Zibahkhana: Hell's Ground
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Omar Ali Khan
Written by	Omar Ali Khan Pete Tombs
Produced by	Omar Ali Khan Andrew Starke Pete Tombs
Starring	Ashfaq Bhatti Sultan Billa Osman Khalid Butt Rubya Chaudhry Rooshanie Ejaz Najma Malik Saleem Mairaj Haider Raza Rehan Kunwar Ali Roshan
Cinematography	Najaf Bilgrami
Edited by	Andrew Starke
Music by	Stephen Thrower
Distributed by	Mondo Macabro
Release date	30 March 2007 (2007-03-30)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	Pakistan
Languages	Urdu English

Zibah khana (Urdu:ذبح خانہ; lit. 'Slaughterhouse', also known as Hell's Ground, is a 2007 Pakistani Urdu- and English-language slasher film directed and co-produced by Omar Khan, who also co-wrote the film alongside co-producer Pete Tombs.^[1]

Shot over the course of 30 days,^[2] Zibahkhana premiered at the NatFilm Festival in Denmark and has been screened at festivals including Toronto, New York City, London, Neuchatel, Stockholm, Cape Town, Austin, Philadelphia, Cambridge, Puerto Rico, Sitges, Valencia, Oslo and Helsinki.^[3] The film passed censors in Pakistan (with nine seconds cut) and became the first HDV and non-35 mm feature film released in Pakistani cinema history.

Plot

Late at night, a sole driver almost hits a mysterious figure in the dark. Following a car crash, he is attacked and killed by the figure.

Five friends skip school in Islamabad to go to a rock concert. Making up the motley crew are head-strong driver Vicki, poor scholar student Simon, wild child Roxi, horror fan OJ, and nervous, demure Ash.

As they enter the countryside, it becomes clear that there are issues with the water supply in the Pakistani countryside, with protests ongoing regarding this.

The five friends stop to buy hashish at a chaai house and are given a stark warning regarding the surrounding countryside, with a local sage proclaiming it "Hell's Ground" and warning that the devil will find them there. Laughing off the warnings, the teens continue on their odyssey. OJ becomes sick after eating a space cake, and the gang is forced to pull over. While getting sick in a stream, OJ is attacked by something unseen.

The teens are then attacked by zombies, with one small zombie getting into the van. The teens escape. Looking for help, the teens come across a holy man, who offers to show them to safety. The holy man asks for water in the van, which the teens do not have. The religious man pulls a severed head from a bag, and the teens force the holy man from the truck and run him over, presumably killing him.

The van runs out of petrol, stranding the teens in the jungle. Vicki, feeling guilty for getting his friends into danger, goes to find help. Coming across a cabin, he is attacked and killed by a burka-wearing maniac. Roxi is spooked by the severed head and runs into the jungle, eventually finding Vicki's corpse being butchered by the maniac. The maniac chases Roxi, and she seeks refuge in a cabin. A kind old woman takes her in and laments the loss of her son to marriage and the new motorway cutting off her village from the world. Noticing Roxi is injured, she leaves to find her son, a local healer.

Meanwhile, Simon and Ash notice OJ is gone. While looking for him, they find Vicki's keys and flashlight at the cabin he was killed and are chased by the maniac. Simon is killed, while Ash makes it back to the van.

While looking in the lady's cabin, Roxi discovers evidence that the maniac is the old lady's daughter and leaves the house after discovering her son's skeleton. In the jungle, the old lady finds her other son, the holy man, nearing death. Swearing revenge, she instructs her daughter to kill the remaining teens. The maniac breaks Roxi's neck.

Ash is chased through the woods, eventually defeating the maniac by fashioning a weapon from barbed wire and a stick and beating her to death with a rock. Retrieving the maniac's mace, she ensures the maniac is dead by staking her through the heart.

Victorious, as day breaks, she finds OJ. He turns to attack her as he is now a zombie.

Cast

• Kunwar Ali Roshan as Vicki
• Rooshanie Ejaz as Ayesha (Ash)
• Rubya Chaudhry as Roxi
• Haider Raza as Simon
• Osman Khalid Butt as O.J.
• Rehan as Deewana

Release

The World Premiere was held at the NatFilm Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark on March 30, 2007, The US premiere was on the 6th of April at the Philadelphia Film Festival a week later. The film has played at over 40 International and especially Horror Film Festivals around the world winning Best Film Awards at Riofan Film Festival, Rio Brazil and at the Fantaspoa Film Festival, Port Allegre, Brazil. The film was also selected for an Audience Award at the Film Festival in Houston and also received honours for the Best Gore Effects at the same festival. The film was released in Pakistan commercially in the 3rd week of December 2007 in Pakistan after a protracted struggle with the Censor Board to have it cleared. The film ran successfully for 11 weeks at the Cineplex in Rawalpindi but its release in Karachi and Lahore was cut short due to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that coincided with the films release.

The PVR cinema group in India picked up the Indian distribution after a screening at Osian's Film Festival in Delhi. The film was due to open in 14 select cinemas around the country but that was derailed by the Terror Attacks on Mumbai after which relations between India and Pakistan were badly soured. The films trailer was featured on the PVR website but a release never took place.

The film was screened at the Andy Warhol Film Institute in the US and also honoured at the Trash Film Festival in Tokyo, Japan in 2008

Critical reception

Zibahkhana received mostly positive reviews upon its release. Ain't It Cool News praised the film, calling it "one of the most badass flicks of the year". The reviewer also noted that although the film had its faults, mainly that it was stupid and predictable, "it's got something so incredibly captivating about it that it has its own place in the line of truly great indie horror flicks".^[5] Dread Central awarded the film a score of 4/5, calling it "a genuinely weird and somber horror movie that transposes familiar narrative themes from the genre into a cultural aesthetic few in the West will have had any prior glimpse of."^[6] Film Threat gave the film a positive review, commending its effective visuals, and strong nighttime atmosphere. The reviewer concluded by writing, "Overall, a measured mix of clichéd horror bits and wit to joke about them keeps Hell’s Ground even for a horror audience."^[7] The "Lazy Dads' Guide to Movies" gave the film a scathing review, ranking it as the worst film they had ever seen criticizing it especially for the use of English by the cast mixed in with Urdu. However many critics in the West are unfamiliar with the fact that in most South Asian cities The local language is frequently a blend of English and Urdu, sometimes referred to as "Minglish" and being British colonies a large percentage of schools and universities use English as the primary language of instruction.

References

• Fantastic Festival 2007 awards coverage
• Cinematical's coverage of the Fantastic Festival awards, 2007

External links

• Official website
• Hell's Ground at AllMovie
• Zibahkhana at IMDb
• Zibahkhana at Rotten Tomatoes
• 31 Flavors of Death – Bidoun magazine profile by Achal Prabhala
• Article on Zibahkhana – Time Magazine
• Zibahkhana at Fantastic Film Festival 2007, Austin, Texas
• Hell's Ground at the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival
• The Lazy Dads' Guide to Movies
• https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-3spu8-abd5ea