Bees Saal Baad (1962) :
Brief Review -
Takes the soul from Doyle's legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles to build a whole new body of its own. 60 saal baad, still the best in the business. The first ever film in Basil Rathbone's iconic series, "Sherlock Holmes," was based on Arthur Doyle's material, and then Hemant Kumar took the soul of it and made a fresh body of his own in Bengali cinema in the 1950s. Biren Nag remade it and gave it perfect commercial packaging to serve audiences with one of the most popular horror mysteries of all time. I saw this film back in college almost a decade ago; I wasn't aware of old Hollywood movies then. Now, when I rewatched it and realised how much of its content was borrowed, I decided to review it again. Firstly, the title-Bees Saal Baad. Such an apt title to set the mood for a horror movie, and so relatable to the content. Kumar arrived in Chandanghat after 20 years, hence "Bees Saal Baad." The doctor thrills you with an amazing dialogue in the beginning: "Chandaghat ne koi bimari se nahin marta. Maar Diya jata hai." So fukking haunting! Then we have "Kahin Deep Jale," which can be called the greatest horror song of all time, with the only other competitor to argue being "Gumnaam hai Koi." Truly iconic. Hemant Kumar gave another iconic song, but this time a romantic number: "Bekarar Karke Hume." Every character is under suspicion for being the murderer, and the kind of getups they have actually make them look like killers. That frame when we see the House aide for the first time-that zoom-in and horrifying background score. A perfect horror setup. Additionally, Kahin Deeo Jale takes place in a farm at night, with a girl singing and her ghungroo making that sound. The crippled man, the doctor, the naukar, the haveli, the backdoor, the quagmire root, and every single thing in the art of design is highly useful and tactically powerful. When will we get to see something like this again? It's been 60 years already.
RATING - 7.5/10*
By - #samthebestest.
