Nime: Hip-hop beats and brutal strikes in Samjad Hindi's fast, entertaining and ultra-violent vampire horror - Cinéjas Film Festival

The two halves form a satisfying whole in this action-horror style, in which twin vampires in a not-so-distant future follow a scorching dystopia reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's 1996 collaboration From Dusk Till Dawn immediately comes to mind, but by comparison, director Samjad sinks his teeth into his own flesh.

The two halves form a satisfying whole in this action-horror genre, where twin vampires follow a seedy dystopia in the not-too-distant future Madras Max: Fury Road. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's 1996 collaboration From Dusk Till Dawn immediately springs to mind, but in comparison, director Samjad sinks his teeth into the meat of his film in no time. Set to a techno-Bhangra beat by Midhun Mukundan, the result is a violent revenge thriller that has been on the genre circuit since it premiered in the Midnight Madness category at TIFF earlier this year.

The film begins with minimal background, which goes against not only the norms of Indian cinema, but also the press book, which suggests that many explanations about the origin of the two siblings have been cut. This may be for the better. Our introduction to Ethan and Ivy (Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj) is brief but ominous enough. A title card tells us, “Born from mortal dust and vampire blood, twins walk in darkness. RELATED STORIES News Cypriot horror "Mother Witch" Sijes sold to North America News Pluto's "Ida" horror star Agata Trzebuchowska "The Sick" Ahead of Amazing Festival + First Teaser

Cut to the present, where the two are on a road trip to Mumbai's very busy Pai Nagar area in shades that not only protect them from the sun, but also make them look very, very cool with ease. As they make their way, we cut to a family of four making the same journey across the desert, passing Babu's tire shop, whose owner is on the phone. Soon the family is overtaken by a couple on a scooter, carrying a baby, shouting, "Sir! Sir, oil spill!" The father pulls over and the car is immediately attacked by bandits who brutally kill him - plus his wife and two children - without mercy. Watch on Deadline

The aftermath of the crime is cleaned up with brutal efficiency, the gang pulling out the car, dismembering it and burning the victims' bodies, a process that threatens to be washed away and repeated when Ethan and Ivy are almost immediately on the same slide. The murder of the family is graphic enough, but what happens to Ethan and Ivy is much more perverse, especially when Ivy's apparently dead body is infected by a member of the Wilderness gang. Samjad keeps the twins' superpowers hidden for a long time, until the sun sets and their bodies can regenerate.

The wait is worth it. When Ethan and Ivy finally get their revenge on this criminal outfit—one by one, piece by piece—it's with a satisfying sense of bone-crushing justice, set like S. S. Rajamouli 2022. The 200-mile-per-hour debacle hits RRR. The genius of Samjad's conceit, however, is that, for all their superhuman abilities, the twins are vulnerable - not only is sunlight their only weakness, but Ivy is also deaf and non-verbal, which adds a real sense of menace towards the end, when things look really dark.

Part of this goes back to the extraordinary sense of world-building of Samjad. Like Peter Weir's 1974 black comedy The Cars That Ate Half Paris, it's an ironic commentary on the fraught ecosystem of crime: Babu's piercing shop is just one layer of a pyramid that rises surprisingly high, covering even the hand-in-hand police force, whose every investigation behaves like a deliberately edgy essay. There's also a passionate paranoia at play as Ethan and Ivy, as outsiders, inevitably spark a turf war as the various warring factions try to figure out who's killing their men.

There aren't many directors who can sustain this level of inventive carnage - even Takashi Miike has yet to show a man choking on his own severed stump - but Samjad directs the action with clarity and skill, aided by Terri Ulisman's incredibly incredible fight choreography. A confusing coda means the film ends later than it probably should, but Samjad has already established his impressive religious beliefs: if you've only ever seen an angry Malayalam neo-noir spaghetti western vampire beat him up in your life, make it this one.

Title: Semi-Festival: Sitges, TIFF Director: Samjad Screenwriters: Praveen Viswanath, Samjad Cast: Ranjith Sajeev, Aiswarya Raj, Amala Paul, Abbas, Sreekanth Murali International Sales: Best Friend Forever, Fragrant Nature Creations Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes

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