as the cup comes closer and closer, eventually recoiling in terror as the cup is held up to her. She takes it and yells “No…dirty…slimy freaks!” and tosses the wine into Rossitto’s startled face.

In his book, The Monster Show, David Skal notes the wedding feast was heavily censored, and one particularly interesting element that would have intensified and justified Cleopatra’s horror at drinking from the communal goblet was removed; as the cup is being passed around, some freaks dribble into it. I leave it to you whether this possibly more nauseating visual should have been included.

Foreshadowing the horror to come, Browning uses more close-ups of Rossitto’s scowling face furtively peering into Hans’ wagon, watching Cleopatra slowly poisoning him, and again as he peers into Hercules’ wagon to see her and the muscle man conspiring against Hans. What follows is one of horror cinema’s more memorable series of scenes as Hans’ friends carry out their revenge.

As Tetrollini’s Traveling Circus prepares to get under way during a dark and stormy night (well, it was), we see Johnny Eck scampering beneath the wagons. As lightning and thunder play in the background, the camera follows him making his way to the huddled group of freaks patiently waiting, away from prying eyes, for their moment of reckoning.

With the traveling circus underway in the downpour, we cut to Hans’ wagon, rolling along in the muddy road. His diminutive friends, gathered by his bedside, quietly watch as Cleopatra once again prepares her poisonous medication. Only this time, Hans confronts her, asking for the bottle of poison. She looks down at Hans, then in horror at his friends who quietly pull out their knives to casually clean them. Cleopatra is understandably alarmed and the spoon of poison drops from her numb fingers.

Now cut to mighty Hercules who is also having a bad night. A knife flashes through the dark and slides into his side, bringing him down to the muddy road, down to their level, where he is relentlessly pursued by a swarm of freaks crawling through the mud and rain, brandishing weapons. The scene is nightmarish. I wonder how much audiences in Browning’s day squirmed in their seats watching it. The ending that was intended, but not used, has Hercules survive, but speaking with a much higher voice. You can draw your own conclusions.

Now back to Cleopatra: her wagon overturns and she briefly escapes the little demons by running into the nearby woods. We see her screaming one last time as they close in on her.

The original ending had a tree struck by lightning fall on her, crushing her legs, and the freaks swarming over her prostrate form to exact their hideous revenge. As shown in the final movie, after her scream we immediately move ahead in time to a sideshow where she appears horribly disfigured as one of the freak attractions. Dressed in a humiliating bird costume and unable to speak, she can only utter unintelligible sounds. The once proud and beautifully statuesque Cleopatra is now a hideous mute freak with a shattered mind and body.

As the movie ended, Zimba returned to snatch Uncle LaVey away. Zombos and I breathed a sigh of relief. Returning to our claret, we pondered the vagaries of moviemaking, and how a daring director got a major studio to produce one of the oddest classics of horror cinema. Forgotten for a very long time and almost lost to us, it was given new life and much needed recognition in the 1960s by photographer Diane Arbus’ successful efforts to bring it to the attention of the cinema art-house crowds.

So we can always remember that “But for an accident at birth, you might be as they are.”

Night Watch (2004)

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 Zombos Says: Very Good

I’m happy to say Night Watch is not a clunker. Instead, it is a whirlwind of special effects, odd characters, and a story that definitely puts Russian horror on the genre map.   While the filmed story is different from the book it is based on in some important respectes, the movie is still an entertainingly fast-paced and strong first entry in the Night   Watch trilogy.

The director, Timor Bekmambetov, did the movie for Russian audiences, which explains the more melodramatic and flowery-mouth approach to mis-en-scene and dialog. But it’s these Russian nuances, composed alongside the standard but well-executed horror trappings we all know and love—CGI and gore effects—that give this film’s quirky, good versus evil, story a fun and very watchable spin for any discerning horror fan.

It opens with a battle between the forces of good and evil (like in Lord of the Rings and Thor)—here it’s the light and the dark squaring off—as they each fight for foothold on a narrow bridge. Both soon realize they are equally matched and neither can win. So a truce of sorts has them divvying mankind’s fate into having Light rule by day, and Dark rule by night.

