Purani Haveli

This is my first film from the Ramsay brothers. The movie opens up with a proper shot of a haunted mansion accompanied with chilling sound. It goes on at a good pace and recreates suitable horror (for the budget and time it was produced). However, it is let down by amateurish acting by most characters (I only recognized one actor from the film) and three musical tracks that are best skipped.

The film tries to blend comedy with horror in separate parts and some might find it interesting. However, it creates a tangential story which I found weaving away from the main plot. In fact, the main arc could be done away with in a smaller time frame, if wanted, but I assume constraints of commercial cinema forced them to make a proper 2+ hr long film that sometimes feels draggy.

Agreeing to buy a remote mansion, a family ignores its past history and heads out to investigate the area with their friends, and when the group starts to disappear around the house realize the house is home to a murderous being possessed by an evil spirit trapped in the basement.

This one proved to be an immensely enjoyable effort with a lot to like about it. One of the best features here is a rather fun storyline that manages to bring about some highly effective aspects in its setup. The central idea of the house being haunted by the monstrous figure who was possessed and cursed to remain there and unknowingly purchased by the girl for a trip with her friends, who stay there bringing them into contact with the creature, works perfectly for this kind of experience. Likewise, the concurrent secondary storyline about the race to uncover the plot regarding why the relatives are so desperate to offload their creepy brother on the girl as a suitable mate when she's already in love with another man who might not be what her relatives want for her since that disrupts their plans on getting ahold of the inheritance gives this a nice bit of change from how it comes together. That they come together in the manner they do makes for a fun time, as the main storyline here is a generally solid time. The other rather fun time here is the use of the effectively grotesque and outright chilling creature hidden in the bowels of the mansion, where it all takes place. The opening attack on the couple staying the night is an immensely effective sequence that brings together plenty of aspects that are carried throughout the rest of the film, in the terrifying look of the creature, mixed with standout Gothic horror atmospheric touches. That continues with the few instances of the creature stalking the grounds of the mansion involving hom taking out the other stragglers trying to attack the gang hanging out at the house or the scenes of them meeting up with something unusual only to have it disappear before the others can see it so there's a fantastic continuing of that strong atmosphere even with nothing happening. This leads incredibly well with the stand-out finale where the truth is finally revealed, which allows for a series of fantastic encounters involving the creature openly stalking them through the bus, taking everyone away, going back into the house that has a uniquely original mode of stopping it. Overall, these are what hold this one up, as there are some issues with this one that bring it down. The main drawback with this one is the unnecessary additions to the main storyline outside of the main two features that drag the pacing of this one down considerably. Whether it's comic relief subplots about the bus driver trying to make amorous moves on a member of his entourage he fancies, the random stranger trying to impersonate a gang member against the goons who are trying to kill off the original leader to make themselves the leader, or the more serious ones including the sleazy brother's goons out to kill the rightful boyfriend, there's an awful lot of unneeded filler scenes and subplots here that cause this one to run on far longer than necessary. As the comedic subplots aren't that funny or interesting, and the more serious one just goes on with more encounters than needed, these go beyond the point of being interesting and instead cause some rather obvious padding to occur here. The other issue with this one is a byproduct of all this excess padding, with the film relying on the vicious spirit for far fewer scenes than expected. While there's plenty to like about them as mentioned above, the fact that the majority of them come across as cheap, flash snippets inserted into the running time to make them seem like they're few and far between. Indeed, far too much of the running time is devoted to the background storylines about the group arriving at the location, exploring its history, learning about the backstory of the monsters' cursed birth, or those extraneous subplots that hardly have time for the monster rampage, as that is a mere afterthought. It's more than made up for with the frenetic finale, which has quite a bit of strong monster action featured with him stalking the group around the house and surrounding grounds, yet with that being the most of the creatures' on-screen, it does stand out strongly. Overall, these are all what manage to bring this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

I remember seeing this movie on Zee TV late night long time a go. The Ramsay family have made many horror movies in Bollywood. Some were bad, some were good but the best was Veerana. Anyway, Lets talk about Purana Haveli which is another decent attempt at a horror movie. The movie has a monster living in this house who kills people entering. It stars a bunch of low grade actors and actresses who decide to go to the house for some reason. One by one they start to die by the evil monster hiding in the house. The only great thing about this movie is the director who have given Bollywood Horror. There is another storyline in the movie about the lust one of the bad guys have in this movie for one of the girls. If you want to see some great horror movie watch Kama Sutra or Veerana.

