Known widely for filming the world famous Zibahkhana as well as owning the creatively decorated Hot Spots of gore - his chain of ice cream shops that serve a healthy dose of horror with strawberry sundaes - is Omar A. Khan, a man with an unfaltering passion for cinema. The type of cinema that haunts, to be exact. And his passion is so strong that, like the ghosts and spirits of his bubonic imagination, this fervor insidiously creeps into everything he does with a ferocity that powerfully takes over society, slowly yet surely.
Omar has now ventured into and is the mastermind behind 'The Incredibly Strange Cinema Club' (which you may have seen haunt your Facebook pages) that aims to bring together fellow horror movie buffs for screening of gore classics and subsequently herald a revival of cinema in its own right. As with everything Omar has done so far, there seems to be a proud strategy behind his obsession with ghosts and goblins.

Instep: What was the impetus for the Club?

Omar Khan: Well, it's part of the master plan for ultimate world domination through the spread of vice, evil and immorality (read: FUN).  Actually, jokes aside, the idea is to expose people, especially the youth to films other than the drudgery represented by the mainstream, which is what we get in our cinemas and largely in our pirate shops.  Kids have grown up raving about movies like 300 as the ultimate yet have had no opportunity to be stunned by films like Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and The Battle of Algiers.  Millions have idolized Heath Ledger as The Joker but few have had the chance to marvel at the majesty of Cesar Romero in the same role or at Adam West who is forever the ultimate Batman.  Kids today cannot define a cult movie because they have yet to see one!  Audiences have been weaned and nurtured on slickness, sequels, special effects, remakes and a whole lot of glamour and gloss, especially from Bollywood but creativity in the mainstream has been all but crushed by the demands of economy and profitability.  More than ever, the mainstream is represented by economically safe, retreads of tried and tested formulae and though I love a mindless superhero sequel just like anybody else, they don't exactly push any envelopes for creativity, just for technical excellence and state of the art wizardry.  So, fortunately for those slightly jaded by sequelitis and superheroes, the Incredibly Strange Cinema Club arrives as solace and sustenance.  The idea is to discover people who are equally in need of a change of scene from the high-octane surface slickness of the Hollywood product and reconnect with great and perhaps not so great movies from the past. We hope also to discover a whole bunch of interesting people from all walks of life who share a passion for cinema that is slightly off centre.  Normally these are the coolest people that I have ever met, far cooler than those who can only discuss "award winning films", though sometimes even we like award winning films too!  However, to share movies like The Blob from the 50s with a younger audience and to make connections with the onset of the Cold War, the onset of the atomic age, the "red menace" and the Cuban missile Crisis - we hope to have informal screenings and chats which help to put films into context and to shed light on some of the interesting aspects about the film. 

What we absolutely do NOT want to do is bore people by capturing them and trying to show them how clever we are and how much we know about movies.  Though not adverse to the odd serious, socially relevant, "award winning" message laden movie, we want to avoid going down that road and taking ourselves far too seriously, watching only Iranian movies many of which are about as exciting as watching paint dry.  Also, finally we reckon the greatest art and cinema has flourished not in a pushbutton studio with ten digit budgets to splurge but in the toughest conditions when often hardly money was available at all.  The innovation that can be found in the work of low budget filmmaking is rarely evident in big studio productions. 

Creativity must rise above adversity in low budget film making and if you watch the films of Jose Mojica Marins aka Coffin Joe, King of Brazilian Cult cinema, it is startling what he was able to achieve with next to no money, machinery and space.  Lets face it, the other impetus was the arrival of Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, a mouthwatering prospect starring the deity of crap: Lorenzo Lamas, an extremely sprightly CGI shark performing stunning heroics and an Octopus resembling a notable minister on a bad hair day straight to video which we ordered at massive cost but found the lovemaking scenes featuring Debbie Gibson far more frightening than any shark or octopus and that was that.

Instep: How long has it been in existence?

OK: It's been about a month or so now, no fanfare just letting people know by word of mouth really - on Facebook naturally.

Instep: What sort of membership has it managed to elicit?

