Purani Kabar (1999)

Though Bollywood horror films aren’t exactly a genre of movies renowned for quality, one can usually at least count on them for a bagful of unintentional laughs, if nothing else. Purani Kabar’s cast is the norm for Bollywood horror. One of fringe actors and aspiring starlets with the only known face being that of Harish Patel playing the role of Panday, a hunchback with a particularly virulent form of hunch which keeps on journeying from his neck to all parts of his back with alarming frequency.

Anyway, if one can call it that, the plot revolves around a group of sleazy characters who each miss a massive lottery payoff by one measly digit. They discover that their acquaintance has the winning ticket and decide to coax him into sharing his bounty with them. Panday tries to persuade Vikram and his greedy wife into sharing the large lottery prize. Still, Vikram refuses and is later ambushed while driving through a forest late at night, brutally murdered and thrown into a shallow grave by Panday and his cohorts. Unfortunately for the killers, a passerby happens to witness their dreadful deeds, and soon the witness begins to attempt to blackmail Panday and friends for vast quantities of cash.

The gang of criminals turns the tables on the blackmailer and murders him as well, disposing of his body as callously as they had done Vikram’s in the very same forest. However, later Vikram emerges in a zombified state to track down his killers and wreak vengeance on those who tried to trick him out of his winnings. The action takes place around a hotel where shooting is going on for some cheap film, and a cast of bimbos has assembled to provide fodder for our bloodthirsty zombie.

He soon gets down to business and presses his first victim to death with his shoe before graduating to more gruesome forms of killing. Though the zombie itself is much more impressive than the usual rubber mask wielding creatures of recent Bollywood horror – its appearances are far too infrequent to have a telling effect. Director K.I.Sheikh makes the film a difficult viewing experience due to a reliance on lengthy extracts of filler comedy. The acting is awful but par for the course in this kind of production.

Director K.I. Sheikh has been unable to come to anything like a balanced blend between horror, comedy and the usual cheap titillation that is so much part of the genre. The scenes of horror total about a quarter of an hour, and the rest are lamentable attempts at comedy that are resoundingly unsuccessful. Harish Patel, however, performs heroically in his role as Panday the hunchback though his superb performance alone isn’t enough to save the film from being a turgid stinker.

This ultra-cheap third rate shocker does truly shock but for all the wrong reasons. Amazingly enough, a couple of songs aren’t too horrendous, even if Chooee Mooee is about as unlistenable as a song could get. Purani Kabar’s is amazingly inept and woefully tedious. Even the die-hard Bollywood horror fan will be hard-pressed to make it through the tedium without constantly bearing down on that fast forward button on your remote control – otherwise, problematic indigestion.