5/10
A most unique and original (and musical) take on Dracula lore
14 August 2013
Just when you though it safe to visit Pakistan, out of the crypt flaps this obscure adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. Scientist tries to develop a potion to defy death and make him immortal (shades of Jekyll and Hyde) which succeeds only in turning him into a vampire.

There are a certain amount of atmospherics and lighting, creep nighttime cemetery walk, well done sets, as we enter the Count's sprawling abode, and we're introduced to him flowingly walk down large staircase toward protagonist. It is interesting to see how Bram Stoker's Dracula translates to Pakistani culture, and in Urdu, sixty years after it was written, but this long-thought lost and only recently rediscovered version suffers most from terrible acting, and cannot decide if it wants to be an adaptation of its original source novel, or a surreal horror, or a musical. Maybe that had something to do with Pakistani censors? The cast is bland, their acting is even worse. Nasreen (female vampire dancer) veers wildly from sensual, to silly. Dracula has an impressive look here in the form of actor Rehan, tall and darkly mysterious, but like most of the rest of the cast, Rehan has little acting capabilities. My Urdu is a bit rusty, so I cannot comment on how well or poorly the dialogue translates into Urdi from English.

This film is interesting, a curio, but nothing to really get one's hopes up about locating.
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