Dak Bangla (1987) Poster

(1987)

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5/10
Mummy Trauma
khayaal_e_yaar19 March 2011
Dak Bangla hit the cinemas in 1987 but there were hardly a few cinema halls that premiered it. After giving their patent hairy monster a good break, Ramsays tried to rekindle the old flame of underground horror that was almost at the verge of death during the late 80's with a brand new mummy. I must say that the standard of horror then was very much different from what it is today, because most of the horror movies followed similar plots. Almost every horror movie had a burnt-melted-charred-face monster. Dak Bangla is closer to any cheesy slapstick or spaghetti western than to a decent horror movie. I would have chosen Klaus Kinski to play the mummy due to his tuberculous looks and face as dead and cadaverous as a mummy. Well this mummy possesses telekinetic powers and is able to fire deadly shots with forehead! Come on, Blow me down!

A couple is shown going intimate in a lonely Dak Bangla (Rest House) in a night full of neon thunders and rain. The girl hears some sound emerging from the basement. Before they could understand anything, an unidentified creature emerges from the basement and two of them die one by one.

Ajay (Marc Zuber) is a middle-aged man looking for a job. He soon finds a job of his type. Yes, you're right he is the new manager of Dak Bangla. Before he leaves, his employer (Viju Khote) tells him about the mishap with the previous manager (whom we saw dying in the beginning). He claims that he (manager) committed suicide due to the tremendous sense of isolation and claustrophobia.

(Look Mr. Kubrick, how 'The Shining' is being exploited.)

By the way Ajay is also expecting his sister-in-law (Vaishali's younger sister) Sapna (Swapna) to join them during the summer break. Ajay shifts to Dak Bangla with his wife Vaishali (Leena Das). The two find plates full of delicious cuisines on the table and their luggage is also taken to their bedroom by some unseen entity. Vaishali has a terrible nightmare where she sees Sapna being beheaded by a grotesque man. She wakes up and is consoled by Ajay. During the ruffle they find a man (Ranjeet) in the Dak Bangla, who claims to be Khursheed Khan, the caretaker of Dak Bangla.

Sapna is in love with Raj (Rajan Sippy). She along with her other friends arrive at the Dak Bangla hoping to spend an idyllic summer break. After few days Raj also joins them. Sapna feels that she had been to the Dak Bangla before. She keeps getting nightmares about being murdered by a grisly man. Bedeviled by her dreams, she tells everything to Raj, who helps her find the cause of her dreams. The two go to a room where they find Sapna's portrait hanging on the wall, with a streak of blood across the face. Behind the portrait is stashed an old book which may have the answers to all their questions.

So what was in the book? Who is the sword-wielding monstrous figure in Sapna's dreams? Who was Khursheed Khan?

The flick is okay type, with much annoying background score. The songs are equally bad and dance numbers are out of question. The insufferable and pathetic comedy by Rajindernath could have forced viewers leave the cinema hall before the movie took pace, but thanks to the director that he saved much of his celluloid. Well, you won't regret if you watch it once, we have seen a lot worse.
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6/10
Despite not speaking the language I enjoyed this Bollywood attempt at a horror movie
dbborroughs13 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I have to say at the outset that my impressions of this film are filtered through two limiting factors. First I saw this with out subtitles so other than the odd snatches of dialog in English I had no idea what was being said. Second I had never, until now, seen a Bollywood film from start to finish.

The main plot, and there's a couple of side plots, has to do with a man and his wife who take a job as caretakers at a place called Dak Bangla. This is a big mansion house which the neighbors don't like much because weird things are going on there. Once there weird things start to happen to them. Before long they are visited by some female relatives and one of the girls boyfriends. In investigating the place the girl with her boyfriend find a large book which explains the history of the place and about the creation of a mummy. Eventually the mummy gets loose and the nastiness ensues.

My reaction to this movie was, at first, "this is pretty good". The horror elements are handled extremely well and had there been released in the US this probably could have made a bit of money with the horror crowd. Its very much like the low budget horror films of the 1970's and 1980's, with a few Euro-horror twists from the 1960's thrown in. The horror parts of the film I really liked.

The problem is that this is a Bollywood production so there are some weird asides. Romance, comedy and music all come into play and they take away from the main thrust. I may seem like a cultural heathen, but while I was prepared for the "misplaced asides" I didn't think they would be this distracting. There is a disco dance number with a guy who looks like Elvis. Another number, with a seeming S&M overtone comes right after what looked to be a rape. "A song, now?", I thought. It boggled my mind.

As I admitted earlier I know I lost a great deal by not speaking the language. All of the humor was gone, as was any real understanding of what was really going on. While this is a movie you can watch without knowing the language, you do lose all of the details as a result.

I liked it, I didn't love it. I did enjoy it enough to know that were I able to get a subtitled or English dubbed version I would certainly try it again. My rating of 6 out of 10 is based upon the frustration of having to see it without the proper understanding of what I was seeing. If you don't have language or movie cultural problems do see this movie, since its a good old fashioned horror movie.
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5/10
A scary horror mummy film
dy3849330 January 2020
Good movie and a special thanks for bollywood for making a movie full of horror same like hollywood.
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7/10
There's a Mummy in my Basement!!
SheliakBob26 September 2004
Another fun Ramsay Brothers Indian horror flick! This one features a spectacularly fun monster, a sort of "mummy" made from the stitched back together bits of a dismembered would-be rapist, powered by the blood of an Evil Tantric Sorceror, and stowed away in the basement of a rural palace turned "guest house". The film has all the usual distractions one has to expect from an Indian flick, song and dance numbers, comedic subplots, uneven action sequences,etc. But it makes up for most of that with an atmospheric setting, lots of cobwebs and stormy nights, and--of course--there's a murderous MUMMY buried in the basement just waiting for a chance to stagger about inflicting grievous harm on everyone in range. Did I mention that the Mummy-monster also has magical Tantric powers and it's forehead throbs whenever it uses them? Great fun!! Particularly interesting for fans of Mario Bava, since this flick uses similar lighting techniques, lots of green and orange and blue gels against walls to produce a visually rich, if sometimes odd, horror flavor.
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