Jump ahead a few millenniums and we’re in Moscow, where Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy), our soon to be strong-willed but hapless hero, pays a visit to a witch, hoping to keep his girlfriend from having someone else’s child. Bad move on his part as it brings him into direct contact with Night Watch, the forces of Light.

In short order the witch is subdued, suddenly and chaotically, for engaging in witchy kinds of things, and Anton, caught in the middle, discovers he’s a seer and a Light Other—which means a good guy, sort of. The Dark Others are vampires and other nasty things that go bump in the night, and the Light Others are shape-shifters and magic wielders, who try to constrain the Dark Others from doing harm. It’s been this way for centuries: both sides fighting each other to maintain balance. For those of you who work in a corporate office, just substitute “managers” for Dark Others, and your workmates for Light Others, and you’ll understand the whole concept perfectly.

From the opening salvo with Anton, the witch, and the Light’s shapeshifters, it’s a wild ride. Anton’s entry into the light and dark world will leave your head swirling, but stay with it and all will be revealed in time. Night Watch is a kinetic movie of visualizations first, done in fast cut actions, speeded-up and slowed-down, and herky-jerky scenes spliced with CGI. Short pauses for explanation flitter by before plunging you into yet another whirlwind of chaotic visualizations, which for a limited budget are skillfully done.

Much of the special effects are devoted to the Gloom: the twilight state where the natural and supernatural worlds converge. Director and co-writer Timur Bekmambetov heralds its onset by swirling mosquitoes, which he says remind him of vampires, but, unlike the novel, he does not focus on the Gloom much.

One fast and furious scene in an old Russian barbershop has Anton fighting a vampire who pops in and out of the Gloom to attack him, otherwise remaining invisible. The bloody and gorific fight is a special effects treat that ends with a snap, crackle, and pop.

Other memorable touches include a yellow maintenance truck (think Ectomobile from Ghostbusters), recognizable to Russian audiences as a very slow moving vehicle, but is made fun of in the movie by adding rocket jets to have it speeding madly through the Moscow streets.

And then there’s the owl, a stuffed bird brought to life to help protect Anton, now that he’s gone and killed a vampire. The Dark Forces will not forgive him for that. No sooner does the owl follow him home then it turns into Olga (Galina Tyunina), a sorceress, in a flurry of feathers and goo (looking like the Chinese fast-food MSG variation of goo). Being forced into owl shape was her punishment, but for what is not explained. Since the owl can stand for either good or evil in Russian folktales, we can’t be sure what type of past Olga had, or which side she’s really on.

Did I forget to mention the Vortex of Damnation Curse? Aside from Anton’s issues with vampires, there’s this cursed woman who’s about to bring down the apocalypse (and she’s not even a zombie!) so the forces of Light and Dark can battle again. Considering they were at a standstill a millennium or two ago, I’m not sure why they want to bother.

Why this woman is cursed can almost be taken as a joke by American audiences. Why she’s cursed, and why Anton is causing bad things to happen, is due to the bad decisions they made when they had more control over their lives. Since their destiny is intertwined with everyone else’s, one bad decision becomes everyone’s problem. The premise of Night Watch is simple: each person chooses to join the light or the darkness by the decisions they make; and those decisions affect everyone else. In American horror films, people are usually put into situations beyond their control, then they make bad decisions making things worse – often terminally. So instead of a taste of Hamlet in our horror, we prefer hamburger with lots of onions and bloody red ketchup. We don’t savor the bun or its relation to the burger; we just want to eat it.

Night Watch savors the bun with its moral story, and adds a dash of Shakespearean ketchup to provide a unique and colorful tale combining fantasy, horror, and the choices made by all of us that will lead to either the Light or Dark path. The Russian sensibility of horror is summed up best by this dialog between two characters:

“Damn!”

“Careful what you say. Damn is more than just a word.”

Cemetery Man (1994)
Zombies, Sex, and Guns

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Zombos Says: Very Good

“What’s all that yelling about?” Zombos asked , putting his book down. We were in the study on a beautifully foggy morning.

“It sounds like Pretorious,” I said.

“Well, see what the blasted fool is yelling about now. If it’s not ducks, it’s something else.”

