The Living Corpse (1967)

Synopsis

The movie The Living Corpse (1967), also titled Zinda Laash, is a Pakistani Urdu-language film rendition of the Dracula tale with many similarities to the British 1950s Dracula. [1]

The film introduces Rehan, an overly ambitious scientist striving to become immortal. He develops an elixir that he believes will conquer death³. When he tries it on himself, however, he dies. The side effects of the elixir involve an allergy to daylight, pointy teeth, and the uncontrollable hunger for human blood.

The movie The Living Corpse (1967) was almost banned from release because the censors felt it was too vulgar. In its original release, all of the dance sequences were deleted because the censors felt that the women were shown to be too sexually provocative. The vampire teeth worn by Rehan were provided by a dentist outside Pakistan. The film was long believed to have been lost, washed away in the floods of 1996, until the miraculously good condition negatives were finally found in rusting cans at Pakistan’s Evernew Studios thanks to the persistent efforts of filmmaker Omar Khan, an admirer of the film, who had it restored. [2]

Cast

• Yasmeen Shaukat as Shirin
• Deeba Begum as Shabnam
• Habibur Rehman as Aqil’s Brother
• Asad Bukhari as Dr. Aqil Harker
• Allauddin as Parvez
• Nasreen as Vampire Bride
• Sheela as Ghazala
• Cham Cham as Nightclub Dancer
• Baby Najmi as Baby
• Rehan as Prof. Tabani
• Nazar as Bandmaster
• Talish as Doctor
• Rangeela as Guy at Nightclub
• Munawar Zarif as Guy at Nightclub
• Latif Charlie

Trivia

The film was almost banned from release because the censors felt it was too vulgar. [2]

In its original release, all of the dance sequences were deleted because the censors felt that the women were shown to be too sexually provocative. [2]

The vampire teeth worn by Rehan were provided by a dentist outside Pakistan. [2]

The film was long believed to have been lost, washed away in the floods of 1996, until the miraculously good condition negatives were finally found in rusting cans at Pakistan’s Evernew Studios thanks to the persistent efforts of filmmaker Omar Khan, an admirer of the film, who had it restored. [2]

Reviews

Historically this was Pakistan’s first venture into the terror film genre and we came mighty close to losing this film before it was discovered (in some “rusty old cans”, according to the brave film buff who found it) in a vault. [1]

” Arguably the find of the year, for cult movie fans” – [3]

Citations

[1] Wikipedia
[2] IMDb
[3] Beifuss, John (19 February 2004). “‘Living Corpse’ is the find of the year for cult movie fans”. The Commercial Appeal. Memphis, Tennessee. p. E6. Retrieved 24 June 2023 – via Newspapers.com
[4] Khan, Rayan (9 October 2011). “Dracula in Pakistan: ‘Whattay scary'”. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 6 June 2022.