Aka - Haunted House
This director's debut from Mehmood is a narrative train wreck but then what
can you expect from a film that incorporates pretty much everything into
it. It is a murder mystery with elements of the supernatural, comedy, dancing
skeletons, romance, suspense, horror and of course a number of wonderful
musical numbers. There are times you want to roll your eyes and other times
when you want to applaud. It is all over the place like a runaway car but
I could not stop watching because you never know what will happen next. It
has one of the best comedic haunted house sequences ever that plays like
an Abbott and Costello film on steroids. Mehmood was one of Bollywood's most
famous comedians - often the friend of the hero or he just shows up to do
his comic bit. Being the director though, he gives himself the role of the
hero and even with his slightly goofy looks, it works. He only directed some
eight films but acted in over 200 movies in a lengthy career. The Ramsay
Brothers were still a few years away and Bollywood had only a few horror
films in its history - but if you subtracted the comedy and the music from
this film, you would actually be left with a decent horror film.
It begins with a man falling down the steps to his death in his house. His
wife goes streaking out without even checking to see if her husband is alive
with her small son. She runs and runs and disappears. Jump ahead fifty years
and three brothers are now living in the same house with a couple of very
scary looking servants - one looks like a vampire, one looks as if she died
years ago and no one bothered to bury her. One of the brothers is stark raving
man and thinks everyone is trying to kill him. And someone is. The older
brother gets a telegram that his daughter Rekha is coming to visit. His car
blows up on the way to the airport and he is killed. The crazy brother is
found hanging in a room. A nice homecoming for Rekha. Rekha is played by
Tanuja Samarth, from one of those prominent filmi families. Her father was
a director, her mother an actress, she married into the Mukherjee family
and her daughter is Kajol. And Kajol married a well-known actor. This is
how it is in Bollywood. Almost a caste system.
Ok, where was I? Oh yes, two dead brothers and the remaining one Shyamlal
(Nasir Hussain) tells everyone that he is next. And then his niece. Which
makes her feel great. They move out of the house to an apartment but the
gaslighting follows them. Phone calls telling her she will die soon. Doors
being locked. Smoke coming into the room. She spends a lot of the film looking
scared out of her wits and screaming. She does that well. Fortunately, she
finds time to go to the Beach Club to sing a song in a competition and is
annoyed when she is beaten by Mohan (Mehmood) and his band who do a twist
number, suspiciously sounding like Twist Like You Did Last Summer. He falls
for her and she wants nothing to do with him. A typical Bollywood romance.
He comes in handy though when she thinks she will be killed. Mohan runs a
youth organization in which nearly everyone looks over 30 - certainly he
does - their rule is don't fall in love with a woman. They all decide to
protect Rekha. At one point he dresses up as a woman pretending to be a model
and looks surprisingly like Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot. In another instance
the gang protects an old man from another gang and it turns into a mild version
of West Side Story for a minute as the gangs dance. In that great haunted
house sequence Mohan and his friend Talkie go out to the Haunted House to
see what is going on. Talkie is played by R.D. Burman who also composes the
music to this film and many classics. One of the best. Cute seeing him here
doing the Costello part. Skeletons come out of everywhere. And begin to dance.
They join them. When the killer is finally revealed, it makes absolutely
no sense. None. Zippo. Nada. But that is really a minor point. Getting there
is surprisingly fun. It is up on YouTube with subs.
