Indrapramit Das

@indrapramitdas

aka Indra Das, author of THE DEVOURERS and THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR, Lambda, Shirley Jackson & British Fantasy Award winner, Crawford Award finalist. he/they/she indradas.com

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Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· 21d

SERPENT'S PATH (1998); a revenge thriller & claustrophobic crime drama/morality play warping at the edges into something absurd/mysterious; a physics teacher creating a little self-enclosed hell in 'our' world. The central 'crime' here is ghastly, a psychic wound swallowing those complicit.

Still from Serpent's Path (1998); a man kneeling in silhouette against a bank of CRT TV screens showing a little Japanese girl among greenery. The rest of the frame is shadow.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· 23d

It's anti Italian discrimination (Sopranos meme)

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· 25d

Billy Zane's never been more repulsive, compellingly watchable as always as a horrid chap (predatory art student vibes). But damn, they really knew how to make artfully beautiful B-grade thrillers back in the day. Not a shot out of place. Noice work, Noyce (sorry).

Still from Dead Calm; young Billy Zane, shirtless, grabbing a young Nicole Kidman under the chin and getting up close to her face from behind creepily, under bright sunlight on a boat.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· 25d

DEAD CALM (1989); wanted to watch a Sam Neill (RIP) movie I hadn't seen in full. He's great in it, but Nicole Kidman was 19 in this? Goddamn, a talent fully formed even then. The kind of character/perf that doesn't need badass quips to convey competence, courage (all the more for her vulnerability).

Still from Dead Calm; a sailboat (yacht?) glows white against the black sea and night sky at night, stars sprinkled across the dark, a flare blooming and casting red violet reflections on the waves.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jul 12

You can help save Amir's mother's eyesight, & help his family survive Israel's genocide, by sharing & donating: chuffed.org/project/help...

Graphic with photos of a Palestinian woman with an eye patch, lying down, with her son Amir, a young man, next to her, and a crying boy, Amir's brother Sanad, next to her as well. Text: 'Save my mother's sight. She can only see with one eye. She is in pain every single day. We need your help before it's too late. My mother is suffering from a severe eye disease. She can only see with one eye. The other eye is bleeding inside. She needs urgent treatment & expensive eye drops. Every day her pain gets worse. We need 120 pounds for her medicine. 'I'm the only one trying to protect my family. My father is ill & cannot work. We are 7 people living in a tent in Mawasi Khan Younis. No medicine. No treatment. No hope... except you.'

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 29

I do love this show.

Still from The Vampire Lestat, showing Louis (a vampire formerly a Black man, wearing black) crouching over a severed head on the ground of a front lawn at night, saying 'Except I didn't disrespect my face like you done'.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 29

Cronenberg's NAKED LUNCH by Hajime Sorayama.

Poster for Naked Lunch, showing a figure sitting on a black box obscured under a white sheet, with something on top of them, visible poking out of the sheet are the figure's slender, pale bare legs, one of them with a stocking (or layer of skin?) peeling down to the ankle, and the butt and spindly legs of a giant insect that is sitting on the figure's lap (and also obscured by the sheet). The poster's background is white, with vivid red kanji on top, with smaller black kanji falling down like flakes of ash.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 29

As always, when sex scene discourse begins, always remember Paul Verhoeven on whether sex scenes are necessary in movies: 'Nothing is necessary in movies.'* *Any art.

Still from Benedetta. A slender brunette white woman, nude, straddling an older blonde white woman wearing a night gown. The blonde woman reaches up to feel the brunette's breast.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 22

THE FURIOUS was 🔥🔥🔥 better MORTAL KOMBAT adaptation than MORTAL KOMBAT (2021); the barely-there plot, brutal brawls, everyone regenerating from critical injuries, the bosses (Brian Le's Ho reminded me of Goro), combos upon combos. Absolutely astonishing how did they do that choreo & physical perfs.

Still from The Furious, showing actor/martial artist Miao Xie dressed in black and poised on a pile of goons with a hammer raised inside an MMA ring/octagon.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 20

Google's Terms of Service now has an Indian version just for our very special draconian online police state.

'If you're based in India, we also added new reporting language about our obligations if you violate applicable law.'

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 19

'peace deal'

'Ah shit, here we go again' meme from GTA San Andreas showing a Black man walking down an empty road in-game with the subtitle text on screen.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 18

DISCLOSURE DAY is a cracking 90s throwback thriller directed with all the audiovisual dynamism one expects of Spielberg et al, couched in a less successful religious epic about 2 prophets, its climactic revelations delivered in the unwondrous language of contemporary cable news/YT conspiracy vids.

Still from Disclosure Day, showing a man in a police uniform from behind looking up at a bright UFO hovering close to the ground above joshua trees in a dusky desert.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 15

Mango season at Burrabazar, almost closing time. North Kolkata, not far from a little shop where you can buy bhang, aka cannabis paste (edible), in a corner of the market redolent with garbage. Cheapest drug in the world. Probably.

Photo of a bazaar with stalls of mangoes under green light, and pedestrians on the footpath, all amid a dense urban lattice of scaffolding, wires, and buildings in north Kolkata.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 12

A tiny friend of the street among passers by.

Photo of a little brownish-grey-white cat sitting on a footpath/pavement by the feet of pedestrians.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 10

Dragon posting 🐉

Charcoal pencil drawing of a dragon with wings outstretched and tail like a whiplash as it soars through what is meant to be a grey and storm-heavy monsoon sky over Calcutta.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 9

My eyes keep clinging to the spots where I see the city unmolested as yet by the regime. Everywhere I go, placards with our hideous new Chief Minister's face like a god. The BJP/saffron flags only grow in number. I hope the city will stay alive.

