Haiwan (1986)

Haiwan begins with some scientists experiment on a corpse that goes awry. In a hot minute, you have a Michael Myers meets the Incredible Melting Man with a touch of some Iron Man in him as well; a crazed zombie prowler running amok on a killing spree. Boldly defying all attempts to kill him, like shooting him six times, torching, drowning, smashing, pulverizing, doesn’t appear to have any significant impact as he keeps bouncing back repeatedly.
After being buried by a celestial bolt of power, it seems his rampage may be over, but soon enough, he is up and running wild through the forest, once again attacking and killing at random. His next victims are a romantic couple awaiting an evening of sensual entertainment. Still, the husband is sent out to mind the chickens and check on the cows while wifey slips into something more comfortable. Unfortunately, the Char-grilled melting man lookalike scuppers any fun plans and the couple or soon offed in quick and brutal succession.

The police are now on the killer’s trail, but he remains a few steps ahead and arrives to menace more inhabitants along his trail. Then, just 18 minutes into the movie, the “Intermission” break comes as a significant spanner in the works as the film turns into something quite unintelligible, which manages to add some spice to a pretty shoddy affair.

Potential victims keep popping up out of the blue, and our unstoppable force of evil killer carries on relentlessly until finally, he meets his match. The producers of the VCD release must have been very tight on budget indeed, and the film’s length has been hacked so that it can be plonked onto one disc, which explains the stunningly premature arrival of the interval.
Haiwan, in its VCD version, is a bunch of stalking and attack sequences by the zombie killer with little else to hold it together enough to make much sense. There are hardly any dialogues at all, and it’s strung together with sequences of somewhat random characters in a state of terror with lots of screaming and some pretty lame attempts at shock and gore. Yet, it’s fun to watch, if only for trying and keeping times our zombie is killed only to rise once again. Finally, it takes an extraordinary gun on the lines of the one perfected by Dr Cassandra Spellcraft to finally bring the zombie down amidst some dazzling special effects that go ” pew-pew zap” as the Alvino Ray Gun does its thing.

The film is a total mess but remains weirdly compelling, and the fact that it has a stunning, indeed “mind-blowing” cast of Silk Smita, Disco Shanti and Anuradha means that it is already well worth the price of entry!