![]() Having listed my objections, I can make room for the idea that “Hisss” is built on a film language that I simply don’t speak. In short, this film flows like over cooked lentils in cold metal bowl. Without speaking too much for others I can tell you that my biggest problem is this film's stomach churning mixture of pseudo David Lynchian weirdness, Bollywood spectacle, and ‘Lost” styled scene transitions that are fused to a grouping of thematic and cultural observations twhich manifest as a disjointed litany of immaterial character information that doesn’t even accidentally make the characters more relatable. Unfortunately, what she has created is a laughably unpalatable masala that seems like it might turn off both Bollywood fans and Horror junkies alike. Jennifer Chambers Lynch seems to have set out to make a horror film infused with the rich cream of Mumbai’s flashy cinematic traditions. I’m not sure I am even qualified to do that. It also reflects the cleanest narrative portions of the film, which is not to say that it encapsulates what this film is about. This is the most cohesive synopsis I can give for “Hiss”. This draws the attention of a local police inspector who sets his sights on catching the killer. ![]() Once she transforms to search for her abducted lover the Nagin runs into all manner of nasty men and unsurprisingly (to the viewer) leaves a pile of bodies strafed with giant fang marks in her wake. ![]() What States hasn’t figured on is that the Nagin would retain her violent reptilian instincts even in her sultry human form. As outlandish as his plan appears to be, he manages to pull it off and only kills a few hopelessly poor local guides in the process. George figures that he can perform a little coitus interruptus, capture the male cobra and then later swap the Nag for the Nagin’s token of eternal life. The Nag is the snake lover of the Nagin, a shape-shifting Cobra goddess who houses an immortality talisman known as the Nagmani within her body. In his desperate search for a remedy George has tripped across the world to capture the Nag. The story follows a crazed and unscrupulous American named George States who has traveled to India looking for a cure for his terminal brain cancer. “Hisss” is the latest film by David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch. Which brings me to the characteristic of Bollywood films that I find endlessly perplexing, did I watch films from the 60’s or the 90’s? I have no idea because I am hopelessly out of my depth when it comes to the trends and the history of this brand of cinema. Again, I will not lay claim to actually seeing any mustache twirling it’s just the “Perils of Pauline” feeling that washed over me as I watched. What I remember is that much as they are reputed to do, the Hindi mega-tainment offerings I watched provided the audience with a staccato mixture of romance, action, melodrama, dance and mustache twirling bad guys. This is not to say that I have no impressions of these film going experiences. I believe I have seen a couple, I could not provide you titles, plotlines or performers and I would not, in all likelihood, recognize any of them if you were to show them to me a second time. There is no area of the cinematic universe I am more under-versed on than Bollywood films.
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