Photo of an elderly man in shirt and trousers leaning against a rail by the side of a road in central Kolkata, in front of a stall brightly lit with flourescent lights, selling shirts. By him is a lamppost wrapped in haphazard wires. Above the street level stalls are visible the minarets of a yellow and green mosque against the black night sky.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 7

Oedipus:

Javier Bardem as Max Cady from the new Cape Fear series, speaking into a prison phone across from someone behind the plexiglass barrier, looking angry. Subtitle text: 'They made me a motherfucker. I became a motherfucker to survive.'

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 6

Received my copy of @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social's THE BOOK OF THE DEAD (@harpervoyagerus.bsky.social), w/ my story 'Passengers'; high school students on a night train through '90s Bengal encounter unexpected violence that leads their journey into the event horizon of death's country.

Cover for the anthology The Book of the Dead, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Illustrated by Galen Dara. Title and credits in white text over a painting of a skull-faced, stylised apparition wreathed in ectoplasmic robes hovering against a night sky and crowned by the moon, with the dark shape of a hill and a tombstone behind it.

First page of my story 'Passengers', with the opening text: We sat in the close quarters of a winter-cooled train compartment, huddled together for warmth. Boys and girls, closer to each other’s bodies than we’d ever been. Our feet nestled next to each other, thighs and hips brushing. It was the first time most of us—class 9 students all—were travelling without parents, the first time I would travel beyond Calcutta with friends. Beyond the windows was blackness, engraved with our reflections on the scratched glass shutters, distant villages in invisible countryside flying past like fireflies. Cold air rushing from the gaps under the shutters with the dewy smell of earth. Eight teenagers in a compartment with six berths. Too many—the illicit thrill of breaking rules. But we wanted, needed to be close. Puberty had changed everything, much to the anxiety of teachers chaperoning for the trip. Blankets covered a multitude of legs as warm, damp paper boxes of Indian Railways food were passed around and earphones shared from a circulating Discman, music and conversation overlaying the rhythm of the train’s clattering beat and motion. We played bluff with cards on the sagging valley created by a blanket stretched over two rows of seats.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 6

So much respect for this young man. I don't think I could face such relentless state repression and abuse with this much dignity and composure. This is him about to return to prison after 3 days of (restricted) freedom to see his mother through surgery.

Photo of Umar Khalid, a young Indian man with close cropped black hair and beard in glasses, wearing a white t-shirt that reads '[You can cage the singer but not the song]' and showing the peace sign as he prepares to return to prison.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 5

BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016); this was around the time I was losing patience with the MCU's quippy pap, & Snyder's mommy issues melodrama (Martha! Is Superman daddy?) taps into a mythic anti-gravitas I found more amusing & weird than any of the MCUs at the time. Luthor piss jar.

Heavy armour Batman with glowing eyes in the rain from Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 5

SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE (2025); exactly the kind of CGI-janked videogame playthrough visual style that makes contemporary action not hit, but I did enjoy the bit where he sneaks through a train trying not to wake the fellas. The cartoonish scale of the action is also never boring, exactly.

Still from Sisu: Road to Revenge showing the titular character peeping out of a truck on a country road, looking at a huge explosion in the distance in an adjoining meadow.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

RRR (2022); I enjoyed this a lot when I watched it, the more I think about its insidious stealth Hindu nationalist subtext the more I dislike it with time, but I can't deny the appeal of its maximalist mythmaking and grandiose action set pieces.

Still from RRR showing a ripped South Indian dude holding the hooks at the end of two thick ropes in a forest with blood running down his topless form. His pecs have tiger scratches.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

NIGHT PATROL (2026); absolutely cracking premise of a supernatural TRAINING DAY-style cop drama wherein featuring a vampiric club of nazi cops. Undone by its lack of focus and leaning on comedy, but the opening establishes a decent sense of place, character, and atmosphere.

Still from Night Patrol showing Justin Long and some other white dudes playing evil cops in a warehouse.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

PREDATOR: BADLANDS (2025); Elle Fanning gives a fun performance, and the film maintains a level of good-enough entertainment that gets it through its utterly bland AAA videogame style aesthetics and PG-13 franchisescaping.

Still from Predator: Badlands showing a Predator carrying an android without a lower torso through a trashed and smoky camp with android corpses.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

GOOD BOY (2025); the titular good boy is, indeed, such a good boy that it distracts from the tepid horror. Such a good boy.

Still from Good Boy, showing the titular canid good boy in a forest with a creepy black figure in the background.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

COLD STORAGE (2026); Liam Neeson's character's bad back restricting his action bonafides was a funny gag, albeit not used to its fullest comedic extent.

Still from Cold Storage, showing Liam Neeson talking to a couple other people next a car's open boot.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

SIRAT (2025); goofy Eurotrash SORCERER is nonetheless gorgeously shot, and sometimes manages to sometimes replicate that film's sense of 'how did they do that', which, in this day and age, is impressive.

Still from Sirat showing a van and a truck parked in a desert along with camping people sitting around.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE (2025); its distended ending does pull a kind of neat trick that pulls into the theme of 'AI' leaching any faith in truth from the world.

Still from Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die showing two people pinned to a wall along with metal objects as wire tendrils approach them.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 4

SEND HELP (2026); Raimi going CGI gore on a pretty dull-edged screenplay is a hell of a bummer, but Rachel McAdams can't help but give a great, and entertaining, performance.

Still from Send Help showing Rachel McAdams screaming in a jungle while covered in blood.

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas· Jun 3

I liked the atonal discordance of OBSESSION, like a 'magical' romcom (a la BIG or WHAT WOMEN WANT) gone rotten. I think one of the reasons this resonates with the present is a subtextual evocation of genAI loser generation's dream (nightmare) of a perfect uncanny girlfriend without real personhood.