I went down to the front door, opened it, and found the groundskeeper waiting for me. He tossed a small package into my hands.

“What’s this, Pretorious?” I asked.

“Your damn fool something-or-other. Postman barely slowed down before he threw it over the fence. Hit me on the head, it did.” The groundskeeper adjusted his large straw hat. “Now maybe I can trim those corpse plants around the back in peace. Damn things grow like weeds.”

As he walked off, I tore open the package. There it was; my screener of Anchor Bay Entertainment’s release of Cemetery Man.

The first thing I do before watching a new DVD is to look for a commentary or documentary, even if the film is new to me. I watch that first. I know, even Zombos thinks it rather odd, but I prefer to know as much as possible about a new film before I see it, and more about a film I’ve already seen, with the hope that I will learn about those little artistic touches that otherwise go unnoticed.

The liner notes for a DVD can also provide a wealth of valuable information regarding the provenance of a film. (Oh lord, I am watching too many Antiques Roadshow episodes!) Michael Felsher’s liner notes for Anchor Bay’s release of Cemetery Man are exemplary, and I learned much about this quirky, odd mix of humor, horror, sexual desire, necrophilia,  gore and surrealism by director Michele Soavi and writer Gianni Romoli (from Tiziano Sclavi’s novel, Dellamorte Dellamore).

Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, the forlorn, laconic caretaker of the Buffalora Cemetery, aided by a Curly-esque, dim-bulb—but frenetic—sort of individual called Gnaghi. One slight annoyance, or nightly chore—if you will—is that they have to keep the newly buried dead underground. For reasons never mentioned, the dead keep wanting to stay undead.

Mr. Soavi, as noted in the IMDb trivia for the film, explains that these “returners” are brought back to life by the mandragola roots that permeate the grounds of the cemetery. But that really doesn’t tell us why, does it? Life is often like that: things happen, but we never really know why. We just go with the flow.

So Francesco and Gnaghi are kept rather busy returning the dead to where they belong. To assist with this endeavor, Francesco keeps a revolver which he uses liberally to shoot the dead, well… dead again. To complicate matters, Francesco refuses to let the town authorities know what is happening in the cemetery for fear he may lose his job, along with having to fill out all that bureaucratic paperwork regarding reanimated dead people.

One aspect of all this bizarre supernatural activity that provides a bit of tension is that we never know, as Francesco and Gnaghi never know, which returners are going to take a few bites out of them, and which returners are just anxious to get back to their daily living routine, but really shouldn’t, considering personal hygiene and all.

Francesco’s nightlife, busy with shooting and reburying dead people, is more interesting than anything else he does during the day, and that is a sad commentary on his existentialistic existence. For a man whose favorite pastime is reading the phone book, and who observes one day that “At a certain point in life you realize you know more dead people then living,” things are not going all that well. But how can he get out of his doldrums?

It’s at this point that the voluptuous She enters his life—The Woman, as played by Anna Falchi. He meets her during her husband’s funeral. He’s captivated by her beauty. How she could be married to such an old man surprises him, but she tells him that it was the sex. Her dead husband was indefatigable in bed. This is an Italian film, after all.

Francesco does what he can to get closer to her, but it’s when he shows her his ossuary—interesting double-entendre here—that she begins to fall passionately in love. It’s here the use of billowing cloth throughout the film first becomes apparen as they embrace and kiss through it. Combined with the cinematography of long perspectives and close-ups, its appearance lends an impressionistic touch to the odd events surrounding Francesco.

The ossuary itself is a wonderfully eerie and claustrophobic chamber filled with skulls, bones, earth and huge mandragola roots, all intertwined and suffused in a brownish-gold light. In the documentary, it’s explained the set was constructed in layers, then put together to create the finished look of so many seemingly separate elements. It’s quite a work of horrific art indeed.

As daylight fades and night comes, blue ghost lights dance around Francesco and his lover. Soon, they’re making love over her dead husband’s grave. Her husband, of course, is not pleased and attacks them, killing his wife before Francesco can stop him. This being Buffalora Cemetery, however, she soon returns in her billowing death shroud to make passionate love once again to Francesco. A little decomposition doesn’t get in the way of his ardor, but her biting a rather large chunk out of his neck does. He makes sure she will not return a second time.

