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Baskin - Movie Review

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4 stars

The graveyard shift just got a lot more frightening.  Baskin, a horror movie from Turkey, might be wafer thin on an actual plot but it more than makes up for that aspect with its disturbing visuals and splatterific gore.  The film is also a bit of chameleon as it switches up its stripes and changes from psychological terror to a straight up gore-fest and then back again.  Surprising then that this is an offering from a first-time filmmaker, Can Evrenol.

Starring Gorkem Kasal, Mehmet Akif Budak, Fadik Bülbül, Derin Cankaya, and Mehmet Cerrahoglu as a freakishly evil son of Satan, the hallucinogenic trip into an abandoned Ottoman police station now overrun by a disemboweling demonic cult begins with Arda’s (Kasal) recurring nightmares.  He is a child.  Alone in his bed, the sounds of lovemaking (his parents) from a bedroom next door are interrupted and he goes to explore.  Except he’s not the only presence roaming around the house.   Something is calling him. 

And then, suddenly, it’s grabbing him and yanking him back into his bedroom.  Which is what the narrative also does to him.  Every single time he thinks he’s out, he gets pulled back in and it gets bloodier and bloodier.

Expectantly, this dream factors into the plot; it just takes its time to weave itself into this late night call of duty in which a police squad is bizarrely confronted by a tweaked out cult trying to spread their demonic influence.  Mixing scenes of torture and the raping of men with psychological terror, this film is definitely not for the masses but it does achieve a level of sophistication that is unique to the genre. 

Written by Ogulcan Eren Akay, Cem Ozuduru, Ercin Sadikoglu, and the film’s director, this is a trippy nightmarish gem that both upsets the stomach and excites the brain.  It’s a rarity these days.  It’s 90-minutes of freakish visuals that builds into a fantasy of terror that is hard to shake.  Evrenol builds tension in such a way that – as the final two members of the squad face some supreme evil – you, too, will be shaking with them.  Can you look away?  Dare you look away? 

Baskin is intense.  It’s also not for everyone.  I'm sure some will flee the theater in disgust.  It’s beyond bloody and definitely pushes the envelope when it comes to matters of taste and all that’s decent and good in the world but, alas, what it achieves is too damn effective to ignore.

If you like demented tales of blood and guts in your 31 flavors of ice cream, Baskin is the only scoop that matters.  It is currently playing in select cities across America and is availible on VOD.

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Baskin - Movie Review

MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime:
97 mins
Director
: Can Evrenol
Writer:
Ogulcan Eren Akay, Can Evrenol
Cast:
Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Gorkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu
Genre
: Horror
Tagline:
Enter A World of Madness and Suffering
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor:
IFC Midnight
Official Site: http://www.baskinthemovie.com/
Release Date:
April 26, 2004
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
March 25, 2016
Synopsis: Five cops, working the graveyard shift in the middle of nowhere are dispatched to investigate a disturbance. Isolated and without back up they find themselves confronting a labyrinthine ruin. Pushing ever further into the depths of the lair, it becomes clear they have stumbled into the darkest pits of a terrible evil. A squalid and blood-soaked den of ritual led by The Father - the master of all their nightmares - who will plunge them ever deeper down the rabbit hole and into the very mouth of madness.

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