
Octoblur 2016 - #07: Baskın (2015)
Written by dorrk | 06 October 2016 |
You carry Hell with you at all times.
The Turkish horror movie Baskin is a well-crafted creep-out that manages somehow to be simultaneously fresh, derivative, impressive and mildly disappointing.
Director Can Evrenol expounds on his 11-minute 2013 short — which maybe explains why Baskin sometimes feels long at a mere 97 minutes — with the surreal tale of a group of boorish police officers who become ensnared in a Hellish trap. There's meat, frogs, gore and torture (but, thankfully, for once, not a young woman being lasciviously tortured by a freakish man), and Baskin gets intense enough that casual viewers might find it tough to stomach. For die-hard horror fans, there's as much to really like as there is to feel slightly let down by.
Despite its obviously low budget, Baskin never looks cheap; Evrenol exhibits terrific control and vision in nearly every scene, building a confidently unsettling atmosphere throughout, and tapping into a few incredible moments of striking imagery. Less satisfying is the story, which sometimes feels like it's stretched too thin or grasping for purpose, and includes too many moments of obvious "homage" (Goodfellas, The Blair Witch Project and other movies are conspicuously referenced in ways that uncomfortably recall Turkey's dubious history of cinematic plagiarism). Baskin's strongest scenes occur when Evrenol just lets his characters explore the grim landscape of his disturbed imagination, including an extremely unnerving tour of a suspicious building.
Despite its lack of total success, Baskin gets under the skin enough to make Evrenol's next movie one well worth anticipating.
Trailer for Baskin (2015)

Baskın (2015)
More info
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/octoblur-2015/
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/octoblur-2014/
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/octoblur-2013/
TL/DR
-
Movie:Baskın (2015)
-
Dir.:Can Evrenol
-
Project:Octoblur 2016
-
Watched:2016/10/04
-
Rating:6/10
-
Flickchart Rank:1706
-
Chart Percentile:53%
Tags
Related Articles
Latest Articles
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 04. Invention for Destruction (1958)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 03. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 02. Hellzapoppin' (1941)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 01. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 05. The Hippopotamus (2017)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 04. My Life as a Zucchini (2016)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 03. Me and Orson Welles (2009)
POPGAP Projects
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: The 28 best films of all time you've probably never seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022 is all Oct-Over now, Baby Blue
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: Dramas of the 1940s
-
Popgap Diary: 2021 in Review
-
Silver Screen Streak List #20: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2021 is in the cold, cold ground
Popular Articles
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2019
-
Introducing the Silver Screen Streak movie challenge
-
Octoblur 2017: Annual Horror-ish Movie Nightmare-a-thon
-
PopGap #08 Re-cap: Comedies Since 1970
-
Octoblur 2017: R.I.P.!
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2020
-
Octoblur 2015 - It's Over!
-
PopGap #19: Movie Books Special Report
-
Popgap Diary: 2019 in Review