Daayan (1998)

Daayan opens with one of the most gloriously dysfunctional honeymoon sequences ever committed to cinema.

Angel-faced Tony proudly escorts his stunning new bride Julie toward the bedroom, nervously knocking back a double whisky for courage before insisting she join him. What follows is an extraordinary display of overenthusiastic foreplay as Julie writhes in escalating ecstasy, fully expecting her husband to carry matters triumphantly toward their natural conclusion.

Unfortunately, Tony abruptly runs out of steam.

Julie, left in a state of catastrophic disappointment, quickly abandons diplomacy and launches into a savage verbal assault, accusing her new husband of impotence, deception, and being a “namard” and “hijra” in one of the most astonishing honeymoon collapses in cinematic history.

Humiliated beyond endurance, Tony responds with admirable restraint by dousing her in petrol while his approving family watches on and then setting her ablaze.

The following day, the police are conveniently satisfied that Julie perished in a tragic bathroom short-circuit accident.

Naturally, Tony’s family immediately insist he remarry because, according to sacred desi family protocol, younger siblings apparently cannot proceed with their own weddings until the elder brother settles down properly.

Enter Lily — a glamorous, “open-minded” young woman supposedly better suited to Tony’s delicate circumstances.

Soon enough, the second honeymoon arrives, complete with yet another spectacularly energetic round of foreplay. Yet once again, when the decisive moment finally arrives, Tony proves tragically incapable of fulfilling his matrimonial duties.

To her credit, Lily reacts with extraordinary maturity.

“Main bohot adjusting qism ki larki hoon,” she explains reassuringly, promising they will somehow make the marriage work regardless.

Tony breathes a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, the following morning his sister interrupts breakfast to casually inform him that Lily is currently upstairs making out with another man in the marital bedroom.

Tony storms upstairs to discover a handsome young stud indeed enthusiastically “assisting” his bride with the adjustments. Attempting to assert dominance, Tony attacks the intruder only to discover the fellow is apparently a martial arts expert who promptly beats the living daylights out of him.

Enraged and humiliated yet again, Tony eventually electrocutes Lily in revenge for her extracurricular adjustment programme.

Thus, within days, Tony has managed to murder two wives.

At this point even Tony himself begins feeling slightly uneasy about the situation and begs his mother never to force him into marriage again, fearing the guilt may eventually drive him insane.

There is, rather poignantly, an uncomfortable layer of unintended sadness here because actor Raj Kiran later suffered a tragic real-life decline, eventually disappearing from public life amidst reports of severe depression and institutionalisation in America after his career collapsed.

Seeing him starring in something as magnificently deranged as Daayan already feels like witnessing an actor entering difficult twilight years professionally.

But enough psychology.

Because now the witch arrives.

And this is where Daayan truly ascends into greatness.

Deep within a crumbling forest shack resides the resident witch — a gloriously overmade-up occult terror who resembles a fusion between a Ramsay horror villainess and Raven-Symoné after discovering black magic.

Her loyal servant Shaitaan emerges as the film’s undisputed MVP.

Dressed in a spectacular court-jester costume seemingly borrowed from a particularly aggressive episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Shaitaan sports one of the most magnificent rubber monster masks ever seen in low-budget Indian horror cinema.

Possessing immense strength, he spends much of the film punching through human chests and extracting dripping sponge-like hearts for his mistress to feast upon while she cackles maniacally with obvious satisfaction.

Meanwhile Julie rises from the grave clad in flowing white sari attire, wandering about singing mournful revenge songs in true desi ghost tradition as Tony’s family members begin disappearing one by one — their freshly harvested hearts serving as dinner for the wicked witch.

The increasingly suspicious police begin doubting the “bathroom accident” explanations and uncover rumours that the witch has already consumed ninety-seven human hearts.

Once she reaches one hundred, she will supposedly attain immortality and rule the region “like the local Kaptaan.”

Which may be the single greatest supernatural ambition ever written into a horror screenplay.

A man named Peter — whose brother became one of the witch’s earlier victims — suddenly reveals he possesses the ability to see ghosts and promptly appoints himself saviour of mankind. Assisted by Father William and a magical amulet, he joins forces with Tony — yes, the serial wife murderer — in a heroic campaign against Shaitaan and the witch.

The moral alignment becomes somewhat confusing at this stage.

Still, Daayan barrels onward toward an utterly delirious climax involving ghosts, revenge, witchcraft, flying hearts, rubber monsters, and pitched battles between good and evil — albeit with a multiple murderer somehow positioned firmly on the side of righteousness.

And honestly, none of it matters because the film is so magnificently insane that logic simply surrenders.

Daayan is a fabulously awful film — one of those rare cinematic catastrophes that somehow becomes endlessly entertaining through sheer commitment to absurdity. The performances are uniformly enthusiastic, the dialogue often transcendentally ridiculous, and Shaitaan alone deserves cult immortality as one of the great unsung lunatic creations of Indian horror cinema.

For admirers of genuine cinematic atrocities, this film is essential viewing.

Not because it is frightening.

Not because it is good.

But because it reaches levels of delirious nonsense so extraordinary that one can only sit back in awe.

A truly atrocious yet strangely marvellous experience from beginning to end.