"The Living Corpse" or "Dracula in Pakistan" is a definitely example of films that are so bad that watching them becomes a good experience. Pakistani version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" shot in Lahore, "The Living Corpse" haphazardly follows the plot of the famous novel, with an original contribution almost 30 years before Coppola's version: the film explains the origin of the vampire (here called "Professor Tabani") in a pre-credits sequence in which a mad scientist ingests the product of his investigations to find the elixir of eternal life, with the terrible consequence that he becomes the "living corpse" of the title, with an inexhaustible thirst for blood. To his haunted house does not arrive Jonathan Harker, but a curious colleague who, before being sucked by the prof, watches the sexy dance of the vampire's bride to of a pop version of "In a Persian Market" (by British composer Albert William Ketelbey). This is one of the prevailing characteristics of this movie that, like almost all the films made in the zone, includes songs along the plot. Although Prof. Tabani does not sing, the band and dancer of the local bar do, a young woman in love bursts into song in the field and there is a hilarious selection of foreign themes: the credits run to the chords of "Granada" by Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara, a car crosses the landscape to the anonymous Spanish tune "La Cucaracha", and a terror sequence is edited using "Allá en el Rancho Grande" by Mexican Lorenzo Barcelata, without forgetting the fragments of classical works and the use of James Bernard's music for Terence Fisher's "Dracula". In fact, sound engineers can smile while frowning at the soundtrack in which songs come and go at the slightest provocation, where the sound effects are repeated in chain or where the foley has nothing to do with the image: while two men run after the vampire upon soil, the corresponding sound is of a wood floor. However, all this, even if it is pathetic, adds up instead of subtracting the overall effect of astonishment and mockery, although the plot turns a little too serious with the arrival of the curious scientist's young brother, who decides to exterminate the vampire and seeks advice from a Dr. Van Helsing of sorts, who owns the local and bar. Seeing the credits in English and the frequent use of English words, "The Living Corpse" reminded me of some Ibero-American films with anglophile aspirations (made by posh filmmakers and publicists who even gobble up bilingual food) that in a few decades will be seen as this concoction that unintentionally ended up being a joke.
