Jeffrey Hartmann

A demon possesses a man, and uses him to kill women.

Kanti Shah's "Darwaza" is an absolute must-see for those who enjoy watching such cinematographic curiosities as Indian Z-grade horror flicks. The storyline doesn't immediately become quite clear, because it all happens in different time frames, but here's the essence of it:Near an ominous-looking cemetery somewhere deep in the Indian woods stands a huge residence, inhabited by two brothers. Thakur Ranbir Singh is a serious and decent man, but his brother Thakur Pratap Singh enjoys scaring the hell out of people by dressing up in a skeleton suit, wearing an ugly plastic mask and making all kinds of scary sounds. Nothing strange, therefore, that one day Thakur Pratap Singh is possessed by an evil spirit himself. A woman (his wife? a servant?) who sees it happening is killed instantly. Once Ranbir finds out what's going on, he doesn't hesitate and calls Baba, an exorcist living at the cemetery dressed up in all kinds of Halloween decorations, for help. With a curious plastic skull, Baba successfully manages to lock up the evil spirit behind a door, which may never be opened. Now, that would have been the end of the story if many years later a pretty young girl named Asha, Pratap's cousin, weren't having dreams about a mysterious door, from which a hand reaches under her night skirt and starts, hm, touching her breasts. Although she doesn't exactly seem to object against this treatment, after waking up she decides it was a nightmare and is determined to find out the truth. Thus, she travels to the same old residence and opens the door... Again, the Devil is unleashed and starts committing murders. But Dr. (!) Asha, who has established a hospital in the residence in the meantime, is not only very sexy but also very clever, and therefore asks the same Baba for help. The evil spirit is terrified, but Baba mercilessly locks it up in a bottle. Sadly, the bottle doesn't do the trick any more than the door did, because shortly after Baba's aide opens it, unleashing Thakur Pratap Singh once again. The evil spirit, now really ticked off, is determined to take its revenge... But this time, it decides to play it safe and change bodies first: it enters the body of one of its previous victims, a sexy-looking girl.The fun really starts when Dr. Asha's boyfriend invites a group of fearless friends for a party in the residence. This is precisely what the horrendously evil spirit is waiting for: fresh meat. Already during the first night, one of them (who is remarkably similar to BA from the A-Team) stumbles upon the mysterious girl. She seduces him, they have some sort of sex, and then she murders him. Shortly after, a second guy, equally similar to BA, undergoes a similar treatment, after which BA no. 1 mysteriously reappears, as if the editing department had forgotten the poor fellow was dead already. In the meantime, we get treated on juicy dialogs of the type: "I wonder who killed Shetty", "I just can't figure it out, who would want to kill Shetty?", "I don't know, Shetty didn't have any enemies, now did he?", and that for a good five minutes. But after that, grief over poor Shetty's death fades away: "Sweetheart, it doesn't matter that he was killed. Let's forget about all this unpleasantness and make love instead." "Yes, you're right." At last, it all boils down to the question: does Dr. Asha manage to survive and beat the evil spirit of her uncle? No need to go on. This movie is bad, really bad, so bad that watching it is a great and memorable experience. Monsters with pizza-like latex masks, making all kinds of idiotic growling sounds? Sexy (though not necessarily slim) girls parading around in their bra most of the time, venturing on dangerous expeditions in miniskirts? Huge and ugly but otherwise completely useless guys with the brains of a shrimp, serving no other purpose than being killed? Actors who are quite obviously reading their dialogs from a board next to the camera? One actor playing multiple roles for the lack of means to hire another one? A touch of comedy in the form of a certain Dr. Motilal, played by an actor who looks suspiciously much like Johny Lever? Thunderbolts concluding every ominous sentence? Sloppy editing, lousy dialogs, unsharp image? Go see Darwaza, because this movie has it all! But don't think Darwaza is the worst movie ever, because whatever can be said about it, it has at least some sort of storyline in it, and the actors may not be topnotch, but at least they are trying. If you really want to see the worst film ever, by all means go see Harinam Singh's "Shaitani Dracula". Yet, "Darwaza" is definitely worth a shufty as well. "Darwaza" is yummy!