Okay, it's time for horror filmmakers in the country to hang their heads in shame and contemplate mass suicide. This is a moment of national disgrace on par with India losing a cricket match to our belligerent neighbours. I've finally seen a movie that justifies the Mangeshkar sisters mournful mauling of our national anthem that anyone in Bombay who has ever watched a movie at Adlabs has endured at some time or the other. While national anthems are supposed to induce a swell of jingoistic fervour, this annoying rendition (which goes on for almost as long as the sum of the years of the sisters Mangeshkar including the relatively obscure Usha) sounds like a depressing elegy for all that's wrong with India and by the time its over, I'm a sneeze away from sneaking across the border to become an illegal immigrant in Bangladesh. But ah, I digress. 

The Mangeshkar-anthem would be the perfect and appropriate intro music though, to an ass-kicking horror film from across the border - Zibahkhana, which totally decimates the pathetic tripe that the RGVs, Bhatts and though it saddens me immensely to say it, even the Ramsays have been passing off as horror of late. Given the name of the film, I half expected it to be about the mysterious disappearance of Ziba Bhaktiar, the Pakistani actress who made her debut in Henna and was later married to that large tub of lard Adnan Sami . Speculation has been rife as to just how her career and life ended - the most common being that after Sami's violent coupling, what was left of her had to scraped off the bed. And that Sami said a quick Talaaq Talaaq Talaaq over the more inedible parts of her remains and then hotfooted it to India, secure in the knowledge that our celebrity fellating culture would keep him out of the reach of the law even in the event of more major transgressions. I assumed this film would be a grisly account of how the portly Sami, overcome by his various hungers, devoured young Ziba whole.  

As it turns out, my less than perfect grasp of urdu let me down and the literal translation of the film's title is Hell's Ground.

Made by an avid horror buff/critic and ice cream chain owner Omar Khan and the British Mondo Macabro label, this film shamelessly plagiarises elements and scenes from Night of The Living Dead and principally, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In fact, other than chainsaws not really being a part of the subcontinental landscape, the last 30 minutes or so practically IS TCM in Urdu. 

And yet the film has its heart in the right place - torn from the chest of its screaming starcast and rotting on a table in the Pakistani backwoods. That's if you can get past a slack and overlong intro of the various victims, including some gratuitious and pointless swearing by a Christian character probaly done to indicate how degenerate Christians are (and to think some of our local Christians were offended by the cheery 'phir na kehna Michael daaru peekay danga karta hai') Also pointless shots of urban squallor and clogged drains that anyone who has ever gone for a walk anywhere in India won't be phased by in the least bit, but which I assume the more pussified Western audiences found unspeakably terrifying. 

Anyway our victims on their way to see a concert by Pakistan's premier metchul act, "The Rocking Gujjars", get stoned, meet the mandatory crazy redneck - (played here by Rehaan who was Pakistan's answer to Christopher Lee) - encounter a village full of zombies, including an adorable little midget zombie, and decide to take a series of 'short cuts'. And finally get into the backwoods where they are menaced by a burkha clad maniac using a flail with a very generously proportioned spiked ball at one end - a weapon which leaves the chainsaw flat in every parameter of badassery. 

What follows is a lot of familiar crazy with enough minor variations to keep things interesting - the lunatic who gets into the van in TCM proceeds to stab one of its passengers; in this movie he alternates between whimpering for water and screaming threats at the characters, before producing a severed head just to show he means business. 
Zibahkhana moves at a great pace after the first half an hour or so and the gore effects - given what looks like a fairly low budget - are outstanding. Sure, there's absolutely nothing new here other than the language and the skin colour of the victims and the maniacs, but it's great fun nevertheless and leagues ahead of just about every locally made horror flick (with the possible exception of Geharaee). Fuck you Bollywood, for thinking that elevators, unconvincing rubber masks, crows, copper monkeys and people pulling silly faces are scary. You all deserve to be killed. Preferably by a midget zombie or a cannibalistic burkha clad maniac with a flail.