Hawa (2003)

Some good news and then some bad news; the good news first. With the arrival of Hawa and Saaya following soon after the successful Bhoot, it seems that not a month goes by in Bollywood these days without some pseudo-horror film hitting cinemas, making a welcome change from the diet of “Archies”-style MTV piffle that is so prevalent these days.

The other good news is that arguably Bollywood’s finest current actress is cast in the central role of Sanjana and, thirdly, that the running time is just two hours. Lastly, there are no songs at all. Expectations were therefore fairly high for this supposedly serious and dark horror film featuring a self-touted theme of “sexual violence and supernatural terror”. Knowing audiences will spot the early “homage” to The Shining as there are aerial shots of a car winding its way up some lonely-looking snow-speckled roads accompanied by the very same music that opened Kubrick’s horror epic. A woman whose marriage has fallen apart is moving to a remote town near the Tibetan border with her two young daughters and her adopted gay brother (he has shirtless Hritik Roshan posters adorning his walls!).

There is considerable panic along the way when the car gets stuck on a precarious bridge and an eerie wind kicks up as it finally winds its way towards the new residence. The next day, even more mysteriously, Sanjana spots an old Tibetan hag staring at her. The woman hobbles over to her antique shop and hands her a trinket, insisting she keep it because it is of great importance. Taken aback and not understanding the relevance of the old woman’s words, Sanjana promptly sells the amulet to some tourists with very odd accents who seem to fall in love with the object before even looking at it.

The children are delighted upon arriving at the spacious house and Sanjana too is satisfied that they appear happy in their new surroundings. However, it is not long before weird things start happening. On the first morning after their arrival, Sanjana is woken by a congregation of locals chanting religious hymns outside while apparently attempting to exorcise a spot that had been struck by lightning during the previous night’s storm.

A night or so later Tramp, the family German Shepherd, goes bounding off only to be discovered much later by Sanjana’s brother. His relief is soon replaced by horror when the dog suddenly turns on him with vicious intent. Remember the dog in Signs? A few nights later Tramp’s condition appears to have deteriorated even further because when Sanjana approaches him he explodes into a frenzy and launches himself through the air like a catapult aimed directly at her throat. Fortunately, being a spirited modern Indian lass who presumably works out regularly, she manages to dodge the beast and instead the poor mutt lands on a shard of glass with suitably deflating consequences.

The children are initially upset by the loss of their beloved Tramp but life goes on. Later, in the very same spot where poor Tramp was impaled, a bewildering cluster of Blair Witch-style stone formations appears for absolutely no apparent reason. Sanjana is suitably spooked, no doubt having recently watched The Blair Witch Project herself. Her troublesome car then decides to start flying around the Tibetan countryside at breakneck speed without the inconvenience of a driver. It soon becomes obvious that there is a disgruntled spirit in the house because doors open by themselves, beds rumble like they did in The Exorcist and assorted furniture begins hurling itself around the place.

Then poor Sanjana is attacked and brutally raped by an unseen force that she claims can be felt but not seen. It is a long and deeply uncomfortable scene shot with an alarming degree of enthusiasm by a director who displays a frightening grasp of smut. A National Award-winning actress is made to writhe around for what feels like an eternity while the camera lurches back and forth in a none-too-subtle enactment of a violent assault. It is a stomach-turning sequence and one cannot help but wonder how Tabu found herself in material this sleazy.

A few minutes later she is assaulted again by the sex-mad “demon wind”, this time pinned against a wall in another remarkably unpleasant scene. Then, scarcely ten minutes further down the road, we are treated to a third encounter. This time the wind adopts a gentler approach and the audience is informed that Sanjana is actually enjoying the experience, eventually climaxing before being overwhelmed with embarrassment and disgust at herself for responding to the attentions of an evil spirit.

There are some unintentionally hysterical scenes when the randy ghost, unable to control its burgeoning libido, begins disrobing Sanjana in broad daylight, tugging at her sari and pawing at her blouse in the middle of the street. A natty psychiatrist is introduced in an attempt to get to the bottom of Sanjana’s troubles but appears more interested in discussing her sexual cravings than her supernatural predicament. The fellow is an obvious fraud, clearly hoping to become the next man in Sanjana’s life.

When things finally become impossible to ignore, the characters are forced to call upon a trusty Tantrik, albeit one of the new-age, suit-wearing variety who does not carry a trident around with him. Unfortunately his methods are every bit as ridiculous as those of the robust saffron-robed Tantriks we have all grown to know and admire over the years.

The director clearly imagines that by dressing his exorcist in a suit and having him spout his mumbo-jumbo in English he will somehow appear more authentic and modern. The ploy does not work. In fact very little in this film works because it is based on a complete confusion of ideas, borrowing snippets from genre films left and right and creating a bizarre potpourri of nonsense that is often as offensive as it is outright stupid.

The story never begins to hold together. The mysterious Tibetan woman is never explained, nor is the dog’s behaviour, and there is no real thread connecting the various incidents into anything remotely coherent. Right at the end we are given a staggeringly lame explanation for why poor Sanjana became the target of the demonic wind in the first place: apparently because the house she moved into had once been struck by lightning somewhere in the yard. For this reason she is repeatedly raped and ultimately her child is dragged into a netherworld by a goblin-like CGI demon.

What a chaotic mess this film is from beginning to end.

It is probably best not to attempt making sense of it and instead amuse oneself by spotting the various “homages” to better films. Evil Dead appears to be the dominant influence, though there are also elements lifted from Blair Witch, Signs, Evil Dead 2 and even the occasional stock Dracula movie.

One is left wondering why an actress of Tabu’s calibre felt the need to appear in Z-grade garbage like this. Surely her career had not yet plummeted to the stage where she needed to sign up for material that even Mohan Bhakri might have turned his nose up at.

Hawa is essentially a dismal throwback to the special-effects-driven horror films of the mid-1980s, except with a particularly unpleasant sexual edge and special effects that are anything but special.

A bagful of very offensive and thoroughly foul hot wind.