|
 Hell’s
Ground (Zibahkhana – 2007)
R1 / NTSC DVD
TLA Releasing / 2008
Directed by Omar Ali Khan
Written by Omar Ali Khan
Cast: Ashfaq Bhatti, Sultan Billa, Osman Khalid Butt, Rubya
Chaudhry, Rooshanie Ejaz & Rehan
Review by Brian Harris
Five Pakistani teens lie to their parents, hit the road and
head out to see Pakistan’s hottest new music group but
they’ll go through Hell and back before reaching their
destination! When the group is faced with flesh-eating
zombies and a mace-wielding, burqa-wearing psycho, they must
work together to find their way out of the deadly forest or
end up sold as meat for tourists!
This was just beautiful! Not only was this Pakistan’s first
splatter film but it was a GOOD splatter film! It had
everything from cross-dressing cannibal freaks to
flesh-gobbling mutant zombies infected by a mysterious
virus! What really hooked me though was the authenticity of
Hell’s Ground, it was an honest-to-goodness Pakistani
production, not some weak-kneed American smell-alike slasher
clone. Omar Ali Khan’s characters face real issues
confronted by Muslim youth today, including their struggle
to maintain their individuality while also doing their best
to honor some of the strict traditions of their families.
This flick felt real, honest and it was fun to boot!
No jokin’, I haven’t had chills run down my spine during a
zombie sequence since Fulci’s Zombie and Khan’s zombie
sequences gave me a full-blown case of ‘em! I actually
played one sequence over and over again just taking in all
the freakin’ awesome zombies! Everything from the throbbing
score to the shambling guru just smacked of Italian gore and
Romero’s best work. Lovely.
Now, the film wasn’t perfect. Khan mixes zombies and
backwoods cannibals and, in my opinion, didn’t mix them all
that well. I wanted more zombies until the psycho shows up,
then I wanted more psycho until the next zombie showed up!
The balance between the two just wasn’t effective enough for
me. You get what you get though. Hopefully Khan’s next
effort focuses more attention on one or the other instead of
both. |