Today's generation kids think that they can review this film from todays point of view but the reality is this was the scariest film of that time... the background score was amazing , the song aata hai mujhko yaad tera pyaar was just too good even Today it creates magic... but judging it from today's point of view would be stupid.. hail to ramsays to create such movies ... 🎬

Especially , it was totally new concept that time... mansion was the prime place of evil spirits ... mansion is famous Even today .. ramsay brothers shot movies here ... the moster look was scary .. it was possible for them to replace their prime ghost actor anirudh agarwal but it worked well .. overall this film is a gem which stucked in timeline of late 80s n replaced by rom com driven movies trend n forgotten for always.

Purani Haveli seems to be the last better flick from the House of Ramsays'. The film was released somewhere around 1989 and casts most of the actors that were simply tagged as horror veterans during the mid and late 80s. The film is long as most of the other Bollywood horror films of that time and features a mishmash of 3-4 tales, entwined with one other but they somehow work and doesn't leave the movie as boring as Ramsays' other horror films like 'Tahkhana,' 'Mahakaal,' and 'Ajooba Kudrat Ka'.

The film begins with a couple Raja (Anil Dhawan) and Rita (Priti Sapru) who unintentionally land up at a grand Haveli not really knowing its dire past. The couple succumbs to the peaceful atmosphere of the Haveli and believe that they have found a good place to spend night in the woods. As the Haveli is jinxed, the pair soon discovers that the Haveli is the lair of a wicked ghoul, who would kill anyone that comes there. Raja is soon killed by the ghost (Manek Irani, aka the notorious Billa), and Rita also meets the same consequence. We see an old man, who lives by the Haveli, somehow tackle the monster with a holy cross, then cage and lock him down in the basement.

We then see a small time photographer Sunil (Deepak Parashar), who is overwhelmingly in love with a rich lass Anita (Amita Nangiya). Ever since her parents died, Amita was looked after and brought up by her uncle Kumar (Vijay Arora). However Kumar and his wife Seema (Neelam Mehra) have spun a web of deceit and lies around Anita and are only looking for the good time to get control of Anita's financial assets. Anita trusts her uncle and aunt and never questions their intention. Seema wants Anita to get married with her brother Vikram (Tej Sapru), so that it would be easy for her to claim Anita's property. Kumar soon plans to buy a grand Haveli (yes the same Haveli) from Rana Sahab (Pinchoo Kapoor), who wants to sell it out. Kumar goes to the Haveli, but soon discovers that the Haveli is haunted. His belief is further strengthened when he finds Rana's corpse. Kumar tries to escape, but his efforts go in vain and he dies a gruesome death.

A few days later, Anita and her friends go to the Haveli to spend their break. Sunil follows Anita too but things turn badly when a stalking Vikram and his henchmen also land up at the Haveli. Vikram soon gets an opportunity and strikes Sunil making him unconscious. Sunil is dragged to the basement and is locked inside. When Sunil regains his senses, he hears some groaning noise. He comes to know that the sound is emerging from a caged room under the basement. He is about the unlock the cage when the same old man stops him from doing so. The old man reveals his name as Navin (Narendra Nath) and claims the monster to be his own son, who was hideously deformed when by mistake he and his wife had to stop at the Haveli as his wife was in labor pain and the hospital was far away. The Haveli was home to an evil spirit that possessed the sprog and since then, the old man guards people against this monster. Sunil somehow believes the old man and leaves the monster locked in the cage. The monster is mistakenly released by one of the perpetrators and the Haveli reanimates with foul incidents. Now its up to the lead cast to save themselves from monster, who won't let anyone escape from his domain.

The movie lacks constant atmosphere and most of the actors (minus the lead cast) look like rehab retards who pushily play their parts. Ramsays have once again applied the hairy monster formula, the efficacy of which fizzles out in between. The long comedy sequences and torturous parts by Satish Shah and Tina Ghai definitely prevent this to gain the 'higly recommended' status. Watch this only if you are a big fan of Deepak Parashar and Amita Nangia. Since this one is not as close to me as Ramsays' other gems like 'Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche', 'Sannata', 'Hotel', 'Dahshat' and 'Darwaza', I would give this 5/10.