Leofwine_draca HELL'S GROUND was a real disappointment for me. I bought it for a couple of reasons, not least the presence of Mondo Macabro main man Pete Tombs serving as producer. Tombs is a guy who has devoted his life to tracking down, enthusing over, and releasing ultra-weird exploitation fare from across the globe, so I was looking forward to seeing what his involvement brought this film. Other than a few in-jokes for fans, including a cameo appearance from the actor who played Dracula in THE LIVING CORPSE, there's nothing.Second was this film's billing as 'Pakistan's first gore film'. I was up for that; what I wasn't expecting was one of those low budget foreign horrors that's content to merely copy American classics of the genre without bringing anything of its own worthy of note. When I think of a Pakistani horror film, I want to see that country's influences: the magic, the mysticism, the eastern philosophy, some local colour and flavour. Instead, we get one of the villains dressed in a burqa, and that's it.The storyline is nothing new. A bunch of uninteresting, interchangeable teenagers get in a camper van and go into the woods, where they fall foul of various evil things. There's a halfway decent zombie attack with the walking undead straight out of a Romero film, as well as a creepy midget, I think it was. That storyline ends, and we meander on to a setup straight out of THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, with a family of murderous hillbillies living out in the woods and slaughtering anyone who comes near. A few cast members are offed and there are some cheapo gore effects, but nothing beyond the run of the mill; even the villain, swinging a ball and chain, reminded me of the Witch-king in RETURN OF THE KING. The low budget hurts this one a lot, and I would have preferred to see the makers produce something with a bit of cultural spin, rather than another lukewarm and forgettably predictable horror outing.

khayaal_e_yaar A BIG THANKS to Mr. Omar Ali Khan for making Zibahkhana. I was fortunate enough to find it on YouTube.The tale is fairly simple at heart. A group of students (heavily resembling die-hard punk and rock fans) go out to attend a music concert. They happen to take a detour but are seriously misguided and end up at a place that is more or less like a zombie land. The dwellers have hideously deformed bodies due to constant consumption of water from a nearby pool that's polluted by chemicals. They manage to save themselves and get caught up in something even worse. But wait! There is something that puts 'Zibahkhana' miles ahead of the other flicks of the slapstick genre....IT'S SCARY!Based on my observations, I have following things to say.The movie is gruesome to the core.The movie has all the elements of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Dawn of the Dead, Cabin Fever and is a perfect slasher that uses the same staple to induce horror that Halloween and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre used. Fear of the unknown.The film is heavily inspired by the heavy rock era of 70s. Its common for the youngsters to get stoned and find themselves miles away from their destination. Alone in the dark!It builds tension step by step and divulges itself to be one of the best horror movies to find place in heart and mind for a long-long time.'Zibahkhana' is capable enough to ensue cult-following. Believe me, that's the impression I've got.It is quite an indigenous creation, hailing directly from Pakistan and I am sure in course of time we will have many good flicks like Zibahkhana from innovative Pakistani directors.I think that the Indian scare whimper directors like R.K. Khanna, R. Mittal, K.I. Sheikh, Jeetendra Chawda etc. should learn something from this movie, because B-grade horror is almost dead in India and is looking for a messiah to revive it once again.

BA_Harrison Hell's Ground, promoted as Pakistan's first gore film, is a co-production from cult UK DVD label Mondo Macabro, who specialise in finding and releasing cinematic oddities from around the world, and Pakistan's Bubonic Films. Knowing that it was designed specifically to appeal to fans of obscure movies does detract from its appeal slightly—after all, cult films should be found, not made to order—but even if this had not been the case, I still doubt that Hell's Ground would have earned itself a permanent place on my shelf of splatter favourites.The story, by the film's director Omar Khan, is a somewhat muddled affair, encompassing ecological issues, zombie horror, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired backwoods terror; the pacing of the film is poor, the action taking an age to get going and ending up as a repetitive succession of chase scenes through a jungle; the characters are simply Asian versions of those seen in an average American slasher—the attractive good girl, the sexy rich bitch, the nice guy, the stoner and the film geek; and as for the blood and guts... well, there is some but it's not all that impressive.Whilst I dig the fact that different nationalities and diverse cultures can be united by a common love for horror, I would love for the next gore film to come out of Pakistan to be a little less influenced by the west, and to live up to its promise of outrageous excessive splatter.5.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

aquamarine_19 This film makes interesting viewing, primarily for its novelty value of a horror film coming out of Islamabad. The story, as you would have read in the numerous other reviews is about a group of teenagers who on their way to a rock concert lose their way and end up encountering zombies and being chased by a mace wielding freak. The gore factor in the film put me off, there's plenty of raw flesh and blood at display here, some of the shots would cringe any sane, humane individual. Apparently, the director takes great pride in this disgusting quality of the film. However, to instill fear in the audience requires much more than probing, poking and twisting of human flesh, intestines etc. And thats where the film doesn't work -- it grosses you out rather than actually scaring you.However, the film does hold your attention in parts, and the acting by the ensemble overall is pretty good. The actor playing the Christian kid and Roshanie Ejaz deserve special mention. Rubiya Chaudry is clearly playing herself here and her comfort level shows on screen. Some of the photography is pretty decent too. However, there was no need for the theatrical vignettes into the family lives of the characters. Towards the end, you do root and feel for Roshanie's character and the credit for that goes entirely to the actor's performance and screen presence as the screen writing here is rank amateurish. Well, the makers probably didn't feel the need to have a taught script given most of Zibahkhana is a zombie-attack or an extended chase sequence.On the whole, this isn't bad if you enjoy watching dead corpses, rotting remains of animals and take pleasure in the more disgusting aspects of this world. Next time, we hope that OAK would use a decent scriptwriter, many of which are to be found in the underutilized Pakistan showbiz scene. And yeah, we need to see more of Rubya and Roshanie.