So, after long anticipation Baskin (Raid) delivers, to an extent.
It could be divided into at least two sections but none of it matters much cause director clearly intended to use a slim story of 5 policemen on call as an excuse to thread the torture ground and expose hell, or his vision of it. Only, it's not entirely his, cause the body horror, torture and the whole lot has been covered a few times already.
Turkish horror deals with religious themes mostly, exorcism and possession. This time it gets to be gory, bloody and more violent and that's what places Baskin in different category and offers some fresh material and worthy entry to their cinematography.
We get to meet group of less-than-sophisticated men in the local restaurant talking about football and sex, picking fights with poor unsuspected waiter. But then, they got a call and head to check out the given address, not many details and not much to go on...long story short, they end up in some sort of a hell or limbo, with strange creatures, mutants, torture devices, flesh eaters etc.
Here's where elaborate conversation from the beginning gets a bit broken and reality gets divided into two realms, the parallel reality if you will. Not a big fan of those myself, but demons and hellish torture, floating in and out of reality usually exist so they can teach the characters involved some lessons? Not here, mostly it is torture for torture's sake, by a little, disfigured person, a master (without pins and needles). A Father, or whatever, is a sort of a Pinhead figure here but there's hardly any point to his lessons or hardly any sin to be punished...I honestly didn't see the higher purpose to this inferno.
And that is a bit of a problem, the visual part and direction are quite satisfactory but not much actual story or 'point' to back it up. So, it did feel a bit bizarre and random, although so was Demons('85) for example, and people still love it!
However, as a directorial debut it was rather nice an effort, director's heart was in the right place, you could tell it was made by a horror fan with all the right role models in mind. Props for that, and I certainly am looking forward to future films of his.
It could be divided into at least two sections but none of it matters much cause director clearly intended to use a slim story of 5 policemen on call as an excuse to thread the torture ground and expose hell, or his vision of it. Only, it's not entirely his, cause the body horror, torture and the whole lot has been covered a few times already.
Turkish horror deals with religious themes mostly, exorcism and possession. This time it gets to be gory, bloody and more violent and that's what places Baskin in different category and offers some fresh material and worthy entry to their cinematography.
We get to meet group of less-than-sophisticated men in the local restaurant talking about football and sex, picking fights with poor unsuspected waiter. But then, they got a call and head to check out the given address, not many details and not much to go on...long story short, they end up in some sort of a hell or limbo, with strange creatures, mutants, torture devices, flesh eaters etc.
Here's where elaborate conversation from the beginning gets a bit broken and reality gets divided into two realms, the parallel reality if you will. Not a big fan of those myself, but demons and hellish torture, floating in and out of reality usually exist so they can teach the characters involved some lessons? Not here, mostly it is torture for torture's sake, by a little, disfigured person, a master (without pins and needles). A Father, or whatever, is a sort of a Pinhead figure here but there's hardly any point to his lessons or hardly any sin to be punished...I honestly didn't see the higher purpose to this inferno.
And that is a bit of a problem, the visual part and direction are quite satisfactory but not much actual story or 'point' to back it up. So, it did feel a bit bizarre and random, although so was Demons('85) for example, and people still love it!
However, as a directorial debut it was rather nice an effort, director's heart was in the right place, you could tell it was made by a horror fan with all the right role models in mind. Props for that, and I certainly am looking forward to future films of his.