Adding insult to injury, a busload of scouts, the mayor’s fun-loving daughter, and some fun-loving but careless motorcyclists get mashed up on the roadway in a nasty accident and fill up the cemetery, providing both Francesco and Gnaghi with much work to keep the mangled returners more sedentary. Gnaghi, who does have some personality issues, takes a fancy to the mayor’s daughter’s head, and he soon has it out of the grave and into his apartment. She also takes a fancy to Gnaghi, and soon the two are singing and chatting up a storm like bosom-less buddies.

The film shifts from absurdity to downright surrealism as Francesco begins to see the woman he loves in other women. Oh, and the meeting he has with Death I suppose I should mention also.

Death is rather miffed that he keeps sending the dead back to the grave, so Death tells him it would be better if he just killed the living instead. Sure, why not? He does have that big gun.

Francesco’s existentialist angst spirals out of control and he finally seeks escape from it all. Packing a few belongings and Gnaghi into the family car, he heads out of town, through a long tunnel, and into the outside world. Or does he? Has he found a resolution to his problems by trying to escape them?

I dare you to watch this film only once.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

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Zombos Says: Very Good

“That was disturbing,” said Zombos as we were leaving the theater after seeing The Hills Have Eyes.

“Yes, the hard horror situations were—”

“No, no, I meant the annoying political barbs,” he interrupted.

“Oh,” I said, “you mean the father being a republican and getting them into the hellish predicament in the first place, and the milquetoast democratic son-in-law who rises to the occasion and unloads a truckload of whoop-ass on the radiation-mutated hill people after being pushed to the edge of sanity? I hardly noticed it.”

“The director is French?” Zombos asked.

“Alexandre Aja? Yes, I believe so.”

“Then that explains it,” he concluded.

“Actually, I think hubris plays a much greater role than politics. The father’s cocksure attitude left him prone to making bad decisions. Oh, right, that does apply to most politicians, doesn’t it?”

“Politics,” we agreed and continued walking.

“It reminded me of Wrong Turn,” I said.

“Yes,” said Zombos, “especially the decrepit, degenerate-owned gas station in the middle of nowhere; and that scene with all those victims’ derelict cars dumped into that huge atomic blast crater. Chilling.”

“The extreme long-shot zoom-outs showing the other huge craters surrounding it are especially effective,” I added. “Great matte work there.”

“What I do not understand is why mutated, inbred, and cannibalistic families in every horror movie are always depicted as more of a solid social unit than the normal, bickering tourist families they prey on,” Zombos pondered.

“Goals,” I replied. “Mutated, inbred, cannibalistic families have fewer goals.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Zombos rubbed his chin.

“Well, they certainly don’t need to worry about jobs, taxes, school, retirement, or the dozens of things that keep normal people awake at night and bickering among themselves. Just finding food is one simple goal that keeps them all working as an insane, but strong, cohesive unit,” I said.

“They sure do eat a lot. The least they could do is cook their food. Revolting.”

“Gore-hounds wouldn’t like that. ‘The redder the better’ is their motto,” I replied.

Zombos stopped walking. “What always amazes me is the sheer dim-wittedness of family and teenagers that are always placed in harm’s way in these movies. You would think after all this time, with all the sordid chaos in the world, they would be better prepared to handle difficult situations and have a little bit of a clue. I mean, here you are traveling in the desert, hundred-plus degree heat, no water, no civilization, and you take the scenic route? And one that a spooky and unbathed
gas station attendant, who obviously does not have much of a social life, tells you to take? In an ’88 Airbus with no air-conditioning?

“Well, at least the detective father carried a few guns with him,” I said. “They shouldn’t have split up though. It’s always convenient to have soon-to-be victims always split up in movies, but that plot expediency is wearing thin.”

“That is another point,” Zombos said. “These mutated, sadistically maniacal families never split up. They always carry out well-orchestrated group attacks on those dim-witted and oh-let-me-go-off-alone family members.”

Zombos was on a roll. I rarely see him this reflective.

