ZC Note: I wrote this movie review for It Came From Hollywood Book 6: The Movies From 1984. It Came From Hollywood publishes a series of books that are enjoyable and informative. I write for them, now and then, and aside from getting paid for the piece, I receive no money for telling you their book series is enjoyable and informative to read. You can find that out for yourself. Also, anytime I link to a book on Amazon, I do not monetize it. Just thought you should know because I just think you should read it.
Purana Mandir (The Haunted Temple), a Hindi horror movie. There, I said it. Now it is up to you to turn the page or stay here. I know, I know. Hindi horror? Bollywood? Dancing, singing, slapstick comedy, and bhoots (ghosts) possessing people? Wild, right? But the Ramsay Brothers (taken from their family name, Ramsinghani), all seven of them, were avid horror fans. Heavily influenced by American movies that focused on a powerful supernatural evil being, they moved away from the usual ghostly haunts and created their own monsters instead, bringing a new direction to India’s horror genre.
Beginning with Darwaza in 1978, the Ramsay terror formula mixed a masala of traditional Indian cultural and religious values and symbols with American-styled terrors, along with the requisite comedy interludes and songs, some blood and ghoulish gore, graveyards, zombies, haunted houses, and stylish set pieces garnered from watching Hammer, Universal, and 1970s and 80s American horror fare. Listening to Ajit Singh’s soundtrack in Purana Mandir you will hear scoring that evokes Hammer terrors, surges with prowling Universal monsters, and chills with beckoning devilish vocals reminiscent of The Amityville Horror. Ramsay horror took ancient evil and placed it in a contemporary setting.
Does such a melding of styles work for Bollywood Horror? Hell, yes. Take a big scary monster like Saamri (Anirudh Agarwal, all 6 feet and 4 inches of him), add a family curse, toss in moms turning into hideous creatures after childbirth and then dying because of his curse, mix in a lot of angry villagers, a disfigured wood-carrying local who leers a lot in striking closeups, and two young couples trying to end that curse while not taking it very seriously. Dress it all in a very low budget production with a comedic subplot that will make you hit the rewind button and…oh, sorry, I got carried away. This movie is best viewed in VHS. I think most movies from the 1970s and 1980s should be viewed on VHS, though, so maybe do not listen to me. These days you will have to settle for Blu Ray. Sorry. Go with Mondo Macabro’s Bollywood Horror collection to give you a good taste of the Ramsay approach to horror. (It comes with Timothy Paxton’s concise booklet on the history of Hindu Horror movies.)
Cute Suman (Arti Gupta, in her biggest role; she went on to produce a lot of commercials) is in love with handsome Sanjay (Mohnish Behl), who wants to marry her. Her father, the rich Thakur Ranvir Ajit Singh (Pradeep Kumar, who kept reminding me of Lon Chaney Jr.) is frightened because his wife died in childbirth due to the curse, and now his daughter is next in line to succumb. He does his best to dissuade Sanjay starting with a bunch of goons to kick his ass, badly, until his close friend—and martial arts enthusiast—Anand (Puneet Issar) shows up and kicks their asses, instead. The sound effects are those you hear in martial arts films, like The Big Boss or Legendary Weapons of China, but louder, making the jabs, swooshes, and kicks really hurt.
Eventually her dad tells her all about the curse and how her mother died horribly when Suman was born. The flashback involving Suman’s birth in the hospital is discussed at length in Kartik Nair’s Seeing Things: Spectral Materialities of Bomby Horror. Needless to say, I will be less academically mise-en-scene, but there are the Ramsay staples to set the atmosphere: lightning, dark shadows, confusion, wind, cardiac arrest inducing scoring, and monstrous transformation. There’s also a calendar that appears on one wall, then disappears, then reappears on another wall. Not sure if that was a budget or continuity issue, but it is prominent in the scene.
After Thakur reveals this to Suman she is gung-ho to go against her father’s wishes and insists that Sanjay, along with Anand and his significant other, Sapna (Binney Ray) head to the old haveli (the ancestral family mansion) with her. You would think at this point in the movie Suman would now be the final girl, given that she is all Jamie Lee Curtis, heading out to face the curse head on. As it turns out, she becomes more of a scream queen. And I do mean screaming. Like in a lot. Saamri keeps going after her and she keeps screaming for Sanjay to save her. One attack leaves her in a wheelchair, which creates a wonderfully frenetic scene later on as malevolent forces toss her wheelchair around. The taxidermized animals in the mansion are given menacing closeups as the wind and music build along with the lighting and tinting effects to make it all other-worldly.
At first, Saamri, who had his head chopped off in the prologue, appears spectrally, a malice-sneered face. His goal is to reunite his head with his body. Once that happens, he can destroy the family line that many years ago entombed his body and head separately, with the body being buried near a temple close by, while the head was hidden in a sealed off section of the mansion. I will try not to spoil it for you, but this is a horror movie with young people. So, you can put two and two together as to how the head winds up reconnected to that big, murderous body. Do not blame the kids too much. The mute housekeeper (a nice scare right there on her first appearance) and her son have something to do with it too, thinking there is hidden treasure lying around.
