Khopdi – The Skull (1999)

Recently returned from India with a suitcase full of desi schlock horror, I was feeling very pleased indeed. Most of the fodder looked dire at the very least, but somehow memories of the last atrocity fade remarkably quickly when confronted with the lurid cover art of something called Khopdi.

Everything about the VCD suggests that within lies yet another steaming turd of celluloid excrement featuring fat men wearing masks purchased from the local bargain-bin Halloween costume shop while chasing brain-dead, overweight girls in and out of showers and bedrooms.

Remarkably, the film manages to live down to those expectations.

Proceedings begin with a respectable middle-aged housewife being overpowered by a gang of exceptionally ugly, greasy villains, including, for once, a female member. The gang ransacks the house in search of money and then proceeds to gang rape the unfortunate woman simply because they can. Sadly, the lone female member of the gang declines to participate, thereby depriving the film of whatever distinction it may otherwise have achieved.

The frumpy housewife eventually succumbs to her injuries and the gang dispose of her body in a shallow grave.

Naturally, it is not long before a mysterious woman begins seducing the rapists one by one.

There is, however, a twist.

Whenever she prepares to exact her vengeance, she sprouts what appears to be a particularly unsightly mixture of rice pudding and porridge. Curiously, this alarming growth manifests itself exclusively on her face and hands. Having thus transformed herself into something resembling a badly prepared dessert, she proceeds to frighten her victims to death.

At least one assumes they die of fright.

Possibly they perish from the stench.

It is difficult to say because no actual violence ever occurs.

Later in the film she returns wearing an astonishingly cheap rubber skull mask, the sort of thing purchased by aspiring horror fans at the age of five from a market stall. This apparently explains the title.

Khopdi.

The skull itself is about as frightening as a plastic lunchbox and appears in some of the most embarrassing scenes the genre has yet produced.

To give credit where it is due, however, the film is genuinely frightening.

Not because of the monster.

Not because of the story.

But because of its sheer awfulness.

Indeed, the most horrifying aspect of Khopdi is the realization that it is merely one of dozens of similarly hideous productions spawned in the aftermath of the Ramsay Brothers’ decline.

Ram Gopal Varma’s brand of horror, meanwhile, has become increasingly dependent upon recent Japanese and Korean chillers and is rapidly becoming as redundant as the endless Grudge sequels. Indian horror desperately needs a new direction because the current alternatives are not encouraging.

Khopdi is a genuinely painful viewing experience that only the most dedicated sadomasochist could possibly derive pleasure from. It is not quite the worst horror film ever made.

But it is certainly close enough to make one nervous.