Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Shaitani Dracula (2006)



So you think you've seen it? Well, fuck that. You haven't "seen it all" until you've seen Harinam Singh's Shaitani Dracula (the reason why I've written 2006 as the production year is because that's the only year I've found - it looks more like something made '89 or '90), a horror movie so extremely incompetent it actually feels unreal watching it, like it's a parody of "bad" movies - but this is not a spoof. It's a completely serious try at horror and boy, did they fail! This doesn't mean it's not worth watching, it's more the opposite because it manages to be very entertaining between the pointless scenes of people walking around in a big garden for 80 minutes.

Dracula is a chubby dude with moustache and cowboy hat who resides in a big villa. His garden is filled with monsters - female vampires, demons, zombies, a werewolf or two and of course a large number of idiots walks into this garden just this evening and gets attacked by all the monsters and the decide to hook up and destroy Dracula once and for all!

Yeah, that's it. Nothing more. Well, maybe it would be some more layer to this story if there would have been subtitles on the DVD, but somehow I feel it really doesn't matter. This is Shaitani Dracula and it doesn't give a fuck if some Swedish geekosaurus sees it and complains about the script. It's bigger than that. What's strikes me most - except the complete lack of story - is how it manages to fail on every technical level possible. It's like a blind (nothing against those who have a visual impairment) has been setting up the shots and then asked the actors to do what they want for about two minutes and then just use the first and only take.

Just look at the fairy-demon girl. She's flying. Well, she's not flying, she's balancing on something out of frame, and she does the balancing very badly. My guess is that they just put her on top of two boxes who's on top of a wheelchair and then some poor production assistant pushes it over bumpy lawn and everyone think it looks fantastic! I should also mention the duck that kinda takes over one shot, close to the camera - completely out of focus - and stands there (and it looks like someone is lifting it up also), without reason and it looks terrible - as terrible as one of the first shots where a woman is standing in the rain and the rain is just a dude standing just outside the shot holding a hose, and it's very visible that it's just a hose doing the rain on just the spot she's standing on.

My favourite scene in the whole movie - well, the second best scene - is when one of the werewolves is attacking a girl and he's dropping his mask - not just once, but twice, and it's IN the friggin' movie. He just puts it on again and continues the scene. It's like the editor had no idea what's gonna be in a movie or not - just like that scene when two women just stands waiting for someone to say action and then starts acting. It could have worked if it was a weird, slow, dialogue scene - but here on of the women is attacking the other one. Looks odd. Do I even have to add that all the monster make-up just is cheap masks you can buy in the nearest supermarket. The werewolf, for example, has ordinary shoes on under his furcoat-esque costume.

The spectacular final is another classic. It's hard to explain, but imagine a long fight between two crippled and old people, almost in slow-motion, with extreme sound effects for every hit they give each other. I mean man, just see it. Watch it, and then you will understand!

Shaitani Dracula is one of the worst Indian films I've seen - it doesn't mean it's bad or boring - it's just crazy, sloppy, idiotic, moronic, incompetent and crappy! The existing DVD has quality so bad I've seen snuff movies in better quality! ;) 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Dracula is a chubby dude with moustache and cowboy hat who resides in a big villa."

Wait....what???!!!


"What's strikes me most - except the complete lack of story - is how it manages to fail on every technical level possible."

Stuff like this is awesome....


"It's like the editor had no idea what's gonna be in a movie or not"

Films like this probably don´t have editors....maybe an intern doing this during his lunchbreak.


"Shaitani Dracula is one of the worst Indian films I've seen"

But I´m glad you wrote a review of it...this is why you need to keep blogging.

I would never heard of this film otherwise.

Good review ninja, thanks.

Megatron

reeferjournal said...

hahahaha.... awesome review and yes, a truly horrible movie. Movies like these are carted around villages in India and shown in travelling tent cinemas. if they go on to become successful then they get a VCD release and a DVD release only happens if it reaches relative blockbuster heights or if the mainstream gets to know of it. Anyway, if interested in how these incompetent no budget Indian films are made, then i would suggest the documentary "Supermen of malegaon" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1479380/

Ninja Dixon said...

Thank you and thank you again, because I just went to ebay and bought myself a copy of Supermen of Malegaon! :D

reeferjournal said...

Great! Looking forward to the review :)

Anonymous said...

where can i get this? a vcd or dvd?
i need a link to a store, any help?

Ninja Dixon said...

You can sometimes find it at www.induna.com - both on DVD and VCD. It's out of stock right now.

Anonymous said...

Wait till you watch 'Khooni Dracula' and that fails on every level.

Ninja Dixon said...

I can't imagine it can be even worse! :)