SNAKES IN THE BATH

I've been an adult for almost thirty years now, and I've been in a variety of situations with a number of ladies. The nearest I've ever come to this sort of racy banter, however, is when a young woman offered me oral sex in return for a can of beer. As I'd only just met her, and the beer was a Tesco special called Norseman, I declined: clearly, she wasn't exactly what you'd call picky.

This loaded conversation is from Veerana, and is even more charged when you understand that couple are both predators: 'the poisonous serpent' is actually a scaly vampire lady with horrible hands and terrible teeth, and her mustachioed bath mate is there to bring her to justice - at the end of a rope. 

CREEPY FOREST

Veerana, d. Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay (1988)

At heart, Veerana (Creepy Woods) is a florid but effective, occasionally scary, sometimes psychedelic, slightly hysterical hour long fantasy horror film with a garish colour palette and some very expressive eyebrows. But this is Bollywood, so we also get another hour and a quarter of songs and comic relief, neither of which are particularly earth shattering, but most certainly provide the mad entertainment and value for money that Indian audiences demand from their motion pictures.

The film works best when it gets semi-serious, as in the scenes set in a satanic cult cave populated by stone headed monsters and a hairy wizard, or when a child possessed by a vampire makes a fish tank explode just with the power of her evil mind. It’s a film where a cheerful dance routine is followed by a man having his eyes bloodily blown out by flying glass, and although all the component parts don’t quite fit together, it’s good stuff and full of fun, you just need to make sure you set most of the evening aside to watch it.