Do You Dare To Face THE JINN?

As any fan of cult cinema will tell you, Turkey has a gloriously trashy history where genre film is concerned. There were entire decades where copyright law simply didn't exist in Turkey and seemingly nothing was off limits, resulting in homegrown heroes and villains and - most notoriously - insanely cheap knock offs of Hollywood blockbusters. It is perhaps because of that history that most filmmakers in Turkey stay far, far away from anything that feels like genre cinema today.

Hasan Karacadağ is an exception to that rule. The Jinn (El Cin), his fifth horror feature, hits Turkish screens April 5, further cementing his reputation as Turkey's leading horror director. Karacadağ's films are designed as pure, pulpy entertainment - crowd pleasers that may take some cues from international trends but root their mythology firmly in local folklore. And that is very much he case again here, with a story that purports to be based on a true story of possession.

Give the trailer - which includes English subtitles - a bit of time to warm up to you. It starts off feeling like a fairly standard found footage style shocker but ends up someplace quite different.