BASKIN

Turkey, 2015, 97 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Can Evrenol.

This is a horror film from Turkey, rivalling the blood and gore thrillers from all over the world, even getting four wins and seven nominations at horror and fantasy film festivals (including one for Best Blood Bath!).

The film has a rather long opening where a group of men at a tavern have a conversation about sexual activity, jokingly coarse, quite sexist, and not necessarily endearing any of them to the audience unless they share these sensibilities.

It soon emerges that they are a police squad having some time off, a drink and talk, some old veterans, the chief of the squad as well as a younger man who is new.

In conversation, it emerges that the chief often has a sense of other people’s (dead) presence, something which is shared by the young man who reminisces about his childhood and these experiences.

They are called out to a case, to a town they are not familiar with except that it has something of a strange reputation. On the way there, there are incidents with their car and they find themselves stranded – but in the expected town.

Venturing into a warehouse, they all have weird experiences, eventually discovering a group of zombielike creatures crawling on the floor, around an altar, seemingly something of a Black Mass. Then the leader, a bit reminiscent of Gollum, confronts the police, their all being tied up and being prepared as victims.

With the treatment of each of the men, there is a great deal of blood and gore, extricating innards, gouging out eyes…

By this, it is not necessary to follow the plot at all but there is a little sympathy as each of the policeman becomes a victim. There is some turning of the tables, some more blood and gore and the film suddenly ends.

This is the kind of film shown at monster film festivals, horror fests, and it takes its place amongst films by directors vying to outdo each other in horror imagination (though this one is somewhat reminiscent of Alex de Iglesia’s Witching and Bitching).