BA_Harrison
Hindi horror Veerana opens with the hanging of an evil witch, Nakita (Roy Kamal), executed by Noble Thakur Mahendra Pratap (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) for feeding on the blood of locals. Soon after, Nakita's body is taken by her loyal followers, led by evil magician Baba (Rajesh Vivek), who performs a ritual that allows the witch's spirit to possess the body of Jasmine (Baby Swati), Thakur's ten year old daughter.Years later, Jasmine (now played by the comely Jasmin) is still controlled by Nakita, and proceeds to exact her revenge on her unsuspecting father, and his family and friends, including his pretty niece Sahila (Sahila Chaddha), her hunky new pal Hemant (Hemant Birje), wannabe horror film director Hitcock (comedy relief Satish Shah), and servant Raghu (Gulshan Grover).Clocking in at 135 minutes, I reckon that Veerana could have done with being at least 40 minutes shorter (although a running time of over two hours seems to be standard for this type of film); however, I still have no hesitation in recommending it to fans of the weird and wacky, the film delivering a huge helping of bonkers Bollywood excess, with, of course, a few song and dance routines along the way.In addition to its genuinely unsettling witch, who boasts bulging red eyes and an evil grimace, Veerana delivers a little titillation (both Jasmin and Sahila showing as much skin as is permitted in such films), some really cheesy fight action, lots of hokey sets filled with tacky dime store Halloween props, strange rock-headed beings (whose stony noggins explode in the finale), impalement by golden 'Om' symbol, and a couple of truly inexplicable 'WTF?' moments (including a child playing a middle-aged man smoking a pipe, and a dead cat pulling Hitcock into the ground). Special effects are generally cheap and unconvincing, with the two best shots lifted from a couple of Western horror movies (the dog with a human head from the 1978 version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, and the erupting eyeballs from David Cronenberg's Scanners), but the lack of technical prowess only adds to the fun.
superindrajit
Shyam Ramsay and his family are the masters of Indian horror flicks. There movies have a variety of horror types, from witches to vampires to ghost horror types. There movies are usually superb and thrilling except a few like Purana Mandir which was crap. There movies do have violence but never use violence as a horror tool like most crappy English horror flicks like Amusment. Coming to this movie, it is very well directed and the horror is timed very well. The actors are very good except Hemant Birje, he overacts regularly. Jasmin was the best, her horror look was a million times better than any horror looks in other horror movies. Heck, it even beat Revathi in Raat which was also damn scary. The rest were also good, no one did bad or mediocre. There were some disturbing scenes(gory or violent scenes) but the movie is still U. The editing and final touches were well made but the climax could have been better. But, this is not much of a big affection for the movie. This movie is the best work of Shyam Ramsay with no doubts. It beats violent horror flicks like Friday the 13th, Elm Street. Overall, another great classic horror flick from the late 80's.
Kurt McCoy (SheliakBob)
"VEERANA" is one of the best of the Indian horror films I've managed to find, to date. Like the other Ramsay Brothers productions I've watched, this one has the same Bava-like use of colored gels mixed with atmospheric sets. There's an over-the-top evil Tantric Priest who might have stepped directly out of an Indian horror comic-book, a wonderful Femme Fatale monster who preys upon the predictable weaknesses of men, plenty of fight scenes--of varying qualities, and some genuine demon-possession/monster chills. The song and dance numbers are relatively easy to take, compared to other films in the genre. Overall, this has been my favorite film to show to friends as an introduction to the Indian horror genre since I bought it.
