Nagina (1986)

It's been entirely too long since I've sunk my teeth into some Bollywood horror. I became captivated by because of an incredible image from Nagina. Sridevi with a penetrating icy blue gaze. Her face, those eye, seduced me.

I watched this one sans-subtitles, as I'm often forced to do with these worldly acquisitions but it was surprisingly easy to follow. here's what I gathered. A man soon to be ensnared in an arranged marriage encounters a snake while on a horse drawn stroll with his fiance. The snake takes a liking to him and hitches a ride on the back of the carriage. Soon after a mysterious beautiful woman enters his life. Her beauty puts him under a spell and after a few song and dance numbers, they're in love. He breaks it off with the other girl, which devastates both his and her family. Despite his mother's refusal to give her blessing, he marries her anyway, and everything's going swimmingly until a wicked snake charmer comes to town and informs the mother than Sridevi is actually a shape shifting she-snake and the real reason for marrying her son is to avenge the death of her late snake-husband who was killed as a result of biting him when he was a child. That part kinda lost me. In the end she falls in love despite their interspecies differences.

 This horror fantasy only barely counts as horror at all. The fantasy elements take over and of course the signature Bollywood love story. I've taken issue with this redundancy in the past. The need to interrupt a perfectly interesting narrative for a song (or ten). While I enjoy it in small doses, it's never really in small doses. It's sprinkled generously throughout a 2.5 plus hour long movie. In the West we have the musical genre, but in Bollywood all genres submit to the musical format with no exception. It's something I'll never fully understand, and that's ok. Its not my culture. Perhaps the only reason it's so noticeable to me is because I'm mostly watch Bollywood Horror and the two things never quite seem to match. In 'Nagina', there is ONE musical number that needed to be there and that's Sridevi's exotic snake dance.

She must have broken some records with this one. The choreography is insane. Sridevi in general has a surreal beauty that is truly mesmerizing...

The film is largely carried by the star power of Sridevi. Her face and movement accompanied by masterful photography infuses 'Nagina' with visual saccharine. At times the wide shots and flooding of lights is reminiscent of Suspiria...

And other moments benefit from a lack of color. Shrouded in a cloud of mystery as if it were Black Narcissus...

This wouldn't be a worthy review without noting the wardrobe choices...

And last but not least...

This occurrence.



As mild as it is in the genre, Nagina may be my favorite Bollywood horror to date. It spoke to my aesthetic and was shockingly engaging for a no-subtitles movie. It had a feminine quality that Bandh Darwaza and Purana Mandir didn't share. With the Halloween season upon us I may finally indulge in the seminal, Veerana which has somehow evaded me for all of these years.

I'm getting a later start this year than the last few. Generally my horror marathon is in full swing by the first week in September. And as some of you may have noticed, it's my most active time of year here on Atomic Caravan. I'll try to keep up with that trend and deliver some delectable spooks for your viewing and reading pleasure.

Purana Mandir - 1984

I don't claim to be an expert on Bollywood horror, though it has always appealed to me. There's such a small output for it, so like most good things, you have to actively hunt. My introduction to the genre happened in my late teens when I first started collecting hard-to-find movies. I came across a little Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off called Khooni Murdaa, which if you have any base knowledge of the genre I'm sure you're familiar with. It was a gateway drug , so to speak, and served as an entry level pass key to the fascinating world of Bollywood Horror. Now to be fair, Khooni Murdaa wasn't really that great. Going from that to the Ramsay Brothers was a huge leap. I later saw Bandh Darwaza and found it to be worlds apart in quality and entertainment. The settings, the atmosphere and exceptional portrayal of an Indian Dracula by Anirudh (Ajay) Agarwal. A hulking 6"7 giant dude. He's got an enormously scary head. More than anything, the size of his head scares me. Yeah, it's really big. I was pleased to the learn that in addition to Bandh Darwaza, he also plays "Samri", the monster in Purana Mandir.

Before I move on to the review, I just want to mention how much I love these certification cards at the beginning.of EVERY Bollywood movie.

Purana Mandir translates to "the Old Temple", which is where the story begins. Big ol' ugly Samri is going around killing people, to put a stop to his evil reign the King has him captured and couriered to be decapitated in front of the village. Naturally, in bad guy fashion, Samri curses the king so that all of the women in his family will die horrible deaths during child birth. Two Thousand years later, in present day, the king's heir, still haunted by his wife's death, is now concerned for his beautiful daughter. She will inevitably be attracting the attention of potential husbands which only brings her closer to her doomed fate. He soon finds out, she's already met someone, they're in love and all that crap. They want to get married. He tells them all about the curse in hopes to guilt trip the suitor into bowing out. Instead they decide to go to the old temple in attempts to disprove the existence of a curse. Of course, Samri is resurrected and all kinds of monster-y stuff happens.

I did like this one, and I hate to be the jerk who complains about the running time of movies but it was really putting the hurtin' on me. I was totally into the Samri story line and even didn't mind the love story or the song and dance numbers, in fact I anticipate all of those things. Purana Mandir is considered by many experts of Indian film to be the first solid horror entry to the Bollywood cannon. Sure, there had been horror elements in other films and the Ramsay brothers themselves had been working towards the horror genre for years but with the ever growing popularity of the Halloween and Friday the 13th films, this kind of monster movie hadn't been made regionally yet. The Ramsay Brothers wanted to do something like that while still maintaining the flavor of Bollywood. It was very popular and is still considered a classic. That being said, based on my admittedly very limited knowledge of the genre, I felt it was trying to be too many things. There's a huge amount of comedy in the middle section of this 2 1/2 hour epic that was lost in translation. From what I've read this sub-plot was parodying a famous movie and was hugely successful at the time. The audience was litterally "rolling on the floor" laughing in the theaters. Then there's me sitting my bedroom with a blank expression on face. I'm not apart of the culture so I can't accurately gauge the relevancy of this plot point. But as a non-partisan movie go-er, it lost me for a good chunk of that mid-section. Whether or not this aspect of the film was popular and successful doesn't change the fact that's it's uneven. But I digress...

One thing I always thought was interesting about Bollywood films is that despite whether they're horror or romance or action, first and foremost they are Bollywood films. There will always be signature song and dance routines and you can bet that you're butt will be in that chair for a minimum of 2 1/2 hours. This isn't a bad thing, I just find it interesting that in the past century the genre has been tweaked a little this way or a little that way and modernized for sure but has never really strayed from the formula.

Aarti Gupta was a total babe and I love all of her clothes in the movie!

While on the subject of clothes...

THIS GUY.

And I can't move on from this subject before I mention...

Samri's FANTASTIC bedazzled wolf jacket. I suspect this jacket had something do with his tough guy demon persona. It HAS to be related. This is some Kenneth Anger shit.

I love the rural aspects of Bollywood horror. There's a real sense of isolation there. To my foreign eyes, it's exotic, alluring and dangerous. I can't discredit the fact that at times Purana Mandir was legitimately creepy. All humor and dancing aside, the atmosphere is really something and for the Ramsay brothers first serious attempt at horror, they did a damn fine job and most importantly, they gave India a monster. Samri.

I still prefer Bandh Darwaza slightly. Less comedy, less dance numbers, more straight up horror and I still get to see Ajay Agarwal be a total creep face. I think by then they had honed their art, although I'm sure many would disagree. But the influence of Purana Mandir cannot be denied. It's a landmark film and once I got over my Westernized need to be constantly entertained, I really dug it.