“That was quite an horrific scene,” I added, “using the father as a decoy to lure the family out of the trailer, and then attacking that poor girl. Quite a statement about why you shouldn’t wear an iPod to bed, don’t you think?”

“Biting off the head of that little defenseless parakeet, too,” Zombos added, shaking his head. “For shame. I did find that Test Village 3-B to be a horrific setpiece also.”

“You mean when the son-in-law goes through the mining tunnel and finds the mock-up town filled with mannequins? Yes, the mise-en-scene is well executed. His confrontation with the mutated maniacal family members is fast-paced and exciting. His baseball bat against an axe? I think I rather have the axe.”

“The big-brained fellow singing the national anthem was a wicked touch.” Zombos clapped his hands together. “Oh, now I get it, baseball bat and national anthem. Subtle.”

Zombos started walking, then stopped again. “That scene with the children was more horrific than anything else in the movie,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, “in the midst of all that carnage and insanity, to have a hideously deformed child innocently ask you to play with her and her equally disturbing playmate… it was a masterful, almost poetic touch. I dread to think what snacks she’s been having. No Fig Newtons or Oreos in that place.”

“Definitely not,” Zombos agreed. “I wonder how much longer we can watch such movies.

“Why is that,” I asked.

“It seems every hard horror movie relies on the same basic characterizations and script devices to sustain an often repeated storyline; and let us not forget the gore factor: that needs to keep escalating to provide shock value to those ever more jaded gore-hounds out there. Most of the elements in this movie, given that the direction and scripting is above average, still use the same old hash. Can redundant art sustain itself?”

“I’d say that most horror-heads just want to be scared, or shocked. Take the sequelization-antic ending. It’s a cheap cliché ending that destroys the movie’s triumphant moment, just to imply it ain’t over so wait for the next movie.”

“Yes,” Zombos agreed. “But I hope the sequel is worth it.”

Naina (2005)

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Naina Zombos Says: Good

It took a few attempts to get Shripal Morakhia’s Naina into the DVD player. After the first bottle of Claret, my coordination deteriorated rapidly. I finally loaded the disc and Zombos and I were soon watching this intriguing Bollywood Horror remake of The Eye.

With a matter-of-fact tagline that reads, “Twenty years of darkness, seven days of hell, no one could survive it, SHE DID,” we did not have very high expectations. But the Claret made us stronger and more daring.

Then there are the cultural differences: how would a Hindi version of The Eye fit in with the melodramatic and religious aspects of Bollywood cinema? And most importantly of all, would there be singing and dancing?

“Bring on the dancing and singing Gopis,” hiccupped Zombos. “If I could stand it in Rocky Horror, I can stand it here.”

“There were no Gopis in The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” I told him.

“Not dressed as such, but the premise is the same.”

“Point taken,” I conceded. “But there are no Gopis, nor singing or dancing in this movie.”

“What? Impossible! I thought that was a contractual requirement for every Bollywood movie?”

“Apparently horror movies are excluded from that requirement.” I said.

I started the movie.

The opening shows the accident that leaves young Naina blind, intercut with a bloody cesarean-section of a still-born baby girl that suddenly comes back to life just as Naina’s parents are killed in an accident. Then there is an eclipse of the sun. We move ahead years later to a point where Naina is ready to undergo a cornea transplant operation.

“I am already confused,” said Zombos.

I refilled his glass. “There, that should help.”

Urmila Matondkar plays Naina Shah with a touch of melodrama—after all this is a Bollywood movie—and grandmotherly Mrs. Shah (Kamini Khanna) is constantly by her side. Yet the coloration of the movie, the cinematography, and, to some extent the somber, bittersweet, piano score give this movie a J-Horror style.

Naina speaks briefly to a boy in the hospital who is undergoing numerous brain operations, before she undergoes surgery to restore her sight. After the operation she begins to see dark figures through her blurry vision. These figures lead patients away. She also hears spooky sounds and sees dead people. Every dead person she sees is dressed in crisp white, neatly-pressed, clothes. It’s comforting to know there are laundries in the after-life.

