PURANA MANDIR: THE HAUNTED TEMPLE (1984)
Label: Mondo Macabro
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 144 Minutes 17 Seconds
Audio: Hindi DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Tulsi & Shyam Ramsay
Cast: Mohnish Behl, Arti Gupta, Puneet Issar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar
Bollywood terror Purana Mandir (1984), directed by Tulsi & Shyam Ramsay (Veerana: Vengeance of the Vampire), opens with a prologue set two centuries earlier than the events of the main film, wherein Raja Harriman Singh (Trilok Kapoor, Shart) and his daughter Rupali (Vishakha Chotu, Kabrastan) are travelling when they find themselves stranded near Black Mountain after their horse-drawn carriages breaks a wheel. While awaiting repair the daughter wanders off and is attacked by the clawed, demon-magician Saamri (Anirudh Agarwal, Bandh Darwaza) who drains her life force, turning her eyes white and bloodied as she dies, Horror Express-style. The Raja in retaliation amasses a hunting party and the evil magician is captured and killed, but not before uttering a Black Sunday-esque curse against Singh and his descendants, swearing that all the women in his lineage will die during childbirth, his body is then burned and buried in one location while his decapitated head is kept in a trunk guarded by the Holy Trident of Shiva in a temple so that he can never reconstitute himself.
Two centuries later in the mid 1980s Harriman Singh's descendant Sardar (Rajendranath Malhotra, Dak Bangla), a wealthy businessman, and his daughter, Suman (Aarti Gupta, Saamri) are experiencing father/daughter difficulties because she is dating Sanjay (Mohnish Bahl), he says he will not allow it because he is a poor, but in reality he fears the curse of Saamri, which he reveals to his daughter and her boyfriend. The forbidden lovers take it upon themselves to ill-advisedly travel to the ancient temple in the countryside where the head of Saamri was buried to lay the curse to rest once and for all, but of course as good intentioned as they are they're also sort of dipshits, and they end up causing the re-joining of his head and body and the evil magician once against starts sucking the lifeforces of those he encounters.
Also along for the ride is Sanjay's ass-kicking martial arts pal Anand (Puneet Issar, Khooni Murdaa) who does a fair amount of the film's ass-kicking.
A solid Bollywood monster flick for sure, the highlight here is far and away Anirudh Agarwal as the demon-magician Saamri, hairy and clawed, blood-red eye, I dig the effect of the white-eyes when he kills someone, and his ability to possess and turn victims into ping pong eyed zombie minions. I also loved the atmosphere of this one, it has an Italian horror vibe with an obvious Bollywood slant that I vibed with. All is not roses though, the film is damn near two and half hours long, which is certainly a mark against it, but still, I liked it. They manage to cram in five Bollywood musical numbers, all of which were all pretty terrific and well staged, but it does occasionally slow down to a crawl while they explore the romance of the young lovers which is tested by the arrival of a completing love interest, and further elongated with oddball comical subplots that are extraneous. Even still, at the heart of it all this is a pretty dang entertaining evil-magician flick with some tasty Italian styled horror lighting with fog-shrouded scenes, alongside a blood-shower, creepy paintings, a slew eccentric locals, and of course loads of atmospheric scenes of the resurrected Saamri slaughtering fresh victims.
Audio/Video: The film arrives n region-free Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro in 1080p HD framed in 1.37:1 fullscreen, sourced from a 4K scan of the film negative. The source elements were not stored in the best conditions through the years and there's evident damage throughout by way of splotchy green water staining and discoloration, but I thought the majority of it looked quite good with generally strong colors, pleasing blacks, and skin tones that looked accurate. Audio comes by way of Hindi DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The rack is fine, nt the highest fidelity, there's some age-related wear as well, but nothing egregious and the track sounds fine.
The sole extras on this release is a 4-min Introduction to the film by writer Tim Paxton. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided wrap.
Special Features:
- Introduction to the film by writer Tim Paxton(4:07)
Screenshots from the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray:
Extras:
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