This film makes interesting viewing, primarily for its novelty value of a horror film coming out of Islamabad. The story, as you would have read in the numerous other reviews is about a group of teenagers who on their way to a rock concert lose their way and end up encountering zombies and being chased by a mace wielding freak. The gore factor in the film put me off, there's plenty of raw flesh and blood at display here, some of the shots would cringe any sane, humane individual. Apparently, the director takes great pride in this disgusting quality of the film. However, to instill fear in the audience requires much more than probing, poking and twisting of human flesh, intestines etc. And thats where the film doesn't work -- it grosses you out rather than actually scaring you.
However, the film does hold your attention in parts, and the acting by the ensemble overall is pretty good. The actor playing the Christian kid and Roshanie Ejaz deserve special mention. Rubiya Chaudry is clearly playing herself here and her comfort level shows on screen. Some of the photography is pretty decent too. However, there was no need for the theatrical vignettes into the family lives of the characters. Towards the end, you do root and feel for Roshanie's character and the credit for that goes entirely to the actor's performance and screen presence as the screen writing here is rank amateurish. Well, the makers probably didn't feel the need to have a taught script given most of Zibahkhana is a zombie-attack or an extended chase sequence.
On the whole, this isn't bad if you enjoy watching dead corpses, rotting remains of animals and take pleasure in the more disgusting aspects of this world. Next time, we hope that OAK would use a decent scriptwriter, many of which are to be found in the underutilized Pakistan showbiz scene. And yeah, we need to see more of Rubya and Roshanie.