Mrs. Shah quickly pulls out the eligible bachelor photos for Naina now that she can see, and starts working the old marriage magic on her. But Naina is becoming more and more distraught as her visions become more frightening. As Hindi cinema tradition would have it, the psychiatrist Mrs. Shah brings Naina to for help is handsome, eligible, and immediately infatuated with her loveliness—it’s love at first sight for both of them. A somewhat derailing Love Boat–styled romantic montage ensues and the horror is put on hold while love is in the air.

“Wake me when we get back to the dead people,” said Zombos.

I took a long sip of Claret. And another long sip of Claret.

Eventually Naina sees more and deader people and now they see her. From hanged men dressed in clean white clothes in restaurants, to little girls with little curls in hallways asking, “Have you seen my mommy?” Understandably, she becomes more distraught. Her psychiatrist boyfriend thinks it’s all in her mind (no, really?) and she can’t convince Mrs. Shah that those creepy black figures and talkative dead people are driving her to new heights of over-acting.

Then there’s the elevator scene.

It works well and puts you on the edge of your seat with its scary encounter in a tight spot. After that she’s back in the hospital and seeing more creepy black figures. A walk through the morgue as she follows eerie sounds and black figures is done with her as the only moving figure in a frozen room of doctors, nurses, and bodies in various stages of dissection. Gruesome.

At this point in her travails, she begins to question God. You don’t see much questioning of God in American horror movies unless some victim or madman is yelling expletives. She questions why God is showing her these sights. He tells her it’s time for the intermission.

No, I’m just kidding you, but the movie does stop—remember this is a DVD—with a big “Intermission” shown onscreen. You certainly don’t see this in American Horror DVDs or movies either.

I waited to see if a dancing bag of Buttery Sally Popcorn and Mr. Straw jumping into a cup of Coke would appear, singing “Let’s all go to the concession stand and have ourselves a snack.”

“Thank god,” said Zombos. “I really need to take a p—”

“I’ll get more Sherry and Coke.”

“Capital idea!” he said, hurrying to the bathroom.

 INTERMISSION

While we wait for intermission to end, let me direct your attention to how this movie caused a lot of concern when it was released:

NEW DELHI (Reuters, 2005) – Indian eye doctors have asked a court to ban a movie in which the heroine sees ghosts after a cornea transplant, saying it will scare off donors and patients. The All India Ophthalmological Society complained to Delhi’s high court that the movie “Naina” (Eyes), starring Bollywood bombshell Urmila Matondkar, would reinforce myths about cornea transplants, The Times of India said Friday. “This movie could create a fear psychosis among cornea recipients and their relatives as well as among potential eye donors,” ophthalmologist Navin Sakhuja told Reuters. Would-be donors could be frightened off, afraid their eyes would “live on after they are dead,” said Sakhuja, a member of the society. “We have a huge backlog of people, particularly children, waiting to get new corneas. His movie adds to misconceptions and could hurt efforts to get them those corneas.” Naina’s director says the heroine’s visions after the transplant following 20 years of blindness are caused by what the donor had seen and experienced in life. “If such objections are taken into account, no horror film will ever be made,” the Times quoted Shripal Morakhia saying. The court is due to hear the case Wednesday, but the movie was released nationally Friday. India needs 40,000-50,000 corneas a year but only 15,000 are donated. Hindus believe in reincarnation and that what they do and how they behave in this life affects the next. Doctors say some people fear they will be reborn blind if they give up their eyes.”

 END OF INTERMISSION

Now let’s back to our movie, shall we?

Naina is riding the train, talking to the psychiatrist boyfriend on her cell phone, when a revelation occurs, forcing her to suddenly question not only God, but who she is and the person who donated the corneas. Naina drags her reluctant boyfriend along to a place she’s seen in a vision. She stops being a victim and becomes resolute in finding answers. This sudden shift in the story is surprising and suspenseful, and adds an intriguing layer to it. Naina overcomes her fear as she investigates what happened to the eye donor, learns why dead people are attracted to her, and seeks to complete a broken cycle of reincarnation, even as those black figures begin to congregate in larger numbers.

Naina is similar to Premonition and Sixth Sense, but the mixing of J-Horror elements with Bollywood-Horror makes a story that’s part horror, part mystery, part ghost story, and worth a view by any horrorhead looking for something out of the ordinary.

And there’s no dancing or singing, either.