Exorcism, possession, black magic and psycho killers have crept their way into Turkish cinema in the last decade, resulting in some unintentionally horrific results. The revival of horror movies in Turkey sadly has been little more than an unabashed imitation of American and Asian flicks. The latest example is TV director Cem Akyoldaş’ debut film Konak (Mansion), a sloppy recreation of American teen slasher movies.
A group of university students heads to the historic town of Safranbolu, only to have their SUV break down and their hotel reservation revoked as it begins to get dark. They find their way into an old mansion to spend the night. The mansion, as you can imagine, is set to become their tomb, as each student faces a gruesome death in retribution for their sins. The seven deadly sins come into play here, only in this case each sin somehow relates to drug use. Akyoldaş, along with writers Mehmet Akif Turgut and Funda Çetin, don’t even attempt to use Islamic and Anatolian mysticism and horror motifs, which have been popularized by recent efforts of young directors in the genre. Cardboard characters and so-bad-it’s-funny dialogue make the movie as sloppy as it gets, lowering our hopes of seeing a decent Turkish horror movie even further.
Other recent stabs at horror in Turkish cinema have come from newcomer directors, nearly all of whom tried putting an Islamic or Eastern spin on the films. The ghosts and zombies have become jinns and doomsday appears in its Koranic form. While replacing these motifs with those of American horror cinema (which has a history of nearly a century) and drawing at times from the highly original world of Asian horror, Turkish filmmakers have decided against adding an ounce of originality to the formula. These efforts are merely a copy-and-paste job, centered on the repetition of dated and trite clichés. Here’s a brief look at the Turkish horror films of the last five years.
Büyü (The Spell): A group of very sexy archeologists travel to a small town to research an ancient spirit. The expedition goes terribly wrong when the spirit begins haunting the group. The script, dialogue and special effects are all a disaster, not to mention the historical inaccuracies (first Turkish civilization Artukoğulları, anyone?) and the unrealistic portrayal of archeologists (hot female archeologists with barely any clothes are the norm here). The film hit the box-office jackpot when the movie theater burned down during the premiere. A fire has never been kinder to a filmmaker.
Okul (The School): This teen-slasher/ghost combo is set in a high school where the students are preparing for their centralized university exam. The ghost of a student who had committed suicide haunts the students and teachers. The movie is reminiscent of Bollywood horror films, bordering more on the thriller side of the genre. The film stands out with its good acting.
Araf (Purgatory): Inspired by Japanese horror movies, the film exploits the consequences of abortion when a woman decides not to have her baby from her married lover. Years later, the ghost of the baby comes to haunt her. Amateur directing, a sloppy script, bad acting and even worse special effects are not enough to explain how terrible the movie is. The sexist and misogynist overtones of the protagonist’s punishment are really inexcusable.
D@bbe: Impressive special effects and makeup and the clever use of Islamic themes make this movie stand out – to a point. Jinns find a way through the Internet to communicate with the friends of a man who committed suicide. The suicide is connected to other ones throughout the world, giving the film an apocalyptic atmosphere. The film is a remake/rip-off of the American movie Pulse, which in turn was a remake of the Japanese film Kairo. The acting is subpar, to be generous.
Gen: Released to unnecessary hype, the movie is a slasher/thriller about a serial killer in a mental hospital with no connections to the outside world due to a storm. With undertones of Kubrick’s The Shining and Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom, the film nevertheless has more plot holes than a sieve. Cheesy dialogue and lazy scriptwriting make the movie a new classic among bad horror films.
Musallat (Haunted): Even though there’s a very close resemblance to the 2005 American film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the movie manages to offer an original take on possession. More drama than horror, the film features a young couple whose life becomes miserable when the man becomes possessed by an evil spirit. The cinematography and special effects stand out.
Semum: Following his first attempt at horror with D@bbe, director Hasan Karacadağ shows improvement with impressive special effects, an eerie atmosphere and better characters in this story of a woman being possessed by a demon. This doesn’t excuse the fact that director’s second movie comes under scrutiny as a retread, once again. This time the film rips off a classic, The Exorcist.
Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News on 7 November 2009.
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