Khooni Panja (1992)

Khooni Panja is yet another ultra-cheap horror quickie from the prestigious horror production line of the infamous Talwar clan. The film begins with a tacky bedroom scene where we are shown an unfaithful husband messing around with his girlfriend when suddenly they are set upon by the vengeful wife who had been spying on the merrymaking. The jealous wife pulls a gun on the couple and demands that her husband shoot his lover, but suddenly, the tables are turned on the wife, and she is blown away by a burst of gunfire from the evil husband.

The couple enlists the help of a crooked gardener to help bury the wife’s corpse on an obligatory stormy night. When they are about to lay her still-warm body to rest, she springs back to life only to be hacked (a hand is tellingly chopped off) with a sword and shoved back into the shallow grave by the murderous threesome. Years pass, and we learn that the murderer has been excommunicated by the rest of his family for his errant ways even though they aren’t aware that he is, in fact, a murderer. However, we also know that the vengeful spirit of the dead, chopped wife still lurks in the area where she met her grisly fate.

Meanwhile, there are wedding bells in the offing as the murderer’s younger brother is due to wed the college siren and volleyball champ. Her parents have cursed her with a name like Pinky (What is it with this obsession with names like Pinky, Bunty, Dolly, Chunky and Bubbly!!), but soon her life takes a terrible turn during a harmless game of volleyball with her scantily clad chums. When Pinky goes looking for a lost ball, she is assailed by a severed rubber hand, undoubtedly belonging to the vengeful wife.

After that Pinky is afflicted with that ailment that seems to be inherent to all victims of Bollywood horror movies…she starts smiling a lot and takes to wearing the most startling contact lenses for full shock effect.

The dead wife gradually possesses Pinky because soon, after the marriage, she gains access to her vile, two timing ex-husband and his family and takes her gruesome revenge. First, Pinky’s lecherous servant attempts to molest her one night while she is in the shower, only to feel the fury of the contact lenses. Pinky’s offhand and downright rude behaviour arouses suspicion in her elder brother played by the redoubtable Anil Dhawan who then decides to pursue the cause of her strange behaviour.

While he tries desperately to flee, he is caught and ravaged by a somewhat familiar-looking rubber-faced zombie-like hulk and sent hurtling through the air to his horrible death. However, Pinky manages to remain a step or two ahead of the police and her suspicious family. She makes full use of her deadly accomplices, the rubber hand and the rubber-faced zombie who keep popping up at various moments as instruments of her murderous intentions.

So the race is on to stop possessed Pinky from decimating an entire family along the way to her ultimate revenge from the dead wife’s ex-husband. The film is a by-numbers effort from Talwar, who offers nothing in the slightest bit novel with this outing. It is a pretty uninspired and uninteresting effort with absolutely nothing new to offer. Even the rubber and hand and mask seem like hand me downs from a previous effort. Though new star Sargam strives hard to appear menacing the possessed Pinky, she fails. The most frightening parts of the film are the protracted scenes of supposed comedy featuring the tedious Jagdeep as a moronic servant (yet again). The movie bombed at the box office, hastening the end of the horror boom in the early 90’s when satellite TV in the shape of the lamentable Zee Horror show took over, and the big screen horror cycle spluttered to a halt.

The stale storyline features the same stale performers in the eternally youthful Anil Dhawan, who has looked 45 since the day he was born, Jagdeep, MacMohan, Seema Vaz and company. The film’s budget must have been virtually nil as there is nothing on evidence that could have possibly cost money! The film is dire from beginning to end, and one would have to think long and hard to come up with any redeeming features at all. This Panja is as abysmal as they get, even for the relatively low brow genre of Bollywood Horror, yet perhaps worth a look in for its audacity to be so utterly cheap and woefully inept.