Short Film: Mrs. Kumudini Choudhury

This is a 28-minute film, from 2019 (according to Amazon, as there is no IMDb page at the time of writing. Note also that the surname of the character is spelt Choudary on the Amazon page) and was directed by Pratik Sarkar.

What is interesting is that if you google the title there are several audio versions of the story as it is known in India as a short by Hemendra Kumar Roy. That is all well and good, but to a Western vampire fan watching the film one will be able to see that it is actually an almost blow by blow re-write of E F Benson’s 1923 short story, Mrs. Amworth. I don't have a publication date for Roy's story but this recycling is not a surprise when one notes that Roy also adapted Dracula as well as Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie stories, and it is because of this that I assume Roy used Benson's story and not the other way around.

the novelist arrives

It features a creature named in the film subtitles as a pishach, probably more accurately pishacha, a Hindu flesh-eating demon that does appear in Bane’s encyclopaedia – though the lore that is used in the film is certainly different to Bane – staking works here, Bane suggests they must be burnt.

professor Amulya

The film begins with a novelist, Himadri Roy from Calcutta, arriving in the country. He has left the hustle and bustle of the city to write his novel and has rented a villa in the area. Whilst there he has struck up a friendship with retired professor Amulya as well as railway doctor Govindo and the widow Mrs Choudhury. He is speaking to the professor, who mentions cases of anaemia in the area and blames a pishach. He suggests they are evil spirits without bodies but with desires and, to fulfil these, they posses the body of a dead person, reanimating them.

attending the gardener's son

Mrs Choudhury comes along at that point and poo-poos the notion, jokingly challenging the professor to catch such a being. The narrator tells us that Choudhury is a widow, her husband having died in a rail accident, and interestingly makes a point of telling us that she is a Christian, I assume due to that religion's funerary rites. In the evening Himadri hears a voice calling him but can see nothing and dismisses it. The next day Govindo is attending the son of Mrs Choudhury’s gardener who is suddenly ill with anaemia. The professor takes him to his home.

at the window

That night Himadri sees a female figure outside his window. The next day the boy is much better but the professor talks of a visitation at his window also, despite the window being 20 foot up, from the pishach. He threw a lock at the unwanted visitor and injured its head. He also says about ringing a contact and discovering that Mrs Choudhury's husband did not die in an accident but of anaemia and that she was known to have committed suicide. She comes in with an injury to the head and, realising that the jig is up, runs from the men, who give chase until she runs across a train track and is hit by a locomotive (the film's cgi blood is not the best in that scene, to be fair).

floating at the window

That should be the end, of course, but the plague of anaemia continues and the professor thinks he knows why… And those familiar with Benson’s story, or indeed the 1975 film version, will know exactly what happens next. For those who haven’t read it you can check out this Indian version, which was effective enough (though I need to mention a coffin that was barely buried), via Amazon. Unfortunately, there is no IMDb page, as mentioned, but Benson’s story can be found online and an English summary of Roy’s version is available here. The short is on YouTube with closed captions here - thanks to Nancy Kilpatrick for spotting that.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK