Welcome to hell…
“BASKIN” My rating: C+
97 minutes | No MPAA rating
It’s not my cup of viscera, but the Turkish horror entry “Baskin” gets points for the supreme confidence with which first-time director Can Evrenol handles a preposterous story.
Like a campfire yarn meant to scare the youngest kid in the Boy Scout troop, the film makes no sense narratively or logically, but instead develops an atmosphere of horror, dread and gross-me-out gore that will have some viewers closing their eyes in self defense.
The film opens in a roadside diner in rural Turkey where five cops are taking their evening meal. They’re like police officers everywhere — self-assured, cocky good ol’ boys fueled by questionable eating habits and displays of machismo.
Before they get in their van and head off to a nearby disturbance call one of the cops very nearly gets into a brawl with a waiter who doesn’t sufficiently defer to his authority.
Dispatched to a nearby town the officers first encounter a family of frog hunters camping out beside a swamp. Possible inbreeding (among the hunters, not the frogs) seems likely.
Then the cops enter an old abandoned police station, start poking around in the dark cellars, and become the prisoners of what I assume is a coven of witches.
One by one the coppers are dispatched in ghastly ways by a nightmarish figure identified in the credits as the Father. This horrifying creature is played by Mehmet Cerrahoglu, reportedly an acting novice who was discovered working in a public parking lot. He may have been chosen for his bizarre physiognomy, but Cerrahoglu appears to be a natural actor — delivering one of the most memorable depictions of evil I’ve ever seen.
Despite its conceptual shortcomings — like refusing to explain what’s going on — “Baskin” has been very well acted and the production effort is first-rate.
Good luck sleeping after this one.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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