Texas Chainsaw Masscre Meets the Taliban
Text by Vijai
Jan 27, 2009
Like most of you, I had thought that the Taliban had a monopoly on gore films from the region, until I stumbled upon Islamabad-based Omar Ali Khan’s masterful ‘Zibahkhana’, Pakistan’s first horror film. Released in 1997, the landmark pulp flick is a Taliban-version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a burqa-clad wearing serial killer chasing down five city slickers lost in the woods on their way to a rock concert. Set to Pakistani rock & dark, Bollywoodesque overtures, the slaughterhouse debut uses Pakistani’s already-creepy backgrounds and Jihadist cast of characters, and throws buckets of blood upon them, with body parts—courtesy of Lahore’s butcher shops—flying in every direction meanwhile. Think of all those Taliban videos of women being beaten for adultery, and children lopping off men’s heads, and then imagine those characters doused in blood & chasing terrified teens through a forest, similar in feel to those wild border regions where US drones drop bombs to snuff out Al-Qaeda operatives, and you get the picture.
Check out the trailer for the film here
Interestingly enough, the film’s 45 year old eloquent director, Omar Ali Khan, who studied in the States, runs a cult ice-cream parlor (inspired by an independent ice-cream outlet in Boston) in Islamabad called “Hotspot”. I-Scream, huh! Their innocuous ice-cream parlor is also a high temple to horror: it publishes its own horror magazine, Scream, and funds Omar Ali’s slaughterhouse ventures. Its entire interior is also postered wall to wall with cult B-film posters, and the soundtrack you bet would give even Freddie Kruger a sweet tooth. You can check out their brilliant website (http://www.thehotspotonline.com/hotspot/main.htm), which is also a trove of information on subcontinental horror/pulp/trash and other genres.
Thanks to Bangalorean writer Achal Prabhala for having turned me onto Lollywood horror.