Jaani Dushman (1979)

This movie is considered by many as being the starting point of the new wave of Bollywood Horror that veered away from the white sari-clad ghostly figures of the past to an era dominated by demonic possessions and marauding bloodthirsty monsters like the Jaani Dushman of this particular entity. Raj Kumar Kohli must have been a popular fellow as he has managed to get an array of stars to sign on for his movie even though most of them have insisted that they appear in the cast as a “special appearance” or “guest appearance” even though they have plenty of screen time

Sanjeev Kumar is the central figure in a community, being the highly respected elder and the Thakur of the village. A curse has afflicted the populace with each new marriage ending in disaster. The bride is abducted by a horrible creature, and no one seems to know how or when. We see that the Thakur has some severe psychological problems as he starts to froth at the mouth if he comes across a red bridal outfit. He explains that this resulted from having endured a terrible family tragedy when his own sister’s marriage ended in disaster. On her wedding night, the groom was trampled to death by his horse, and the distraught bride threw herself to her death in angst. The trauma of this experience has left the Thakur with some severe issues which he doesn’t appear to have a good grip on.

The film veers away from its basic horror storyline to focus on the bevvy of stars on display and give them enough scope for the usual song and dance and melodramatics. The film loses vast amounts of steam and direction, and the horror becomes very much second fiddle to the romances and ego clashes unfurling on screen. There are several exceedingly tedious attempts at comedy to make things considerably worse, with Jagdeep and Paintal trying hard but failing miserably at their infantile attempts at humour. Just when one is about to nod off completely the hairy creature makes an all too brief appearance looking like a right twit as he prances about trying desperately to appear menacing. Alas, about a good half hours worth of this horrendous comic padding slows the film down to a snail’s pace.

After a brief interlude of the creature, it’s back to more monotony in the form of the romantic complications and some uninspired songs composed by Laxmikant and Pyarelal on auto-pilot mode. Finally, at long last, when the climax arrives after one long yawn and a half, it transpires that everything was a bit of a kop out (plot-wise), and the explanation for events is most unsatisfying, to say the very least. That being said, the film retains its place as a groundbreaking horror film even if it is an accolade that is totally undeserved as it barely qualifies as a horror film.

Sanjeev Kumar performs well in a pretty unfortunate role of the deranged Thakur while all the other actor’s pout and posture in typical filmi style. Shatrughan Sinha is so into his style he doesn’t realize he is taking the piss out of himself with every ridiculous action. Jeetendra displays his hairy torso throughout the show delighting his admirers, while Sunil Dutt really should have been passed over for the romantic lead as he is the wrong side of 50. Reena Roy is a natural in front of the camera and Rekha is a master of filmi style acting while Neetu Singh appears for a song and dance or two. Sarika is also spotted as a minion among the massive star cast.

That the monster is laughable and looks quite simply like a fat man in a bear suit doesn’t matter in the end when the killer shock twist in the tail arrives like a disgustingly flat can of lukewarm Pepsi. Give me a cheap trashy Ramsay’s any day over this sanitized and ponderous romantic saga which forgot that it was supposed to be a horror film and ended up as a turgid slice of high tedium.