Seytan (1974)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Metin Erksan

Writer:

Yilmaz Tümtürk (writer)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

A little girl is possessed by a demon.

Plot Keywords:

Satan | Demon | Vomit | Puke | Possession

Cast

Canan Perver	...	Gül
Cihan Ünal	...	Tugrul Bilge
Meral Taygun	...	Gül's mother
Agah Hün	...	The exorcist
Erol Amaç	...	The police chief
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ekrem Gökkaya	...	Ekrem
Sabahat Isik
Ahmet Kostarika
Ferdi Merter
Ergun Rona
Ismail Hakki Sen
Ali Taygun	...	The doctor
Muzaffer Yener

Also Known As:

Satan (USA) (literal English title)
Turkish Exorcist (USA) (bootleg title)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

Turkey

Language:

Turkish

Color:

Color

Certification:

Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

Saner Film

Movie Connections:

References The Exorcist (1973)

Interesting

Out of all the Turkish rip-off films i've seen, this one is the most palatable in some ways (not the most entertaining, but watchable)... It may have helped that i had subtitles for this one, but part of it was the fact that they follow the Hollywood version very closely, and the basic narrative of the exorcist is solid...

On the other hand, this movie is a perfect example of why story and script can only take you so far in a film... The story is almost identical to the Hollywood version with only a few changes to make it more culturally relevant, but the direction and all the cinematic aspects are much worse. The end result is a movie that fails in every way.

There are no scares, and every scene lacks intensity compared to William Friedkin's version... You would figure that somewhere in the movie there would be at least one scene that would be superior in some way... Some inventive touch that would surpass the original, but even though every scene has a counterpart in Friedkins film, the Turkish version of the scene is always vastly inferior to the point were it's almost depressing. The lighting isn't even remotely atmospheric, the camera choices are all horrendous (except when they copy friedkins exact camera angles), the acting is soap opera level (at best).

This movie is a perfect example of why directors (not writers) are the most important figures behind the creation of a movie. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Lucio Fulci (one of the masters of Italian horror) routinley worked with scripts that were much worse than this one, yet consistently churned out movies that were 10 times better. You can't even really use the poor budget as a justification for this film because many of the problems have nothing to do with any budgetary constraints. It's cheap, but that's not why it's bad.

Most of these Turkish rip-off films play as pure comedy for me, not this one... There is a bit of unintentional comedy here and there, but it's so close to the original exorcist that you can't help but constantly compare the two and the end result is a greater appreciation of the Hollywood version. It will make you thankful that all movies aren't as blandly made as this rip-off.

Worth watching just for the interesting contrast, but not worthy as entertainment of any kind.