Jaani Dushman (1979)
8/10
So many childhood memories brought back!
1 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
No, don't really belong to such an old era. In fact, I was born well over 11 years after the film. But this film used to be such a popular choice for the (Indian) channels to run almost every other month. We as kids used to feel so frightened by it, but yet could never resist the temptation to peek at the TV screen.

What brought it back was the insistence of my niece who at all costs wanted to watch the film of which the song "Chalo re doli" is played in almost every wedding film during the rukhsati scene.

Reflecting upon it years after, the viewers of the new generation might find some of the stuff to be laughable, living in era where films of every genre are made with immense efficiency, editing, special effects and thousand re-takes, but for its era and given that this isn't Hollywood what we're talking about, this was quite a good film. It being a star-studded one probably added to the fun.

Again, it had its flaws and even the overall length could've been shortened, but for its era it remained a thoroughly entertaining film. Not quite Bollywood's 'Aliens' (1986), but pretty doable for Bollywood. Has its thrills and carries the suspense quite well till the end. One exceptional thing was that bringing attention and suspicion to everyone except only the Thakur could've given it away, but it was clever to have shown that even Thakur was looked at with suspicious eyes around about half an hour before the ending, albeit for a very brief period before the attention then gets shifted to his son (Shera). I can imagine it being a really big success at the box office back then.
3 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed