Purani Haveli (1989) (India)

aka The Monster Wakes

⭐️⭐️1/2

The opening scene has the camera exploring the mansion as lightning flashes and audio from a Halloween record blares. The credits roll right after a dummy is thrown from a high tower, screaming the whole way down. Now that’s how you open your film! A young couple has car trouble and are introduced to the dungeon dweller who makes short work of them. That’s why I never camp in dungeons located beneath abandoned mansions in the jungle right next to a cemetery. It’s just common sense. A holy man shows up and uses a crucifix to get the beast back where it belongs. Anita Kumar (drop dead gorgeous Amita Nangia) lives with her scuzzy uncle Raja, his scuzzy wife Seema and Seema’s scuzzy brother Vikram. Drama arises when Seema plans to marry Anita off to her brother allowing she and her husband to get their hands on her niece’s substantial inheritance but Anita only has eyes for her boyfriend Sunil. The family does not like that at all and forbid Anita from seeing the poor Sunil, she accepts when Vikram threatens to shoot him if she doesn’t accept the offer. Raja purchases an abandoned mansion in the countryside for Anita (with her own money, taking out double what it cost him because he’s a scumbag). Raja and the former owner go to check the place out and both of them get their asses murdered. The owner by a janky iron statue that looks like it would have been right at home in a Santo flick and Raja by the monster who calls the spot home. Anita’s friends decide to all stay at the creepy estate, secretly bringing Sunil and his chubby “comic relief” assistant along with them. Things take an unfortunate turn when it’s discovered something evil was locked up in the dungeon beneath the mansion and that malicious monster has been set free with a taste for human flesh. The Ramsay boys are up to their usual hijinks which means plenty of good lookin’ ladies, a fun monster (looking like the feral cousin of the Bigfoot that showed up on The Six Million Dollar Man), delightful dance numbers, a roving gang of rapists ill-prepared for the hero’s fighting prowess (with fight choreography more akin to a couple grade schoolers putting on a show and not wanting to hurt each other), despicable schemers and not enough plot to excuse the above two hour runtime. Prepare for drag and not the fun kind you have brunch while experiencing. It’s nowhere near the best the House of Ramsay has put out there and spends way too much time on a comic subplot about a bandit who our comic relief is the exact double of. This bad boy wastes a bunch of time but the actual monster stuff is pretty fun… wish it actually gave a damn about it as much as I did.