Everyone Bleeds Red: 'Hell's Ground'

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WATCHING "HELL'S GROUND," Pakistan's first slasher flick, feels like splitting open the head of an obsessive film buff.

The movie is crammed to bursting with references to American horror and cult flicks like "Pink Flamingos," "Night of the Living Dead" and "Friday the 13th," not to mention allusions to less well-known international fare like "Maula Jat" and "The Living Corpse."

Sure enough, writer/producer/director Omar Ali Khan is a former film critic who funded his first movie with profits from his ice cream shop in Islamabad, which is decorated with movie memorabilia from Hollywood and its Pakistan equivalent, Lollywood.

Originally titled "Zibahkhana" (which is not a direct translation), "Hell's Ground" hits all the horror-movie marks, beginning with its familiar set-up: A group of teens lie to their parents to drive five hours to see a rock concert.

Of course they make a wrong turn and are set upon by zombies. Of course there's a homicidal maniac on the loose. Of course that nice old woman hides a horrible secret. The movie is completely derivative, but that seems to be Khan's intention.

Speaking a mix of English and Urdu, the Westernized characters — the virginal heroine, the pothead, the wild girl, the shy guy — are all so familiar you can predict the order in which they'll be killed off, but that's not the point. What makes "Hell's Ground" so compelling as a movie rather than as a historical footnote is the inventive way Khan interprets these decades-old American archetypes through contemporary Pakistani culture.

After surviving the zombie attack, the teens must battle a clan of backwoods butchers only slightly saner than the family in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The movie's most frightening character is an unnamed killer clad in a white burqa and wielding a spiked mace, who is so malevolent and genuinely disturbing that he (yes, he) could become Pakistan's own Leatherface.

The movie wobbles a little in its rushed final act, and the twist ending is obvious. "Hell's Ground" is flawed but fascinating. It's as simple and entertaining as Khan's insights into Pakistani culture — from its deepest anxieties to its escapist fantasies — are nuanced and thought-provoking.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner
Photos courtesy TLA Releasing