Baskin (2016)

Strong and Moving!

Brilliant and touching

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The films centers on Arda, a young policeman who lost his brother as a child. He is cared for by the police chief who he calls uncle. We have a long scene in the beginning with dialogue that sets things up for later in the film. While out, the group of cops get a call to go to a different part of the city they don't patrol. They have an accident, but manage to find their way to an old precinct headquarters used during the Ottoman age.About an hour into the film we discover they are in the Inferno, a plot spoiler given to us in the stock film description.From what I can find, Baskin means "raid." This has been called Turkey's "Hellrasier" and I would agree with that from the torture point of view. The hell master is creepy looking at there are a lot of frogs in the film, either to show us a plague of frogs or to promote "Hell Comes to Frogtown." While the horror and torture aspects were good, watching a Turkish film with English subtitles prevented me from getting to know the one dimensional characters, or caring.Guide: F-word, sex, nudity.

Visually this movie excels, the practical effects and makeup are memorable and definitely keep the movie interesting. The film is only around 90 minutes, but the pacing and build up to certain events is quite slow, so it seems to drag on. The characters are not too interesting, but they do have personality, though most of them are basic. There is a complexity built into the films story, not a lot is explained, and its really open to interpretation. This feels like if Mulholland Drive was crossed with a Rob Zombie movie, there is even a scene in a diner where a character tells another character about a terrifying dream he had, this definitely reminded me of Mulholland Drive. I wouldn't say it is a great movie, but it definitely has great individual scenes, the opening scene in particular was phenomenal, and throughout there's a hellish, surreal atmosphere. The soundtrack is great and really helps amplify the more intense scenes. It also features an electronic soundtrack, and being a fan of that sort of music, I enjoyed it. Again, its not a great movie, but its definitely an enjoyable horror flick that I would recommend and probably watch again.

I would of given this a 10 rating but with not in English and the captions that I despise and really hate so darn bad. I just can't stand captions or subtitles. I rather it be dubbed in that countries released language. Like I am in USA means English.So sick of wanting to watch a movie and it is not in that language you live in that country. I do not give a crap if it costs more money. It is just more logical to do it that way, then reading the darn screen or movie like a book instead. Rather hear and see than read and try to see or watch.I think all foreign movies should be dubbed instead. I could careless about those that hate dubbed movies. I rather have that then text all over the screen, no matter what. No matter how good the movie is a 10. If it has captions, it is dropped to a 7 instantly.Besides that this is an awesome movie and love the gore. I love gory movies, and welcome them all. I just can't get enough of the gore. Seemed really slow in the beginning, getting started but then when it finally started somewhere, it was more towards the end. Evil, creepy, and dark.Hard to tell what is going on with caption crap, but with the cops being called for backup and end up in a trap to hell in an old abandoned police station, deep down under the building, and sacrificed like animals. This is pretty gory.

Baskin is really terrifying from the beginning to the end. Psychological horror elements were set intelligently to assist its atmosphere. I was very surprised to see a different kind of horror movie since Turkish horror movie industry was always focusing on that genie topic. Its a brave movie that can change your perception of the hell. It is disturbing the audience by cannibalism, gory-porn and demonic ritual influences. Also it presents one of the best OST album in horror movie genre. I think Baskin catches that deep-immersing atmosphere thanks to its soundtrack. They are well made and perfectly integrates within the story. Can Evrenol is a must-follow director if you're a horror movie fan.