Baskin review – muddled horror

This Turkish horror movie about a group of policemen who stumble upon a satanic mass, complete with a gimp orgy and a demon butcher, has all kinds of grisly fun with production design and hallucinatory shifts in reality. However, the screenplay is such a muddle that the audience is left groping through curtains of entrails and flayed skin trying to figure out what in the world – or perhaps the underworld – is going on. The film, which owes a debt to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, is based on an acclaimed short film by director Can Evrenol; he’s clearly a film-maker with a flair for creating a macabre and unsettling atmosphere. However, for all the mortified, mottled flesh and salacious shots of butcher’s equipment, Baskin is just not very frightening.