This evening's your last chance to see Can Evrenol's vision of hell, Baskin. Will there be a sinister cult? Yes! Will there be police intent on shutting that cult down? Yes! Will there be hellish horrors? Yes!
"That sounds pretty intense..."
And if you go tonight, you even have pretty good odds of it being daylight when the film gets out. (Cause that's a deciding factor for some people. Not me, well, maybe me. Sometimes).
BASKIN Final Screening:
Thu, Sept 17, 6:00 PM SCOTIABANK
There are still screenings of Baskin and The Devil's Candy for you to feast your eyes on--and potentially for hell-creatures to feast on your eyes. (We are legally and morally obligated to warn you of the possiblity that hell-creatures will feast on your eyes during Baskin and The Devil's Candy. But we assure you that it is totally worth it. In fact, we're certain you won't mind).
So why not look at some more pictures of hell and hell pictures while you're waiting to catch the next screening of Baskin or The Devil's Candy. Or even to let bore into your mind as you wait in line for Southbound. I'm sure there's nothing diabolical about that horror anthology. Horror anthologies never involve hell... or paintings... What could it hurt to take a peek?
I could use some inspiration...
We usually see Hieronymous Bosch's depiction of hell from "Garden of Earthly Delights," but I thought for a change, let's just contemplate, "An Angel Leading A Soul Into Hell."
"And here's the Infernal Panopticon. And there's the guy who chops people up for eternity..."
Here the Devil's and his stomach pal have popped out of Hell to remind everyone that there is no redemption in Hell. Of course, a lot more people read Latin in 1485, so you'd have to be around then to really appreciate the concision of the warning. Especially when he has a cute bat head.
Don't be fooled by the cute bat head!
An intriguing Hellmouth from the Winchester Psalter (1225). It is one head or two? It a face or a vase? THAT IS THE HORROR OF HELL!
Everybody in? Good, I'm locking the Gate to Hell. Watch your tails!
A Hellmouth from a French translation of St. Augustine's The City Of God with very diligent demons and overworked angels.
It's like an infernal Pac-Man.
This painting is also French. It's from Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. The Devil has a really upset stomach.
Satan really overdid it on the people-eating.
Meanwhile, in an 1861 Yoshimori blockprint, bad dogs are being judged in Hell. Really bad, bad dogs.
I don't even want to know what these dogs did.
And skeletons are up to all kinds of business, while Hell Courtesan dozes (Kyosai, 1874).
Bored now.
But Hell's never boring with Midnight Madness! See more visions of Hell in Baskin and some more hellish art in The Devil's Candy
BASKIN Final Screening:
Thu, Sept 17, 6:00 PM SCOTIABANK
Baskin is a horror film that after seeing you will not soon forget. A slow descent into the furthest depths of hell. The film also has the distinction of being the first film from Turkey to ever play in the Midnight Madness program. Here is the complete world premiere post-screening video.
Last night marked the premiere of Baskin by filmmaker Can Evrenol, a Turkish film which follows a group of rowdy police officers who are called to a scene, but are far from prepared for the black mass orgy of malevolence which is taking place in the building. This movie is woven with biting criticism of cops in their depiction as being very adolescent, and is rife with moments that would make censors in its home country totally lose their heads, because restrictions wrapped so tightly around what can be screened.
Here are some other Turkish genre movies to whet your appetite for Baskin.
Büyü (2004) Büyü or Dark Spells follows a group of archeologists discover an old book in a haunted abandoned town, and ignore the advice to steer clear of it. The group is then forced to relive occurrences that happened in the two 700 years prior.
Küçük kıyamet (2006)
Otherwise known as The Little Apocalypse, this film follows Bilge, who lost her mother during an earthquake years before. When she decides to go to the coast to rent a house for a vacation, she becomes plagued with horrifying visions.
Musallat (2007)
Musallat follows a young couple named Suat and Nurcan, after husband Suat moves to try and earn more money for their future, but he becomes plagued with terrifying visions that drive him to the brink of insanity. As the plot rolls forward, it becomes clear that what is haunting Suat isn't any run-of-the-mill anxiety, it is something far more evil.
This film follows a journalist named Olivia who travels to Turkey, where she discovers that her sister Maria is pregnant. Although Maria is no longer with the father, she decides to go through with the pregnancy, which is when increasingly terrifying things begins to occur, such as traces of Baskin-esque black masses.
Baskin written and directed by Can Evrenol received it's world premiere at Midnight Madness. Robert A. Mitchell was on the red carpet as it slowly descended into hell. TURKISH HELL!!!!
Robert made it out alive. Here is his interviews with Can and actor Gorkem Kasal.
You still can catch what will surly be one of the most talked about horror films of the year!
A dark and rainy setting for a dark and gritty horror film!
On a dark and stormy night, one of the bloodiest and most extreme movies to ever grace the Midnight Madness screen touched down at the Ryerson last night, eliciting more than a few uncomfortable squirms from the Midnight audience. By the time Baskin's end credits crawled up the screen, even a crowd that is more than used to this type of fare was left reeling at what they'd just witnessed.
Ian Goring snapped a few pictures of the festivities as the rain-soaked patrons of the Ryerson experienced the most shocking screenings of this year's lineup!
Baskin director Can Evrenol
Can Evrenol is one twisted dude.
Baskin lead actor Gorkem Kasal and Can Evrenol strike a pose on the red carpet!
Looking decidedly better than he did during most of Baskin, it's Gorkem Kasal!
Executive producer Muge Buyuktalas and Can Evrenol pose with programmer Colin Geddes, and Gorkem Kasal
Surf's up!
Power couple Can Evrenol and Elif Domanic
The Baskin crew!
Blogger Robert Mitchell interviews Kasal on the red carpet!
Can and Gorkem introduce Baskin
Can answers some questions from a perplexed audience!
Can has some awesome horror-themed tattoos! Gorkem Kasal finds this hilarious.
I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but it's not good. Not good at all.
Baskin premieres tonight, promising a tale of police officers who are unfortunately dragged through a portal to Hell while breaking up a cult ritual. We've been here before, fellow Acolytes of Madness. So it seems like a good time to smudge the room, raise the four quarters, draw a pentagram on the floor in chalk and take a look at some other cinematic visions of Hell--from within a protective circle of salt of course.
If Baphomet suggests you don't bother with the circle of salt, don't listen. Baphomet says a lot of things.
See? Always saying things.
The Hellraiser series has a lot of interesting ideas about hell. The paramount being, you don't really want to go there. Not even people who think they do want to go there. In fact, they find out that they SO don't want to go there that they'll find a way to sneak back using other people's blood to make a new body and then steal someone else's skin and live even the most boring of lives after that if they have to. In Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1987), we see a little more of Hell itself. It's very neat and it's both very Escher and kind of German Expressionist. One can imagine Kafka spackling and tidying it for eternity.
If you look closely, you can find Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari wandering around here.
And floating above the labyrinth of Hell is unfortunately not Tim Curry
But a big ol' geometry problem that abhors any kind of chaos and really thinks you should get with its program of boring architecture and chains that fly out of nowhere to tear your soul apart.
Huge ass jerk.
In Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981), Liza inherits a cursed hotel. It has things like "The Seven Doors Of Death," which I assume was not listed as legally required. One of them is a gate to Hell, and Liza accidentally opens it with a combination of fixing up the place and The Book of Eibon. There is a whole lot of trouble at the hotel. Aside from demons in the plumbing and people dying and mysterious acid attacks, there creepy painting by an artist murdered by a mob in her otherwise quaint, b'n'b ready hotel. Seeing the painting, Liza does what any sane person would do and decides to leave. Ha ha, no sorry, she decides that even though looking at the painting makes her bleed, she'll barge right into the one room she's been told to stay out of. And that's where she finds The Book Of Eibon, which I assume is bound in human skin. Long story short, turns out Hell is in her basement.
I don't know, maybe a dehumidifier would help.
People can't leave ancient tomes alone in The Gate (1987) either. The Gate is a Canuxploitation classic directed by Tibor Takács. Stephen Dorff--I assume his character has another name, but we all know that The Gate is the true story of Stephen Dorff's life. Stephen Dorff and his friend discover a cursed geode beneath a lightning blasted tree in Stephen Dorff's yard. It's a good one and I really can't blame him for taking it home. But there is an accident during excavation and the Blood of Stephen Dorff is spilled upon the Earth beginning the summoning of cute little demon guys.
But even these little guys don't know better than to leave ancient cursed texts alone.
There are a lot of demonic shenanigans. Dead people reappear. A dog dies and is deposited in the geode hole. Teenagers listen to heavy metal. Demons rearrange the family VHS library and eat the last piece of cake. But you know, with a combination of the Bible and a rocket, the kids set things right. Well, mostly right. The house is a wreck but the dog's okay. So the lesson of The Gate is really, buy your geodes at those stores that sell pewter wizards and enamel dragons' eggs, kids.
I always forget that Paul W. S. Anderson directed Event Horizon (1997). Anyway, the event horizon in Event Horizon is that of a black hole and an experimental ship that mysteriously disappeared. And also, probably Hell. After receiving a signal, a rescue ship is deployed carrying Dr. William Weir, the engineer who designed Event Horizon's experimental black hole-powered drive. Weir is played by Midnight Madness alumnus, Sam Neill (Daybreakers). When the rescue team arrives, they discover everyone on board Event Horizon dead in really horrible ways. And the Event Horizon's gravity drive powers up on its own. People start having hallucinations. And, most importantly, Sam Neill's Dr. William Weir has hallucinations. About this time they discover the ship's video log which records the Event Horizon crew losing it and the captain saying, in Latin, "Save yourselves from Hell." Latin is always a bad sign. It turns out that the ship passed through a Hell dimension and came back possessed, but they're real problem turns out to be a possessed Sam Neill.
Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku (1960) is chock full of sinning and people just doing plain crappy things to each other, but it's all a prelude to theology student Shiro's journey to rescue an infant who has floated on the river running through the underworld into Hell. Not just any infant, but Shiro's child who died with his fiance in a car-wreck. Shiro (Shigeru Amachi) has a lot of issues. And I don't think he feels any better as he travels through Hell seeing the specific punishments for each group of sinners. Shiro is like Dante without Virgil--though maybe he does have a Beatrice. And the Hell Shiro travels through is made from each suffering soul's own sense of guilt. Oh, and it's another film with a painting of Hell in it.
"Just turn left at the sign. You can't miss it!"
In High Plains Drifter (1973), a stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into town full of people hiding their sins and being all casual about having whipped the previous marshal to death. the Stranger kills people easily, and doesn't seem able to die. When the men the town had hired to kill the marshal are due out of prison, the people of Lago get understandably nervous and they hire the Stranger to help them. He makes them plan a big party, paint their town red and paints "Hell" in red letters on the town sign. High Plains Drifter is an inversion of Pale Rider, with (maybe) the Devil--sometimes called, "The Strange"--coming to town and sorting things out himself. But even if it's not exactly literally Hell in the sense that Hellraiser is about Hell, High Plains Drifter is worth pondering.
And I'm pondering what Can Evrenol's vision of Hell will be in Baskin. But I must tell you, my friends. My mind unquiet. I can't help thinking, "But what of The Chickening?"
Premiering tonight at Midnight Madness is Baskin, the debut feature film of provocative writer-director Can Evrenol. Evrenol was born in Istanbul, and is an alumni of the University of Kent, where he studied art history and film. Baskin follows a group of police officers who stumble into a place where a sort of black mass is taking place by a malevolent cult, and are pulled into a violent, inescapable hell. Although this is the first full-length film in Evrenol's output, his resume is rife with tense and unique pieces (including a short film also called Baskin of which this film is based off of) that can assure every Midnighter will be on the edge of their seats tonight.
Check out some of his shorts and just try to not get excited for tonight, I double-dog dare you:
I got the chance to chat with Dave Alexander, editor-in-chief of the world's leading horror magazine, Rue Morgue, and naturally, had to ask him what Midnight Madness movies he's most looking forward to.
Baskin
If Can Evrenol’s Baskin is as creepy as the short film of the same name that it’s based on, it’ll be the kind of hard horror hellride perfect for midnight audiences in need of a genuine creep out. I love movies in which the protagonists must investigate large buildings that reveal a multitude of horrors – think the original Dawn of the Dead, the remake of The Toolbox Murders or Silent Hill – and the chilling occult angle offered here drives things in a particularly harrowing direction. The official description of Baskin being inspired by Quest for Fire, Apocalypse Now and Hellraiser, but also the paintings of Caravaggio, Bosch, and Giger” seals the deal.
Final Girls
If you watch a lot of horror movies, like I do, films that cleverly deconstruct the genre tropes we’re so familiar with – and sometimes tired of – are cathartic. When they also deliver all the fun in those formulas, all the better. Todd Strauss-Schulson’s Final Girls promises the same amount of laughs and lacerations found in slasher-savvy titles such as Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and Cabin in the Woods. That it was co-written by actor-turned-screenwriter Joshua John Miller – of Near Dark, River’s Edge and Halloween III fame – is a bonus for us genre geeks.
The Devil’s Candy
The Loved Ones (2009) is one of my all-time favourite Midnight Madness movies, and six years is too long of a wait for a follow up from Aussie writer/director Sean Byrne. The premise for The Devil’s Candy (a painter in Texas is possessed after moving his family into their dream home) is as simple as the set up for The Loved Ones (a high school boy is kidnapped and tortured by a deranged classmate on prom night) but you can bet Byrne has some nasty surprises in store, as well as some very strong visuals. All that aside, seeing as it comes from the same producers as popular Midnight Madness films The Guest and You’re Next, it’s a no-brainer.
I’ve heard of Turkish Delight, but Turkish Horror?!?! That’s what Baskin, the debut film of Can Evrenol promises to unleash on the thrill seeking audience at the Ryerson tonight when the clock strikes midnight.
When a squad of police respond to a request for backup, they enter the basement of a mysterious building, where they discover things that make them wish they had ignored the call. Tonight’s screening might bring back memories of when Martyrs screened at TIFF; and if you were there, you know you won’t want to miss Baskin.
Check out the trailer for a taste of what’s in store.
Back in May, Midnight Madness programmer, Colin Geddes teased on Instagram that the director of one of this year’s selections had this sweet Leatherface tattoo.
The tattoo belongs to Can Evrenol, the director of Baskin. Knowing he had more than the one horror tattoo, I was a bit of a creep last night and sent him a message asking if he could send me pics of more of his ink to post on the blog. Can was obliging and asked his wife to take some pics for you to check out.
Can you identify them all? Of course you can. But which is your favourite? I think mine might be the Greedo one*.
What horror ink do YOU have? Show off your best tattoos in the comments section, and if there’s enough entries, I’ll try to get a pair of tickets forBaskin to give away to the owner of the best tattoos. Looking forward to seeing what you’ve got.
