PURANI PEHCHAN (1971)

PURANI PEHCHAN (Old Encounter)

Director: Kewal Mishra

Cast: Sanjeev Kumar, Tanuja, Madan Puri, Tarun Bose, Bela Bose, Shammi, Johnny Whiskey, Dhanraj, Dilip Dutt, Sangeeta, Rafia Sultana, Sushma, B.B. Bhalla.

Sandhya (Tanuja) suffers from recurring nightmares in which she is stalked by a hideous, deformed witch. Eventually she begins to see the witch even when awake, tormenting her even further.

At a party, Sandhya mistakes a beggar for the deformed creature of her dreams. She stabs the woman and is forced into an asylum for the criminally insane where she meets with a tragic death.

Mourning their loss, Sandhya’s uncle (Tarun Bose), fiancé (Sanjeev Kumar) and best friend (Bela Bose) begin to see her ghost roaming about. Is it their imagination? Or has Sandhya returned to haunt them?

Bela Bose in PURANI PEHCHAN

HATIMTAI (1956)

HATIMTAI

Wadia Brothers (1956)

Director: Homi Wadia

Special Effects: Babubhai Mistry

Cast: Shakila, Jairaj, Meenaxi, Naina, Krishna Kumari, Kamal, Menaka, S.N. Tripathi, B.M. Vyas, Sheikh, Vasantrao, Qamar, Dalpat, W.M. Khan, Shree Bhagwan, Habib Sandow, Sardar Mansoor, Master Paku, Abdullah. Nagpal.

In order to restore life to Gul Pari, a celestial being who has been turned to stone, Hatim Tai (Jairaj) agrees to take a journey in which he must solve seven difficult riddles. Along the way he discovers living heads hanging from a tree; an undersea kingdom; a flesh eating giant; tree monsters; an evil magician; and a beautiful fairy who helps guide him to safety.

Shakila played a dual role in Hatimtai, as the cursed fairy Gul Pari and the helpful fairy Husna Pari. She had recently been seen as the female lead opposite Dev Anand, in the classic noir C.I.D, but after the success of Hatimtai, she was typecast in fantasy films and forever relegated to B-grade cinema.

Shakila

CHAND KI DUNIYA (1959)

Chand Ki Duniya (Moon World)

Filmistan (1959)

Director/Special Effects: Mohan Sinha

Cast: Sohan Kapila, Nalini Chonkar, Ram Avtar, P. Kailash, Badri Prasad, Manohar Gir, Indira Bhansal, Husn Banu, Jugnu, Bazid Khan. B.M. Vyas, Rajeshwar Singh, M. Rashid, Vijay Kumar, Neena, Noor.

Guiding his private plane through a mountainous region, Prince Badam (Sohan Kapila) and his servant Moti (Ram Avtar) make an emergency landing on an icy hillside. While waiting to be rescued they come across a group of beautiful maidens who are frolicking in the snow. Badam falls for the leader of the group, Chandrika (Nalini Chonkar), but learns that she and the others are from outer space, and must soon return to their lunar home.

Sohan Kapila and Ram Avtar receive a grand tour of the Moon in Chand Ki Duniya

Back in his kingdom, Badam orders a rocket be built that will take him and Moti to the Moon so that he can see his sweetheart and bring her back to earth. At first he is welcomed by the Moon’s ruler (B.M. Vyas) as a friend, but a suspicious military leader (P. Kailash), decides that Badam is an enemy that must be destroyed.

Nalini Chonkar stars in Chand Ki Duniya

Saboot (1980)

Saboot (Evidence)

Bharat Pictures (1980)

Directors: Tulsi Ramsay, Shyam Ramsay

Producers: Raaj Bewaja, G.H. Navani

Action: Abdul Gani

Cast: Navin Nischol, Vidya Sinha, Kajal Kiran, Prem Chopra, Vinod Mehra, Padma Khanna, Om Shivpuri, Rajendranath, Paintal, Narendranath, Mohan Sherry, Sudhir Dalvi, Amar Mrudula, Roopesh Kumar, Gauri Varma, Maruti, Mohan Choti, Trilok Kapoor, Raj Kishore, Raj Mehra, Darshan, Rajan Kapoor, Sheikh, Birbal, Azad.

A crooked businessman (Prem Chopra) forces Dharamdas (Trilok Kapoor) to sign over the ownership of his mill, then instructs his goons to kill the man. Just as they are disposing of the body, they realize that the old man is still alive, but proceed to bury him anyway.

A few years later, as Dharamdas’ family continues to mourn their missing patriarch’s disappearance, his decaying corpse returns and begins to kill off those who murdered him.

Jungle Ka Sher (2004)

Jungle Ka Sher (Lion of the Jungle)

Pali Films (2004)

Director: Kanti Shah

Cast: Amit Pachori, Sapna, Anil Nagrath, Robert, Randhir Singh, Vinod Tripathi.

Jungle man (Amit Pachori) has his hands full fighting off two angry natives — Gorilla (Randhir Singh) and Nagina (Sapna), while also trying to stop an evil poacher (Anil Nagrath).

Pyaasi Nagin (2004)

Pyaasi Nagin (Thirsty Snake)

Director: Kishan Shah

Producer: Shakuntala

Cast: Satnam Kaur, Vinod Tripathi, Junior Prem Chopra, Junior Shatrughan Sinha, Raza Murad, Jyoti Rana.

Plot: While in the jungle to research magical snakes for a book, Professor Sunil (Vinod Tripathi) saves the life of a mysterious stranger. With gratitude, the stranger promises to reveal the secret of the ‘ichadari naag” (shape-shifting serpent) to the professor on the next moonless night. That evening the professor witnesses the union of the stranger with a beautiful jungle girl (Satnam Kaur) who turns out to be a female snake in human form.

