there's no way they found a guy with such resemblance to bruce campbell for one of the lead roles and also proceeded to style him like ash from the evil dead lolol. anyways, i absolutely loved this no budget, b movie shlock fest!!! watching this in 7 parts on dailymotion at 4 a.m is the ideal way to experience the strange concoction omar khan and co. have conjured.
it wears it's tcm influences on it's sleeve but honestly seeing these western "teens on a road trip" horror tropes being rooted in pakistani culture & locale made me very giddy. the "old man who warns the kids to not take shortcut" is a chai waala (who also sells hash!) played by rehan sheikh no less, and just like leatherface, the villain is controlled by her family! at no point did it feel like a rip off, due to the amount of authenticity this had. I've seen alot of pakistani films falter horribly due to their need to be A Hollywood Film so seeing this, a film with such western inspirations, still be so regional in it's style and tone, is wonderful.
the visual style and diy nature of this film is such an important part of why i love it. it's the first theatrically released pakistani film to be shot on digital and if this isn't in conversation with 28 days later as the best early digi low res cinematography then i don't know what is! i love the hazy and blown out look of this, every shot of the van from the front has this incredible blown out bloom coming from the windows and the 2nd half is entirely lit by brightest moonlight engulfed in fog. the whole thing looks gorgeous!
honestly while i love the broken & formless feel of this, i do wish this had better editing at some bits simply because the material is there! some of the cuts feel like they were envisioned to be so much snappier but for some reason it doesn't happen. would love a re-edited arrow re-release of this. let's make this an even more famous cult film !!!
