Horror movies, both Bollywood and otherwise, will frequently involve a conflict between rational, scientific thought and traditional spirituality. Science is always at a bit of a disadvantage, of course, since if there are ghosts or vampires or werewolves running around then clearly there are things Science Does Not Know, but the conflict has never been quite so one sided as it is in Jadu Tona (1977).
Wealthy and thoroughly modernized businessman Aamir (Prem Chopra) brings his two daughters back to the ancestral village to visit with their grandparents. Along the way, they meet a servant who urges them to pay their respects to the banyan tree at the edge of the village, but Aamir, educated man that he is, scoffs and drives on.
Oldest daughter Varsha (Reena Roy) spends her time in the village reading a book, rolling her eyes, and waiting until it’s time to go back to Mumbai. Little sister Harsha (Baby Pinky), on the other hand, is pious, respects her elders, and has a warm word for everyone she meets, so she sings a song about how wonderful the village is, then follows an unconvincing (and secretly evil) butterfly into a haunted house.
In the house, Harsha meets a solitary old man with a supernaturally deep voice, who asks her to fetch his medicine. Harsha, being the horribly wonderful and helpful and cheerful and friendly child that she is, is happy to help, but when she opens the bottle, something escapes. After a few minutes of thrashing and eye rolling and spectral laughter and stock footage of a scary cat, Harsha is possessed.
Aamir sends for a doctor, who diagnoses epilepsy, then flees after Harsha breaks his arm. (With one hand.) The grandparents send for a tantrik (Premnath), but before he can even look at the girl, Varsha insults him and sends him away. Before leaving, though, the tantrik gives the family a sacred amulet; once the amulet is tied onto Harsha’s arm, she immediately returns to normal.
And with that, the problem is solved, so the family returns to Mumbai. Every time the amulet comes off, though, Harsha reverts to scary possessed girl, so they consult with Mumbai’s finest bare chested macho psychologist/pilot, Kailash (Feroz Khan).
Kailash insists on removing the amulet while he takes an x-ray (?), and it conveniently bursts into flame and is never mentioned again. After his examination, Kailash declares that the girl is suffering from “paranoid” (I’m guessing that the producers were trying for paranoid schizophrenia here; it’s also not the correct term for a split personality, but it’s a much more common mistake.) and begins treatment.
We don’t see much of the actual treatment, of course. Kailash spends most of his screen time canoodling with Varsha, while every time she gets a cut Harsha reverts to spooky possessed girl and takes revenge on the circle of corrupt businessmen who murdered the ghost in the first place.
To be fair, I had a lot of fun watching Jadu Tona. The film has a relentless sense of energy, and Baby Pinky is clearly having the time of her life. The stupid comic relief is kept to a minimum, the plot is remarkably free of holes, and the special effects, while universally awful, tend to be visually interesting; the guy in a skeleton costume is particularly cool, despite looking nothing like a skeleton.
Fun or not, though, the movie is still enormously flawed. It’s clear that the producers were aiming for a message about respecting tradition because science can’t explain everything, but as presented in Jadu Tona, science can’t explain anything; it’s basically gibberish with a few medical terms thrown in. And the citified characters don’t fail because they’re unwilling to look beyond their narrow scientific paradigm, they fail because they’re all cripplingly stupid. (I don’t mean that they’re not genre savvy, I mean that they’re idiots who do things like get on a plane, alone, with a girl who has frequent violent fits during which she displays supernatural strength without taking any precautions at all.) In this world, faith trumps science, but only because science is dumb.
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