Baskin ***
Dir: Can Evrenol.
With: Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Gorkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu, Muharrem Bayrak. 97 mins.
Cert: 18
This slowburn Turkish
shocker suggests what might have happened if Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’s philosophically inclined patrolmen
had blundered into Eli Roth territory. We’re riding with a squad of grizzled
law enforcers, halting their musky after-hours banter to provide backup in an
ominously remote location: a gore-blasted museum of the macabre showcasing the
year’s most warped costume and production design. Writer-director Can Evrenol’s
cribs are blatant (don’t look now, there’s a Lucio Fulci bit) and Roth’s
influence is felt in a punitive streak that hints these non-PC coppers are
getting exactly what they deserve. Yet right through to his clever-bleak
pay-off, Evrenol finds forceful means of disconcerting us, cutting freely
between nightmare reality and vivid dreams, forever landing upon the ickiest of
textures. Sensitive souls need not apply, clearly, but hellfiends are hereby
alerted to a work of malevolent promise – a film that seizes the attention even
as some of its imagery turns the stomach.
Baskin opens in selected cinemas from today.
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