OK: Highly dubious, shady and dodgy individuals so far….unfortunately we seem to have struck a chord with the porn crowd!  Actually that's not at all true, we have so far managed to attract some of the coolest people you would want to watch a movie with, so things are definitely heading in the right direction.  The idea is generally to make the screenings more than just a screening. I mean, I have tales to tell about the film related people I have met along my festival travels, people who I feel incredibly fortunate to have spent time with.  Lets see, a little name dropping now….well hanging out with Jason's mother Betsy Palmer is the pinnacle for me personally but getting to know somebody as cool as Frank Hennenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage fame) and actually counting him as a friend and then hanging out with Dario Argento the King of Horror who had some strange things to say about Pakistan and the honour of spending a few days in the company of Mr and Mrs Roger Corman are among the memories I shall cherish my entire life.  I have my little kitty of tales to tell and then a vast knowledge of completely useless information about movies most people have never ever heard of (and most people hope they will never ever hear of either). 

But I unashamedly love strange movies, bad movies, B movies (what is a B movie incidentally?), low budget monster movies, in fact most movies that have the courage to do their thing.

Instep: How many screenings does it purport to hold? How often?

OK: Initially we are hoping for one screening a month  and occasionally we hope to have a bit of an outing by organizing a total "Royal Park" experience which means having a bite to eat with say Mr Sarwar Bhatti of Maula Jatt before heading to a local cinema to watch his film with him giving us his special insight and answering questions for us.  Inviting and including directors, producers, actors, fight masters, make up wallahs, character actors, dancers, musicians etc is definitely something we intend on including into our screening schedule, especially those who have been callously forgotten without so much as a thank you.  There is a constant struggle to get our young people to realize that some of the truly coolest, most fascinating and talented people are part of our own "pop culture" - a culture slowly being strangled to oblivion by narrowing minds and the worst education system that humanity knows.

Instep: There was a mention of a book club on similar lines. What's going on with that?

OK: There is not a book but a DVD and Blu-Ray rental club including my personal collection of Incredibly Strange Movies and I have to proudly claim to having the strangest collection this side of Frank Hennenlotter, from whom I acquired a film last time I saw him called The Black Devil Doll from Hell which is so astoundingly horrible it will stun even the most hardened purveyor of cinematic atrocities.  I don't think we will be screening that particular masterwork but it will be available to borrow from our library of movies which can be viewed online for members to select their movies at home and get all sorts of info about them as well as links to reviews etc. The link for the Incredibly Strange Collection is:  thehotspotonline.com/MovieCollection/Export/index.html. It features all our movies: strange, not so strange and the downright embarrassing.

Instep: Since you are the guru of gore, have we ever seen anything quite like this cinema club for the surreal and strange (or are you the only cuplrit)?

OK: Indeed, the Grand Guignol theatre where audiences swooned in delight and horror to hideous tortures and weirdness on the stage, but we wont be going quite that far, perhaps.  Clearly this is not going to earn me huge amounts of money, as we don't stock stuff like the latest Angelina Jolie film nor the Oscar award winners. It's more a case of me collecting a massive collection of more obscure and fascinating movies that are a step or two or more away from the mainstream and the fact that I reckon rather than hoard them at home, why not share them with others who might want a break from the blockbusters once in a while.  But seriously, for people into horror and cult, our collection is a seriously strange one including many that are rubbish to most but invaluable gems to some!
Instep: Any interesting trivia you'd like you share on celebrities' penchant for horror?
OK: Well, Michael Jackson would show his young male friends The Exorcist as one of his methods of controlling and plying his "guests".  Saif (Ali Khan) once shocked me when we were driving along in the car….I started some classic lines from Spinal Tap something like 'Cleveland here we come' and he just took it from there and before I knew it we were reciting all the lines from this colossally brilliant movie which incidentally should be compulsory viewing for our "intellectually oriented" rock bands and certainly our more pretentious radio and disc jockeys. 

What else, you all know that Jack Nicholson got his break with Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors and Clint Eastwood first appeared in a bit role in the brilliant Tarantula while Kevin Bacon's death will forever be horror movie folklore from the original Friday the 13th. Tom Hanks got his break in a cheap slasher Halloween rip off by the name of He Knows You're Alone and Brad Pitt featured in a cheap slasher flick Cutting Class. George Clooney got his break in Return to Horror High while Holly Hunter made her debut in the gruesome Friday the 13th clone The Burning….. and that's Shirley MacLaine's daughter on the cover of The Exorcist novel - a picture that terrified millions of people the world over.

Finally, did you know that Adolf Hitler changed his name to Hitlar, escaped to Punjab and married a village belle and fathered a son called Hitlar Junior who turned into a transsexual underworld don?  Enough trivia for now!