Dracula in Pakistan

Dracula in Pakistan

Our trip through Dracula country has taken us to some unexpected places – some delightful, plenty interesting and a handful that were very surprising. But it is without doubt that the Count is a truly international monster – be it his travels in the novel itself or the many globe-trotting adaptations that have followed.

And for today I wanted to take another trip into one of those fascinating curios that we so often find – Zinda Laash, literally translated as The Living Corpse, but perhaps best known by its US title Dracula in Pakistan.

It's fair to say that Pakistan has never been a huge market for horror films, though like so many places that is starting to shift a little now – the excellent In Flames being a recent example well worth your time. Zinda Laash was certainly ahead of its time, released in 1967 and taking its inspiration in part from the Stoker novel and also the iconic Hammer Dracula of 1958, directed by Terence Fisher and starring the legendary Christopher Lee. 

This movie holds a number of distinctive honours – as the first horror film produced in Pakistan, and also as the first movie from the country to receive an X rating. It also played at significant international festivals such as the Sitges Film Festival in Spain and the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland.

With that said, the film was lost for many years, and there’s a fascinating BBC Radio documentary on the topic, 'Vampires in Lollywood', which you can listen to on the BBC website.

The story doesn’t bear a great similarity to the novel, with Professor Tabini’s efforts to bring everlasting life backfiring horribly, resulting not in living forever as a human but trapped in an eternal nightmare as a vampire. While Dracula in Pakistan draws plenty of its gothic locations and set pieces from Hammer nearly a decade before, this movie does feature trademark Lollywood and Bollywood dance sequences. These are (as expected) well done but also fit the milieu of the film. Of course, you might want to see that for yourself, and thanks to the joys of DVD releasing (thanks Mondo Macabro) and the internet, this one isn’t tough to find today. 

The trailer might just give you a good sense of what it’s all about…

What is amazing to me is just how far the concept of Dracula has permeated. Written by an Irish author, set in Romania and England, it’s fair to say that the Count has permeated everywhere in the world. In 1967 there was no such thing as the Pakistani horror film industry – and while this perhaps didn’t kickstart it immediately, the enduring legacy is now being felt many years on as the nation’s filmmakers begin to use horror to discuss contemporary issues. And that, of course, is what horror is best at.

Where will our horse-drawn carriage take us next, I wonder? What climes await for Dracula to spread his bat wings over? You’ll just have to wait and see next time around...