Bandh Darwaza

In the lengthy prologue to this Bollywood horror, desperate wife Lajo (Beena Banerjee) is unable to conceive, and so, fearful of losing her husband Pratap (Vijayendra Ghatge), travels to Kali Pahadi to ask the evil vampiric demon Nevla (Anirudh Agarwal) for help: he agrees to give her a child, on the one condition that if the baby is female, she is to be handed over to him to be his slave. Of course, the baby is a girl, but the distraught mother refuses to hand over her child. A seriously miffed Nevla sends his acolyte Mahua (Aruna Irani) to poison Lajo, which leads to Pratap seeking revenge, he and his pals ransacking Nevla's Kali Pahadi hideout, and slaying the vampire.

After some incredibly gaudy credits, we cut to Lajo's daughter, Kamya (Kunickaa Sadanand), now all grown up, happily dancing in shiny lycra to the Fright Night soundtrack—but her life is not as peachy as it seems: she is in love with friend Kumar (Hashmat Khan), but he only has eyes for Sapna (Manjeet Kullar). Nevla's followers, seeing a golden opportunity to gain a new recruit, promise Kamya that, if she joins them, they will use their magic to make Kumar fall for her. It's around this point that I started to lose interest, the plot beginning to meander, starting with the first of three protracted musical interludes (Kumar and Sapna singing and dancing together in the rain).

Anyway, to cut a long story short (the film is well over two hours, and feels much longer), Nevla is resurrected, Kamya becomes his slave, quite a few people get bitten, and there's more singing, before the vampire is finally defeated in a manner that makes very little sense whatsoever. Those who stay the distance are treated to several poorly choreographed fight scenes, the same crash of thunder played countless times (ditto with the wolf howl and the cat screeching sound effects), the worst 'day for night' photography imaginable, the blatant stealing of the 'Ki ki ki ma ma ma' theme from Friday the 13th, a modicum of gore, and one hell of an ugly vampire (bulging veins on his head, massive fangs, and those eyes… it's not the fact that they are bright red that is freaky, it's how far apart they are).

"BANDH DARWAZA" may well be my personal favorite of the Ramsay Brothers horror flicks. It is in some ways the most approachable for non-Indian viewers. It's monster is a standard black cape wearing, fanged Vampire and the plot is fairly easy to follow, even without subtitles. The best part of the film is it's monster. There is nothing "suave" or "seductive" about this vampire. He's a MONSTER, plain and simple. Appearance wise, the vampire here sort of reminds me of Rondo Hatton with fangs and a cape. He's kind of a nightmare version of a cartoon Dracula, complete with black silk cape with high collar, very white fangs, and a fright-mask like face. But he's SCARY! Let me tell ya'! I'm a jaded horror film fan and this is one of the just plain nasty scariest vampires committed to film! His dialog consists mostly of "Gnaaaaarrrrghh-sssss", usually shouted while smashing through a wall or a door, or just stalking relentlessly toward the frightened protagonists. The closest American counterpart I can think of is the vampire from "THE NIGHT STALKER", all predatory beast with not a drop of Lugosi to speak of. But, at 2 1/2 hours long, the movie will try the patience of all but the most dedicated fan, and will probably send casual viewers running for their remotes. If you can stick it out through the song and dance numbers and the lengthy conversations, BANDH DARWAZA delivers with the chills!

Has this sequence been omitted in recent DVD versions? When I saw it on my old-fashioned VCR, the vampire was confronted at one point with 3 coffins: one containing the Gita and the trident, another the Koran, and the last one, of course, the Bible and the Cross. He recoils with equal anguish from all 3. This is the first vampire I have seen who shows such respect for the liberal secularist religious credentials of modern India. Was there a fourth coffin with the Granth Sahib (the holy book of the Sikhs)? The Dracula make-up is fine, but how I wish they had cut out the songs! Also, the gum-chewing leopard-skin-skirt wearing sidekick of Neola (Dracula) is too good to take. Still, this is not the best Ramsay to me. I think that crown should go to their VEERANA.

Well, this is it folks . . . Bollywood's answer to third rate B-Movies. This is a pathetic little farce about vampyres in India. The chief vampyre looks like he is wearing a Halloween mask, the whole movie is cheap and dark looking, and basically looks like it was shot in someone's back yard. If you can't find it in your local video store, don't bother. They don't get any worse than this.

I loved this movie because of its cheapness! I mean I laughed my butt off the whole way! I actually avoid bollywood horror movies of today cause they are not of Ramsay's anymore. All they do is remake stories verbatim of american movies. Ramsay took a general idea and made it his own.