Ghutan (2007)
Cast: Aryan Vaid, Heena Rehman, Tarun Arora, Gufi Paintal, Shahbaaz Khan
Director: Shyam Ramsay
Synopsis: Shunned millionaire bitch from hell turns dead nasty as she attempts hideous revenge for being buried alive by formerly adoring hubby! ("burid" alive," says the poster!!! Indeed so.)
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

Ghutan is a next-generation Ramsay horror movie, very much old wine served in a new bottle. The film opens with a hunky husband and his accomplice burying his wife alive while she screams desperately for help in a genuinely horrifying opening sequence.

It soon transpires that the murdered Catherine is the wealthy owner of a successful fashion empire, where her husband is merely an employee with an increasingly roving eye. Apart from her devoted maid Nancy and the occasional visit from Uncle Tom from Goa, Catherine appears to have nobody else in her life. As she senses her husband's interest rapidly fading, she responds with increasingly foul-mouthed tirades, raving and ranting like the embittered harridan she has become.

Seething with frustration, unable—and perhaps more importantly, unwilling—to satisfy her, Ravi endures her daily verbal assaults while Catherine increasingly seeks refuge in alcohol, which only serves to fuel her descent into permanent hysteria.

She takes to getting paralytically drunk before pounding away at the piano night after night, somehow never managing to hit a wrong note despite her spectacular level of inebriation. Forever moping around the house in a state of self-inflicted misery, Catherine would test the patience of almost any husband. It therefore comes as little surprise that Ravi, played by former Mr. India title-holder Aryan Vaid, becomes increasingly reluctant to return home.

It is now abundantly clear that the only reason he remains married to Catherine is her considerable wealth, generous salary and ability to finance his rather comfortable lifestyle.

Ravi has meanwhile set his sights on his attractive new secretary, Priya, but much to his surprise she proves rather less accommodating than he had anticipated. Priya possesses both morals and principles and knows exactly where to draw the line. Sadly, her greedy mother sees matters rather differently, preferring that her daughter bring home the dollars so that she can finally treat herself to the liposuction and Brazilian butt lift she so clearly feels she deserves.

Eventually, Catherine's relentless drunken tirades push Ravi beyond breaking point. In a fit of rage he backhands her, sending her crashing over the staircase railing and onto the glass coffee table below with spectacular consequences. (Think Lee Remick's unforgettable fall in The Omen...well, perhaps not quite.)

Believing her dead, Ravi and his partner decide to dispose of the body in a shallow grave. Unfortunately, just as they prepare to bury her, Catherine suddenly springs back to life and creates one almighty racket before they hastily bundle her into a coffin, nail the lid shut and leave her buried alive.

Of course, anyone familiar with Indian horror cinema already knows the rules. Wronged women buried in shallow graves rarely remain there for very long.

Before long, Catherine's bloodstained, scarred corpse is back, spreading terror among her murderous husband and his accomplices. Meanwhile, Nancy, the loyal maid, has witnessed rather more than is healthy, matters become further complicated by the intervention of an all-knowing priest, and Uncle Tom arrives from Goa smelling a rat—or perhaps more accurately, a dead one.

The story moves along at a pleasing pace and, thankfully, keeps both the songs and comic interludes to an absolute minimum. Shyam Ramsay directs this supernatural revenge potboiler with commendable efficiency. Unfortunately, the makeup effects are distinctly underwhelming, and Catherine's undead appearance really ought to have been considerably more frightening than she was while still alive.

The acting is gloriously hammy but energetic enough to keep proceedings ticking over nicely. The soundtrack is relentlessly noisy, while the torrent of abusive language occasionally becomes rather startling. Ghutan never comes close to matching the likes of Raaz, which it clearly hopes to emulate in certain respects, but it remains reasonably entertaining horror fodder despite lacking much of the wonderfully clunky old-school charm that made the classic Ramsay productions of the 1970s and 1980s so memorable.

Aryan Vaid is impressive both physically and dramatically, while Tarun Arora makes an enjoyably sleazy partner in crime. Heena Rehman, meanwhile, shrieks with such sustained enthusiasm that her performance occasionally recalls Bilawal Bhutto's impassioned descriptions of enraged Sindhi workers rising against injustice.

Fans hoping for the wonderfully atmospheric, delightfully ramshackle style of vintage Ramsay horror may well leave disappointed, but judged on its own terms Ghutan remains a reasonably enjoyable little chiller. One cannot help wondering whether it also established some sort of Bollywood record for the sheer number of times the words "bitch" and "bastard" are venomously hurled across the soundtrack.

A shame, then, that the makeup and gore never quite rise to the same enthusiastic standard.