Rating: C
Dir: Alper Mestçi
Star: Rüya Önal, Merve Ates, Özgür Hacier, Ece Koroglu
Is it possible to make a horror film without a plot, consisting entirely of nightmares and jump scares? That appears to be the challenge Mestçi set for himself in making this entry. But it seems like the film-makers were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. The previous films in the series, which certainly having their share of hallucinations and shocks, typically did so against the background of a decent story, which held things together. This works something like the first, where you only discover the truth of the situation right at the end, and here, it feels rushed, to the point of coming across as little more than an afterthought.
It does have an interesting set-up. An opening caption tells us, “The Karain village of Nevþehir is known as Cancer Village. Research has shown that the biggest reason the villagers of Karain get cancer is the soil in the region… This film was shot in the Karain village where those cancer cases were seen.” This is more or less true. It’s actually Tuzköy, a town near Nevþehir plagued by early deaths, which was initially thought by locals to be some kind of curse. It was eventually found to be due to erionite, a naturally occurring asbestos-like mineral that, similarly, can cause mesothelioma (there are deposits of it here in Arizona). The entire village was relocated as a result, leaving behind a potentially eerie location. Except it never feels Mestçi takes much advantage of this.
Cynically, this could be described as the story of a house full of hysterical women. There are three generations, all of whom seem to have major mental issues, beginning with the youngest, Hale played by Ates in her third franchise appearance. Though here, she is sporting a platinum blonde wig, which is as unconvincing as it is distracting. She seems to be possessed, holding lengthy, Gollum-like conversations with herself, while torturing a doll. In the house are her mother, aunt Azra (Önal), and grandmother, but her father vanished from the picture years ago. Azra is the only semi-stable one, holding down a job in a shop and a relationship with its owner, Selim (Hacier). Let’s see how long that sanity lasts under pressure, shall we?
What you basically get is a solid hour of largely unexplained sequences of dreams and visions, inevitably of an unpleasant and/or harrowing nature. I’m certainly not going to knock the technical elements here. Mestçi could knock this kind of thing out in his sleep; the problem here is, it feels like that’s exactly what he did. It’s all by-the-numbers and gradually diminishes in impact, to the point it becomes hardly more than cinematic noise. When you eventually find out the cause, it’s actually solid, and the subsequent finale (top) is genuinely shocking. Shame this didn’t show up much earlier, as it might have given us something to care about.
Cracking poster though.