Professor Sunil reveals his discovery to a group of skeptical friends. When they also witness the female dancing in the moonlight, one of the group, Anil (Junior Prem Chopra), shoots a cobra he thinks is about to harm the girl…but the snake turns out to be her mate.

The girl, who is an ichadari nagin, vows vengeance and soon Anil turns up dead. But the nagin does not stop there, as she also goes after all those who witnessed her lover’s death.

Kafan (1990)

Kafan (Shroud)

Roop Combines (1990)

Director: Dhirendra Bhora

Producer: Virendra Bohra

Music: Anand-Milind

Special Effects: Dayabhai, Kanchanbhai, Rohit.

Action: F.A. Makrani

Cast: Javed Khan, Jamuna, Viju Khote, Feroz Irani, Mac Mohan, Jayendra Mehta, Rajesh Vivek, Raza Murad, Rakesh Pandey, Huma Khan, Tina Ghai, Sunanda, Kewal Krishan, Annapurna, Master Pappu.

Plot: A group of crooks plan to obtain magic powers by sacrificing a virgin. They locate a suitable victim, but molest her before handing her over to devil worshipers for the sacrifice. After she is killed and buried, out of the grave pops a grotesque she-monster who makes mince-meat out of the congregants.

College girl Neelam (Jamuna) has a strange premonition, but her boyfriend, a police officer named Shekar (Javed Khan), just makes fun of her belief that evil spirits are creating mayhem. But then in the news the next day is a report of the murdered worshipers!

Neelam begins to have visions or more murders, and when these acts occur just as she imagined, Shekar begins to take the situation seriously.

Bhagoo Bhoot Aaya (1985)

Bhagoo Bhoot Ayaa (The Ghost Came Running)

Novena Cine Corp (1985)

Director: Krishna Naidu

Producer: J. H. Farishta

Action: Khodi Irani, Manik Irani

Cast: Ashok Kumar, Devan Verma, Kajal Kiran, Shakti Kapoor, Aruna Irani, Prema Narayan, Rajesh Behl, Murad, Dinesh Hingoo, Sumshuddin, Birbal.

Plot: Horror-comedy in which a goofy salesman, Pyaralal (Devan Verma), meets a lovely lass, Tina (Kajal Kiran), and accompanies the girl on her trip to ‘Shaitaan Chanki’ where she plans to visit her uncle.

They hire a driver, but he refuses to take them to their destination and instead drops them off at a graveyard, where the duo are led to the family mansion by a deformed hunchback.

Upon their arrival, Tina meets her aunt who explains that the home is haunted by an ancestor who was murdered their 200 years ago. That night strange things happen inside the manor which wake-up both Pyaralal and Tina who flee outside just in time to see a body flung off an upper balcony! But when the butler (Ashok Kumar) comes out to see what the commotion is, the body is gone.

More mystery occurs with the discovery of secret passageways, a headless horseman, a mad-woman wandering the forest, and finally, the discovery of Tina’s uncle’s preserved body wrapped in bandages in a cellar.

Bhago Bhoot Aaya was previously available on an English subtitled DVD from MoserBaer. You can also watch it (minus subtitles) on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaRA3sd5ZQo

KOHRAA

KOHRAA (Fog)

Geetanjali Pictures (1964)

Director: Biren Nag

Producer: Hemant Kumar

Music: Hemanta Mukherjee

Cast: Waheeda Rehman, Biswajit, Lalita Pawar, Tarun Bose, Madan Puri, Manmohan Krishna, Asit Kumar Sen, Abhi Bhattacharya, Sujit Kumar, Shaukat Azmi, Thelma.

A frightened second wife…a guilt ridden widower…a servant still devoted to her former mistress…all three tormented by the memory of a dead woman who was unfaithful to her husband and whose spirit appears to roam the corridors of the mansion they all reside in.

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca.

Waheeda Rehman and Lalita Pawar in KOHRAA

GUMNAAM HAI KOI

GUMNAAM HAI KOI (It’s Someone Unknown)

Love Movies (2001)

Director: K.I. Shaikh

Producer: Imtiyaz Mukesh

Music: Suraj Kiran, Priyesh Vakil

Action: Masood Patel

Cast: Sohail Khan, Rani Sinha, Jaya Mathur, Meenakshi, Mahendi Merchant, Sahiba, Upasna Singh, Gajendra Chauhan, Ali Khan, Firdaus Mewawala, Jyoti Rani, Vinod Tripathi, Abrar, Agha, Shehzad Khan, Arjun, Jay Kalgutkar, Yudhvir Singh, Johnny Nirmal.

Plot: Shortly after her wealthy father (Firdaus Mewawala) is assassinated, Ila (Rani Sinha) is hired as an actress for a new film.

Gajendra Chauhan, Sohail Khan, and Rani Sinha in GUMNAAM HAI KOI

Ila falls for the movie’s hero, Sanjay (Sohail Khan), but is lusted after by her other co-star, Rahul (Mahendi Merchant).

Mistaken identity leads everyone to think that Sanjay is cheating on Ila with beautiful screenwriter Deepa (Jyoti Rani). When Sanjay is confronted by his cohorts he storms away vowing revenge for the insulted.

Mahendi Merchant and Rani Sinha in GUMNAAM HAI KOI

Later, Ila is murdered and Sanjay is implicated…but then the girl returns from the dead and several more killings occur. Who is the guilty party…the disgruntled actor or the ghost of the dead actress?

Rani Sinha in GUMNAAM HAI KOI

GUMNAAM HAI KOI is available on a subtitled DVD from Eros International and can be found on Amazon.com.