Pakistan: Hell's Ground (2007)
Proudly billed as Pakistan’s first splatter pic, Hell’s Ground is…ambitious. It opens with a brutal murder (the sort that suggests it’s there only because nothing else horrific is going to happen for a substantial amount of time – or half an hour in this case), a murder that seems to have no relevance to the rest of the film. There’s a pattern there, if you want to look for one.
The next half hour introduces our five main characters (a stoner; a bitch; a geeky nice boy; a geeky nice girl; bland guy Vicky) who are written as generic beyond belief. They’re on their way to a concert (they’ve told their parents it’s a college trip for extra credit – this is pretty much the only attempt at fleshing them out) and they soon get lost. So far it’s very much The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but whereas that worked because it was made in the ‘70s and was carefully directed to give an escalating sense of dread, this is made because it wants to be The Pakistan Flail Ball Massacre. There’s no other ambition behind it. I imagine that cultural restrictions in Pakistan’s cinema meant that this was deliberately transgressive (Pakistan does not have a tradition of horror cinema), so the makers wanted to ramp the gore up as much as possible in order to shock – and to guarantee overseas sales.
It sort-of works. The gore is incredibly over the top (so much so that it’s not at all offensive), but writer/director Omar Ali Khan seems to lack faith in his own premise (because it’s Tobe Hooper’s premise, not his), so adds an environmental edge by having chemicals leaking into the water that cause people to melt. Or something – the film doesn’t really make it clear what’s happening or why. It just happens. Oh, and then there are some zombies as well. Romero zombies at that.
It’s all very much Dawn of the Pakistan Massacre, with some hints of Psycho thrown in (one could even say that that the entire mythos of Ed Gein is referred to – and every film that’s drawn on it is referenced, but I suspect the script isn’t being that clever and is just throwing things into the mix so that people don’t get bored), and it nearly works; the film never outstays its welcome (it’s a brisk 78 minutes long), even though much of it is spent thinking ‘what the fuck just happened?’. It’s clearly not intended to be anything serious (there’s a playful tone throughout), and although some of the direction is weak, performances are strong enough to carry the audience along, and quite often the cast looked as baffled as the viewers (particularly when the identity of the burqa-clad killer is explained).
Because it’s not pretending to be anything other than what it is, the film’s watchable. It’s not good, and it doesn’t really tell you anything about Pakistan or its inhabitants (other than you can’t trust weird rural people in the Pakistani jungle any more than you can trust them in the backwaters of rural Texas), but it’s not unwatchable either.
Disc: DVD (Region 1, USA)
Source: eBay
Availability: Out of print. Also released in Region 2 (and now out of print).