Baskin Review
There has always been a trend for directors to turn their beloved short films into full-length features, Saw and District 9 being some big name examples. Turkish director Can Evrenol now brings us the latest conversion for our consideration, the twisted and terrifying Baskin.
Set all in one night, a group of Turkish police officers embark on the patrol from Hell (literally) when they receive a back-up request from out in an abandoned factory. Once inside they come face to face with many a macabre manifestation; can any of them survive the night?
The plot starts fairly simplistic, but somehow ends up becoming much more complex than is necessary. There’s plenty of philosophy about good versus evil, and the depravity and beastly nature of man. It’s great to see such big topics covered, but it bogs down and confuses proceedings a little.
Baskin Review
The use of lighting adds atmosphere and style making this a film that isn’t just ‘torture porn’; the sound design is particularly effective. The sound is used to an unusual and effecting way, somehow the way in which the film captures ‘wet’ sounds permeates through the screen and makes the air around the audience feel damp and downright gross. This is showcased best during the several scenes featuring frogs. One part in particular sees one of the policeman look into a bucket to find it full of frogs climbing over one another, the sticky, slapping and squelching noise easily makes it feel like the bucket of frogs are right there in front of you in full 4-dimension.
The way in which the scenes are lit, all reds and blues, ramp up the sinister atmosphere and rather cleverly mask the modest budget the production was working with. In some places it might be a tad too dark, especially with it being a foreign language film, as it’s sometimes a little hard to see exactly which character is speaking / under threat. This obstruction however, just adds to the mania of the piece, the audience as unsettled as the hapless police unit. And then we get to the head of the Hellish hedonists, a character referred to in the credits as ‘Father’.
Baskin Review
Played by first-time actor Mehmet Cerrahoglu ‘The Father’ has a face that you’ll remember. The actor suffers from a rare skin-condition and his appearance in the film has not been altered. The decision by Evrenol to cast him is inspired and, whilst some could accuse him of profiting from another’s condition, it’s not his appearance that makes The Father so creepy, rather it is in his calm delivery of lines and the way in which he caresses and cares for his captives. He’s the Freddy Krueger of the Clive Barker dimension. Speaking of Barker, the author is known for his torrid, sexualised gore and horror, all elements that feature heavily in Baskin. That being said, this is a film that even Clive Barker would have trouble sitting through.
Baskin Review
Baskin is a film purely for those familiar and fascinated with the horror genre. Non-horror aficionados really shouldn’t attempt to view it as the sights that Baskin has to show you could turn even the most horror-hardened fan’s hair white. It’s also not a movie to be viewed on a full stomach as, in addition to the buckets and buckets of blood and viscera, there are some grotesque sequences that will churn the most iron-lined stomachs.
Dark, depraved and downright disturbing, Baskin is the stuff that nightmares are truly made of.
Baskin arrives in limited cinemas on 15th July.
