Baskin (2015)

"Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light."

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Yesterday I learned that if you were to place a map of the European and Asian continents - from England to Japan - on top of a map of the United States, I would be living in Turkey. Therefore, I am totally qualified not at all to review this film.

In lieu of a donut shop, five Turkish cops gather at the Fatty Flesh BBQ Tiki Cookout Hut all-you-can-eat chum bucket buffet. Seven minutes into this film and I can already feel a profound disturbance, as if a million militant Vegans all petulantly whined at once, and were suddenly exiting the theater in droves.

Seems like a typical night, five cops sitting around a seedy diner, swapping lies about how much sex they get...from transvestites, and chickens, and elephants. No I'm not kidding. They're boasting about losing their virginity to chickens. And elephants. But they're not gay, so don't you dare laugh at any miniscule suggestion that they might be, or the feisty curry pepper cop will beat the shit out of you.

There's a frog in the soapdish. Behold, the twenty minute mark! Turkey don't do lame jumpscares, homie. Turkey is doin' the Harbinger Of Doom all up in here at Shit O'clock on Fuckday afternoon, and frogs are some bad juju. Although I once found a frog in a laundry room, covered in pink lint and looking distinctly humiliated. I picked it up and carried it to the nearby river, and that's why the demons have not dragged me off to Hell yet. Truth.

Wow, Turkish synth-pop is way superior to the American crap. Whodda thunkit? Seriously, I'm kinda digging this tune. So are the guys, who have finished their food, capped their aggression and stowed the tall tales of sexual prowess back beneath their belts. It's Go-Time. A call for back up comes in and the guys are off, down a dark and seemingly endless road into the Turkish countryside towards a place called Inceagac.

Nice to know that drawing dicks is a universal thing. I guess. 8========D

Anyway, Inceagac doesn't seem to be an actual place. It's not a town or a nightclub or even a street. It's just a slight bend in the dirt road by the river. Despite its lack of landmarks or distinguishing features, Inceagac is generally believed to be a "bad place" where "bad things" happen. Exactly what those bad things are is never made clear. But the cops are in agreement - one does not simply walk into Inceagac, unless one wishes to henceforth wear his guts for garters.

But the cops don't walk into Inceagac. They drive into it. Actually, they crash into it. Actually actually, they hit someone standing in the middle of the road, full on fenderslam meaty thunk, and the van goes headfirst into the river. Our chicken fucking cops seem fine, not a scratch to be seen among them, but the radio is dead and they are forced to seek help from the Turkish cast of Deliverance who are chilling on the riverbank. Deliverance leads them to a Turkish Chainsaw Massacre shack which was once a police station and is now an abandoned shit-dump. Turkish Chainsaw shack is also sitting right on top of Hellraiser, which the guys discover the second they stupidly descend an endless spiral of stairs down into the deep dark below.

And then, holy shit. It's Silent Hill meets Caligula down there! Legless torsos swinging from meathooks in the ceiling, garbage bag-wrapped bodies being gangbanged doggystyle, snarly tangles of teeth and hair and eggs leaking black viscous shit all over the entrail splattered floor. It's full on Cannibal Ferox grossout zombie skullfuckers on squirty sex parade! It's the ultimate pig wallow in the filthiest shit pit in the lowest circle of Hell's composting toilet.

The guys are captured, tied to pillars in a large chamber and forced to take part in a ritual designed to force them to accept their fates. Oddly, the Master Of Ceremonies - a dwarfish, deformed monk who is revered by his tortured followers - seems to genuinely want to help the men find the path back to the light, but his way of "helping" them is brutal, degrading and filled with pain.

And I can't give away too much more or there would be no reason for you to watch it. Granted, if you have the constitution of a wilted pansy, you may not want to watch Baskin (which means "raid" in Turkish, btw) anyway. It looks like unapologetic snuff gore porn to the untutored eye, but stick with it and you'll realize you've just sat through Dante's Inferno via Triangle. And if you have no idea what that means, stick with James Wan's cornucopia of crapola. Yeah, I know that sounded arrogant. Fucking sue me.