Which leads me back to the prologue. The only thing that stopped Saamri, who sucks out people’s life forces, turning their eyes cloudy white, is the trishula of Shiva. That trident was placed by his head-in-the-box to keep him trapped. However, during the prologue, which takes place years and years before, the adviser to the king, a holy man, tells the king (whose guards eventually capture and behead Saamri, after the demon sucks out the princess’s lifeforce) that it would be best to burn Saamri and scatter the ashes. But the king comes up with the more story-friendly idea to just chop his head off and bury the rest of him, leaving Saamri enough time to deliver his lasting curse and the Ramsay Brothers a presumably longer movie. The old holy man with the white hair and bushy beard looks like he might know what he is talking about. He is also the one holding Shiva’s trident. I would think maybe he knows best? Anyway, you now know the trishula is the key to stopping Saamri.
Suman, Sanjay, Anand, and Supta spend a night at the old temple first, then arrive at the mansion the next day. There are a lot of editing cuts between day and night, with some scenes bleeding into both in the same continuity. Sort of like day for night camera work but really just hasty reshoots or budget shoots where they hoped the audience would not notice. To be honest, it took a second viewing for it to stand out for me. Kind of reminds me of Dan Curtis’s Dark Shadows movie along with others, including various television series, that obviously were trying to save money on film and setups by rolling during the day with a neutral-density filter on the camera. I do not think the Ramsays bothered going that technical, though. They would often try and film in natural locations and buildings to save on studio-bound costs.
Just when you are settled in with a few scares and tension-building fears, the comedy kicks in. I am betting you will do a double-take and think the movie was recorded over by another one on your first view. (Oh, right, I forgot, no VHS.) I can tell you that, on second viewing, the comedy subplot does tie into the main plotline, but the question is really, does it need to? The short answer is no. If you remove the comedic interludes that are, admittedly, absurdly funny and kitschy, the movie would be shorter in length but otherwise intact.
According to Shamya Dasgupta in his Don’t Disturb the Dead: The Story of the Ramsay Brothers, their strategy was to “target a niche market, distributing their films at low costs to the lesser theatres in urban India and, in a concerted fashion, in the non-urban centres.” The Ramsays knew their audience well and comedy, providing relief for the more horrific elements of the story kept the seats filled. They shot their movies in 16mm to distribute in small towns and rural markets initially, then moved to 35mm when they went mainstream.
The comedy involves Anand and a local hooligan whose henchmen (an odd bunch, with face paint, spears, and rubber monster masks on the backs of their heads) kidnap Supta. No reason is given for why they decide to wrap her up in a net and run off with her, but Anand chases after them and kicks more asses.
Abrupt cutting (like Dan Curtis did and then some), clips us back to the local mayor, Sardar (Rajendranath Malhotra, in an excellent portrayal), who is armless and quite pompous, often speaking to the camera (clearly a parody, somewhat political, somewhat social) and the townspeople about how he will catch the hooligan Machhar (Jagdeep), who also talks into the camera and appears drunk without drinking as he talks about his nefarious, quirky criminal plans. What follows is a series of catches and escapes. Mercifully, for us, it does have its funny moments, and in-between, the events at the mansion get worse as Saamri exerts his control more and more, going after Suman. Who continues screaming like a trooper.
Cue the fog, the lightning, the wind, the nerve-tingling score, the dutch shots, the pop-eyed zombie digging up Saamri’s body, and the songs. Yes! Between the horror and comedy there are songs! The hit of the movie is Woh Beete Din, a somber love song that is sung during Suman and Sanjay’s brief romantic troubles, with a montage of static shots of Suman looking sexy. My favorite, though, is Hum Jispa Marte. I can safely say it is awesome. It is sung (with dancing!) as events lead torch-wielding townspeople to sacrifice Suman and Sanjay to appease the evil unleashed. There is the Errol Flynn-like swashbuckling brother, Raka (Dheeraj Kumar) of a would-be love interest for Sanjay (she can catch fish with her bare hands), leading the angry mob. If you do not start thinking Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas (no, the real ones, not the fake recent ones) when you see this number in full swing, either I am tripping or…well, okay, it just may be me. But the choreography, the bright colors, the jaunty dance steps and the impending slicing and dicing of the two lovers at any moment, is one masala not to be missed.
The climax brings Saamri, and everyone still standing, back to the mansion for the final round. Funny, but Suman and Sanjay drag the coffin with Saamri, now whole—did I mention he was big?—out of the hidden tomb, down the stairs, and outside while the villagers wait with their torches. You would think getting a little help with that would have crossed their minds. There is a tidbit about how Anirudh Agarwal got locked in the coffin during filming and it took a while to get him out. After that he was not too keen on reshooting. What is on film, though, is full-blown supernatural horror at its best.
In order to save on costs, the Ramsay Brothers each learned a part of the business. Gangu became a cinematographer, learning on the job; Kumar liked writing so he scripted; Kiran worked on the audio; Keshu a cameraman; Tulsi and Shyam became directors; and Arjun did the editing and assisting direction. And I bet you thought Carl Laemmle was into nepotism. Their dad had read the Five Cs of Cinematography by Joseph V. Mascelli, and he had his sons read it too. The rest is horror history.