CinemaTerror

Hanna D is an Italian take on the German movie Christiane F. It resolves around the young girl Hanna who come from an abusive home and have to turn to the street to support her mother and herself.

The movie is not a very well made one. There's actually a lot of parts in it where you just have to assume what's happened. Maybe some reels ended up missing since after all it was cult legend Bruno Mattei who edited this thing together. It also seems like they either had extremely short time to make this or just very small patience to get things right.

Even though it has it's errors if you look at how it's made it still is about the darker side of life for lost youngsters and becomes an interesting movie if you can look past it's many flaws.

The movie is also very exploitative and sleazy, so if that's not something you think you can enjoy then pass up on this movie.

Mahakaal (The Monster) is an Indian take/ripoff of the Nightmare on Elm Street Movie.

The movie stars the quite beautiful Archana Puran Singh as Anita who gets tormented by the evil demon Shakaal, who was buried alive by her father after he had killed sacrificed several children, one being Anita's sister. Shakaal attacks Anita and her closest ones throughout the movie. Anita and her gang tries to avoid him by going on field trips and by doing a few musical numbers where they sing and dance.

The movie is made by the Ramsay brothers who might have the "honour" of being the horror kings of India. It's actually a quite decent movie visually with some colorful and creepy looking scenes. The creepiness goes quickly away however thanks to a lot of comic reliefs (and i mean A lot) and effects which are a little to simple and not so effective. They also rip off the famous soundbits from the American Freddy movies which is a good addition to this one. It also rips off a scene from Day of the Dead and a good murder scene from Nightmare on Elm Street Part III.

I wish the movie had been shorter though. Running a little over to hours is way to long for a movie like this. And there is plenty of scenes which could have been cut out. Everything including the "comic relief guy" played by Johnny Lever would have been nice since he isn't funny or have anything to add to this movie. I guess that would have made the movie 20 minutes shorter and also a much better experience. Take away the subplot with the bad dude who wants Anita as well and you got a movie that is about 80 minutes long which would be an even bigger improvement. If others feel like me then I'm sure we'll see some fanedits in the future.

There's also a problem with Hindu-Freddy. He does not speak (although he laughs a lot) or really do anything very frightening. Freddy's charisma in the American movies is one of it's biggest assets and I'm quite surprised the Ramseys didn't use that in this one. The mullet on Hindu-Freddy however gives him a little plus.

The movie was actually started on in 1988, but was put on hold when another Indian take on the Freddy movies came along called Khooni Murdaa.

Although it has it's fun parts and funny dance numbers I'd only recommend it to the ones who are curious and want to laugh at a Freddy ripoff movie. See it for the nice visual nightmare scenes and try to ignore Johnny Lever and enjoy Mahakaal.

The movie is available on a Mondo Macabre DVD which was released in the summer of '09. Support Mondo Macabre who continues to put out weird and unknown Asian cult movies! Enjoy.