Baskin

Film: Baskin

Year: 2015

Director: Can Evrenol

Writer: Ogulcan Eren Akay, Can Evrenol, Ercin Sadikoglu and Cem Özüduru

Starring: Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Görkem Kasal and Ergun Kuyucu

Review:

This was a film that went on my radar thanks to podcasts. It received mostly praise, which made me put it on my list of films I missed where they were released but needed to see. Even though I heard about it, I didn’t necessarily know what I was getting. I had seen the trailer for it as it was showing before movies I had been seeing in the theater. My first viewing was at the Gateway Film Center when it was presented by Fright Club. I’ve now given it a second viewing as this part of the Summer Series for the Podcast Under the Stairs and then a third to discuss on the Night Club Podcast.

Synopsis: a squad of unsuspecting cops goes through a trapdoor to Hell when they stumble upon a Black Mass in an abandoned building.

This starts with a boy who wakes up in the middle of the night. He hears his mother moaning and he goes to her door. The television in the other room is on and that draws his attention. He goes to shut it off and sees a hand coming through the open door of his room. He panics and calls for his mother.

We then shift to the present. A group of police officers are at a local restaurant. They are telling stories. One of them isn’t feeling well, Sabo (Sabahattin Yakut), and this makes him irritable. The boss of the group is Remzi (Ergun Kuyucu). There’s another older cop, Apo (Fatih Dokgöz) and a foul mouthed one named Yavuz (Muharrem Bayrak). There is a younger cop with them as well, Arda (Görkem Kasal). Yavuz is a bully and gets into with a worker at the diner, but their attention is drawn to the bathroom where Sabo freaks out. Before he did, he throws up and sees a frog in the soap basin. There is then a figure behind him.

They get back on the road now that Sabo is feeling better. He is driving. They get a call on the radio that back-up is needed in this nearby area. It is a place where strange things happen. On the way, a naked man runs by and they stop to investigate. They don’t find anything, except for scratches on the side of the van. They continue until they hit someone that is in the road. This causes them to veer into the creek.

When they come to, they encounter a group of frog hunters. They ask for help and learn they are close to where their fellow officers are. What they find is a nightmare and beyond their imagination. It is a fight to survive this horrific night. The events from the beginning play back in and time isn’t what it is seems.

I have to say that this film wasn’t what I was expecting. Before it started, the hosts informed us that this is one of the first horror films released from Turkey. I’m blown away by that, because this is good, especially for an initial effort. Writer/director Can Evrenol does a great job at creating such a nightmarish atmosphere. You don’t know what is real and what isn’t. With what we got at the climax, that was something I enjoyed. The location of it is interesting as well. It is an abandoned building that was a former police station during the time of the Ottoman Empire. It was then converted to being a stable for horses. It is interesting its history to have a bunch of police coming to check it out.

This is also one that people need to experience, so I’m not going to give too much away. I will say, is that this gets brutal and when we meet Mehmet Cerrahoglu’s character of Baba or The Father. It becomes a full-blown nightmare from there. His followers are dirty and moving in ways that’s unnerving. Things from earlier tie back in, including the boy we saw and things that characters say. These are all things I can get on board for and I will admit, I’m a sucker for cults in films. There is also the concept of time and that it is more of a flat circle instead of following in sequential order as well. It isn’t the most logical, but I dig that. There is a feel of Italian nightmare logic and I’ll bring this up later.

There is something that I was confused about. It is such a nightmare that I don’t understand some of the things that happen. I don’t like everything to be explained because I like to piece things together. In the case of this though, I would have liked to know a little bit more about the frogs and the cult itself. I just think it went a little bit too ambiguous and I kind of lost my way with it. Not that it ruins anything though either.

Now originally, I had issues with the pacing. It starts off well and I am interested in the characters. What I see now is that we’re setting them up before the events get wild. That works since we have a low running time of just over 90 minutes. Once it hits the abandoned station though, I was locked in and it just keeps getting darker. I liked the ending as well. I wasn’t expecting it, but when I figured out where they were going, I was onboard.

Moving then to the acting, I must commend them. I thought they were good. Cerrahoglu was so creepy in his role. He’s not very tall, but his presence and look are great. He is wearing a bunch of locks, which is a theme that recurs and I thought it was a good touch. Kasal was solid in his role. We delved into his back-story and I thought his character was good. Kuyucu is solid as the older man who is looking out for Arda. He is also the boss, so he feels even more responsible. Bayrak’s character I found interesting as well as one of the older two officers. I thought this did well in introducing them and making them different enough. The rest of the cast rounded out the film for what was needed as well, especially the cult and the frog hunters. There is something unnerving about them all in their own ways.

This brings me to filmmaking. First would be the effects, they were done practically from what I could tell and it was great. The climax scene made me cringe. The things they were doing to people looked real and it was brutal. The look of the cult members was solid and quite scary. It does feel like a nightmare and the effects help to build that up. I’ll also credit the cinematography as there is just a dirty feel to the place they go. It makes me cringe. The soundtrack was also good. There was one time that I noticed a song from a Lucio Fucli film, which this movie was inspired by. I believe I read that they took Fabio Frizzi music from these films and reworked them. It was spot on to build this atmosphere.

In conclusion, I’m glad that I’ve seen this one a few times. It ticks the boxes of things that I like. The best part is the atmosphere. This is built from the imagery, the location and the soundtrack. The acting and the effects help there as well. If I do have a slight issue, I want a bit more explained with the cult and/or other elements. Not enough to ruin this though. I will warn you that this film is from Turkey and I had to watch it with subtitles on. If that’s not an issue and you like films about cults, I would give this one a watch.

My Rating: 8 out of 10