This slowburn Turkish shocker suggests what might have happened if Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’s philosophically inclined patrolmen had blundered into Eli Roth territory. We’re riding with a squad of grizzled law enforcers, halting their musky after-hours banter to provide backup in an ominously remote location: a gore-blasted museum of the macabre showcasing the year’s most warped costume and production design. Writer-director Can Evrenol’s cribs are blatant (don’t look now, there’s a Lucio Fulci bit) and Roth’s influence is felt in a punitive streak that hints these non-PC coppers are getting exactly what they deserve. Yet right through to his clever-bleak payoff, Evrenol finds forceful means of disconcerting us, cutting freely between nightmare reality and vivid dreams, forever landing on the ickiest of textures. Sensitive souls need not apply, clearly, but hellfiends are hereby alerted to a work of malevolent promise – a film that seizes the attention even as some of its imagery turns the stomach.
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