When Mini-Reviews Attack! Day 1: Pyaasi Bhootni

Truth in advertising. 

I do not remember what possessed me—possibly one of the monsters you will see in the images below—to buy a 3-in-1 horror DVD. I frighten very easily, but somehow Bollywood horror, at least the B-grade and below kinds, don't scare me and instead I can focus on the always delightfully awful acting, sound design, and costumes. 

Allow me to attempt to narrate the story of Pyaasi Bhootni—my first-ever Kanti Shah film, by the way (no, I haven't seen Gunda, and yes, I want to see Gunda)—which of course does not have subtitles, so we'll just play along. It is a dark and stormy night, and this girl is sitting around her  mansion in some kind of boobariffic top (as one does) when she is attacked by a sort of skeleton monster in a black brocade coat. Somehow in the struggle she rips off his mask

but he manages to kill her anyway. He cackles on about being the head of the estate.

But what's this?

She's back for revenge (or possibly some other dead woman is out for revenge on her behalf)? Awesome! She can strangle you so hard your eyes bleed? 

Awesomer! Later, her sister (?) (played by Sapna, I think) runs into some guy (?) in the graveyard filled with crosses (are we in Goa?). She brings him inside,

they cuddle, and he drugs her drink and rapes her. He is in cahoots with this other guy (guy 1 is on the right, guy 2 is on the left, and my goodness don't they look like innocent little lambs), I guess because they want the house? Shrug.

Sister does not seem to be wary of this guy, and even Helen herself does not know why, because he is clearly a creep of the first order. I mean, look at his shirt. Avenging ghosty lady (AGL) likes to watch the date rape, which gives her an extra layer of freakiness.

The guys eventually kill the sister and bury her in the same graveyard, which is probably not a good idea.

Guy 2 has a bunch of friends who also come to the mansion, and, for reasons that are unclear to me, AGL takes them out one by one as well, though not before I get to admire their ishtyle. If you were not already smitten with this specimen of oiled-up masculinity because of his hair, I will ask you to pay special attention to his tough-guy bandana wrap on his right hand. He's also sporting overalls, if that fans your flames any. 

One of this crew is wearing red shorts, red garters, and red...I can't tell if they're thigh-high boots or socks or what, but they are tacky to the nth degree, and I love them.

In addition to strangling people, AGL throws a lot of punches, sometimes from very, very far across the room.

She kills all of them, including date rapist, whose demise is accompanied by satisfying irony.

This is the kind of thing I would expect to read about on Teleport City or The Horror!?. The latter was very helpful when I was writing about the similarly amazing films of Harinam Singh a few months ago, and what he said to me then is, I think, applicable here: there are at least a few of the standard elements of low-budget horror from almost anywhere in the world, namely female skin, horribly-dubbed sex scenes, and violence. I don't know what it says about Shah that he seems to love to film his wife being licked, groped, and molested by such disgusting characters.

Bizarrely, I find myself wishing that this movie were as...I don't know, weird? obsessive? energetically but still very shoddily made? as, say, Shaitani Dracula, a film I am always trying to get people to watch just so they too can witness something I'm still not convinced I actually experienced. I cannot believe I want something to be more like a Harinam Singh film, but there you have it. It started off well, with two awesome monster get-ups in the first few minutes, but it was all downhill from there and is really quite dull after the first few rounds of ghostly killing. While a punching bhootni is pretty cool, and I would not be at all sad to have a miniature plastic version of her, I didn't need to see quite so many repetitions. Pyaasi Bhootni is not fun-trashy. This is not so bad it's good. It's just...bad. 
If you need to see for yourself, I have every confidence it's on the internet for the taking.