Amavas Ki Raat (1990)

Mohan Bhakri was a director who often liked to mix and match successful horror films from the West in order to concoct his own “original” creations. Unfortunately, ideas were clearly beginning to run short by 1990 when Amavas Ki Raat lumbered onto cinema screens.

The film opens with a wonderfully rotund Shammi Ji enthusiastically chanting away in an effort to persuade Agni Devta to make an appearance. When a few twigs suddenly burst into flame, she is overjoyed. Her saffron-robed Tantrik companion promptly informs her that, through her dedicated efforts, she has now achieved official Tantrik status.

One assumes there was some sort of ceremony involved.

At the same time, the holy man hands Shammi a letter from her younger sister explaining that she has married a beast of a man and is now living a life of utter misery while carrying his child. Shammi immediately sets off to help her sibling, but unfortunately arrives too late. Sunanda, heavily pregnant and thoroughly distraught, manages a few final sobs before expiring dramatically on a footpath.

Shammi swears to save the unborn child through the use of her mystical powers.

This does not go down well.

Her Tantrik mentor becomes extremely agitated, insisting that such powers must never be used to interfere with matters of life and death. To do so, he argues, would be an insult to the entire Tantrik fraternity.

Shammi remains unimpressed by these objections.

Confident in her abilities, she proceeds anyway and successfully brings the dead woman’s child into the world. Triumphantly raising the infant towards the darkened heavens, she proclaims that he will one day avenge his mother and protect women from those who abuse and exploit them.

Sadly, things do not quite go according to plan.

The child grows up to become the dreaded Amavas Ki Raat Killer, a homicidal maniac who strikes every new moon night with alarming enthusiasm. Worse still, instead of protecting women from predatory men, he appears to be butchering women whenever the opportunity arises.

Clearly somebody misunderstood the assignment.

Kiran Kumar plays the determined police officer assigned to hunt down the killer. Eventually the authorities manage to corner and kill the marauding psychopath.

The problem is that the murders continue.

Clearly something fishy is going on.

Bhakri attempts to blend several horror subgenres into one giant cinematic stew. The result is something resembling Jack the Ripper meets Friday the 13th meets a zombie movie, with a touch of Dracula thrown in—minus the bloodsucking—and a healthy helping of local Tantrik sorcery to complete the recipe.

On paper it sounds intriguing.

In practice, however, the ideas feel badly recycled. By 1990, Bhakri appeared to be scraping the bottom of the horror barrel. Every scare, shock, and revelation unfolds exactly as expected, often several scenes before it actually happens.

A substantial amount of running time is also sacrificed to the usual excruciating comedy antics courtesy of Jagdeep and Rakesh Bedi. At one point they even participate in a song involving chickens and pigeons.

As one does.

Kiran Kumar attacks his role with such sincerity that viewers may begin suspecting he is hiding some dark secret of his own that will emerge during the final reel. Huma Khan contributes a few suitably saucy dance numbers along the way.

Manek Irani is cast in the crucial role of the killer and unfortunately comes off rather badly. The poor fellow was essentially a stuntman who gradually graduated to speaking parts during the 1980s, becoming a familiar face as a henchman, second villain, or general bruiser. He tries desperately hard to appear menacing and deranged here, but thanks largely to Bhakri’s uninspired direction he succeeds only in looking like a complete prat charging around with an exaggerated grin plastered across his face.

The film also suffers from a severe shortage of gore.

More importantly, it lacks suspense, which is fatal for a slasher movie. The carefully orchestrated shocks that normally form the backbone of the genre are stale, predictable, and entirely ineffective. Nothing catches the viewer off guard.

The only scenes that linger in the memory involve Shammi Ji herself, gloriously demented in her Tantrik attire, ranting and raving her way through the film with admirable conviction.

Everything else feels tired.

There is little spark, no real spice, and precious sense of excitement. Worse still, fans of classic Ramsay-style monsters may find themselves longing for the hairy beasts from Haveli or Tahkhana. Compared to those wonderful creatures, the Jason-inspired killer featured here simply doesn’t cut it.

It is hardly surprising that the great Bollywood horror boom was nearing the end of its life. Films like this left a distinctly stale aftertaste and demonstrated that the formula was running dangerously low on fresh ideas.

Very soon, audiences had simply had enough.