31 Days of Halloween, Day 20- Son of Dracula (1999)
Directed By: Saleem Suma
MVP’s: Joginder Arora, Raza Murad, Alaudeen Feroz, Poonam Dasgupta, Sapna Sappu, Mahendra Tiwari, Tripathi, Johny
Plot: The evilest dude around pisses off a Bigfoot Cave Mummy, who sends a witch to seduce him. Their offspring? The son of Dracula.
Response: Frolic with me, my tantric Shaman wizard, in the waterfall behind Staples. My body is pudding. Time the son of Dracula turns into an evil hag: 1. Times the son of Dracula turns into your wacky best friend: 1. Does the son of Dracula turn into a tiger? You betcha. Times the son of Dracula turns into the cosmos itself: 4.
Review: This is a real fun, zero-budget, Bollywood creature feature. Recommended for fans of independent cinema and for lovers of maximalist entertainment gonzo flicks like Hausu, The Manitou, The Boxer’s Omen, The Visitor, Things or last year’s Bollywood flick Veerana.
I love when a film has to get creative to express the fullness of its vision despite limited means. There’s a weird ninja turtles rip-off from South Korea called Our Friend Power 5 that’s a live action film but it cuts to animation whenever they need to do a special effects shot like spaceships manuevering through the galaxy. I also think about Lynches Twin Peaks: The Return and all the Terry Gilliamesque paper cut-out animation collaged atop limited CGI. Or the dizzying use of green screen in our Day 12 picture, how Belinda M. Wilson puts adobe after-effects of money in her actors hands rather than just using prop money (that’s maybe a whole ‘nother ball of wax, as was everything about Black Mamba) In this film, it’s prodigous use of optical and sound FX all to excite your Halloween pumpkin receptors to a film ‘gasm of jack-o-lantern guts.
Film is already a dream. We used to buy matte paintings and stationary cars in front of screens displaying rolling countryside. Now we accept bad CGI and soon (heaven forbid) AI slop. Who’s to say we can’t accept colored lights in front of immobile bigfoot statues and crashing thunder sounds while laser beam effects shoot out of the approximate region of the prop’s eyes?
Background: I couldn’t find a lot on Saleem Suma. He only made one other film, Aadamkhor Hasina (also with Joginder) but is cinematographer and camera unit director on a few handfuls of others.
Joginder, who plays the (villian? Hero? Anit-hero?) is renowned as the Ed Wood of India though he had some hits as well. He’s all over Hindi language cinema, directing, acting, scoring and was a pop star sing-songwriter for awhile too.
Can Kid’s Watch It? 100%, yes.
Halloween Score:
Autumn Vibes: 4/5
Scares & Chills: 0/5
Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 3/5
Monster Action: 4/5
Second Opinions:
“The constant peacock caws on the soundtrack, the musical numbers, and the lack of any spatial or narrative logic may be too much for civilians, but this is highly recommended for the heads.” - Laird on Letterboxed
“Watching Son of Dracula is like walking into a video game arcade in the lobby of an insane asylum and feeling overwhelmed by the combination of neon, loud noises, and inmates throwing food...an experimental gutter-art project that pummels you with gorgeous, acid-fueled visuals and discombobulated anti-logic for 90 minutes. There’s nothing else like it.” - Joseph A. Ziemba, Bleeding Skull
"Dunno really what to say, a couple tracks (which I'm listening to again while writing this) just blew me away. Babes dancing and kaleidoscopic visuals of the titular Son of Dracula's silly face sent undulations through my body and I started dancing in my chair. Euphoric, really." - Drauch58 on Letterboxed
Where to Peep It:
American Film genre Archive rents out DCP scans to reperatory cinemas and apparently there are VHS copies out there somewhere. This seems like it shoulda been a Mondo Macabro release already. Anyway, so much to say I made due with the youtube one without subtitles.
Hint for Tomorrow’s Movie: C’mon, c’mon, c’mon give us a proper zombie one! It’s from the 2010’s? Ok, sure, fine.
