Director/Story – Omar Ali Khan, Screenplay – Omar Ali Khan & Pete Tombs, Producers – Omar Ali Khan, Andy Starke & Pete Tombs, Photography – Najaf Bilgrami, Music – Stephen Thrower, Makeup Effects – Nawab Saghar. Production Company – Bubonic Films/Boum Productions Ltd.
Cast
Kunwar Ali Roshan (Vicky), Rooshanie Ejaz (Ayesha), Rubya Chaundry (Roxy), Haider Raza (Simon), Osman Khalid Butt (OJ), Rehan (Deewana), Najma Malik (Old Lady in the Forest), Ashfaq Batti (Simon’s Father), Adnan Malik (Yuppie Victim), Abida Shaheen (Simon’s Mother), Shagufta Hamayun (Ayesha’s Mother)
Plot
In Islamabad, five friends leave home and set out in a van, heading to a rock concert in Jannat Pur. For some of the group, Ayesha and Simon, this involves sneaking out from home and lying to their tradition-minded parents about where they are going. Along the route, they become lost and take a detour down backroads where sinister things await.
Zibahkhana, known in English as Hell’s Ground, has the distinction of being the rarity of a horror film from Pakistan. It received some modest acclaim and play at international and horror film festivals when it came out. It has been the only film made so far by director/writer Omar Ali Khan.
Omar Ali Khan is clearly a genre fan and stocks his film with Homage to favourite genre works. There is a poster of Maniac (1980) on the wall of Haider Raza’s bedroom, along with a DVD of Dracula in Pakistan (1967), Pakistan’s first horror film. A clip from the latter plays on tv. Moreover, in the middle of the film, the group stop at a roadside food stall and encounter a crazy old man where Haider accuse him of being Dracula from Dracula in Pakistan, which the old man denies. The joke of course being that the old man is played by Rehan, the same actor who played Dracula in Dracula in Pakistan.
Even more so, the film pays homage to whole horror sub-genres. The group of twentysomethings heading off into back country roads is very much a homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), while in later scenes the film draws heavily on the tropes of the Backwoods Brutality film. There’s even a scene resembling the one in Texas Chain Saw where the group pick up the Hitch Hiker, although Omar Ali Khan goes even further and has the crazed individual carrying a severed head in a bag. Later in the film we get a hulking masked maniac killer a la Leatherface. As they enter the backwoods, Hell’s Ground also seems to be turning into a Zombie Film.
Friends on a road trip gone wrong – (l to r) (front) Kunwar Ali Roshan, Haider Raza; (back) the Hitch-Hiker and Osman Khalid Butt
It is interesting seeing the tropes of the horror genre translated across to another culture. The group of young people are no different to the usual complement in a Slasher Film. They are characters that come with very westernised attitudes – going to a rock concert, smoking dope and the liberal use of four letter words, where the only element that is missing is any sexual relationships. This is contrasted with more traditional members of the group – Haider Raza ducking down so that his father does not see them and in particular Rooshanie Ejaz fearful at lying to her mother about what they are doing, while hiding her Islamic pendant that says ‘God is Great’ beneath her blouse.
The major issue with Hell’s Ground is that Omar Ali Khan seems to be packing too much into it. There seem so many horror tropes floating around that the film is a thematic mishmash with no real underlying coherency as to why things are happening – like exactly who the backwoods crazies and zombies are. Earlier we get scenes of protestors, suggesting that what is going on is due to government neglect or polluted water supply. We also see some people with hideous faces but this is just an element that is there without its relevance being clear. Certainly, you cannot deny that Omar Ali Khan serves all of this up with an undeniable vigour and the characters all well played.
