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Suat has left
his family in Turkey to work in Berlin
together with a childhood friend. It seems like a
great way to support his family at home but he soon
realizes that something's wrong. He keeps hearing
strange things and it eventually becomes clear to him
that he's been possessed by an evil spirit.
Turkish horror movies have left a lot to desire in the
past and recent productions have been unoriginal or
plain dumb. Musallat changes all of this. Musallat is
a very original tale of love and possession. It's
competently made in every way from its flawless
cinematography to its beautiful special effects. It's
hard to believe that this is from the same country
that gave us such crap as Gomeda, Araf and Gen. I can
see why this was so successful in both Turkey, Germany
and Austria but at the same time, it's probably
difficult to truly enjoy the movie if you're not
of Turkish heritage. Or maybe it's just me. So despite
the fact that it's so extremely well-made, I didn't
really enjoy it all that much. I'll tell you why in a
little bit, first let's go over the story real quickly.
Musallat tells the story of Suat, a young man who just
left his wife and mother in Turkey to work in Berlin
since his family is in desperate need of money. His
friend gets him a job and it seems as if things are
looking up, even though Suat is extremely home-sick.
However, there's something not quite right in Suat's
life. He's having bad nightmares and lately he's been
having a lot of blackouts. From here on out it gets
kind of complicated so I won't try to describe it
anymore but I will tell you that it's a tale of possession,
slightly resembling to "The Exorcism Of Emily Rose".
The problem with Musallat is that it's more of a drama
than a horror flick, and it's a quite tedious one at
that. Even if it's well-written and all, I couldn't help
but to pause it about five times to go out for a smoke
simply because I was bored to my bones. There's very
little horror-material to be found in here and the
jump-scares that they've thrown in a little here and
there don't really work. There's no real sense of
suspense or atmosphere and as a horror movie it just
falls flat - simply because it doesn't contain the
qualities of a good ghost story. At the same time I have
to commend Alper Mestci for making the most beautiful
and well-made Turkish movie that I have ever seen
because even if it fails to scare its audience, it's
got so many good qualities that it's watchable anyway.
In the end, Musallat didn't scare me but it did impress
me as it's a well-polished horror flick and it's
obvious that a lot of effort was put into this flick.
I'm sure you will be able to enjoy it more if you're
more familiar with the topic but I'm not and I found
it to be rather dull for most of the time. I can't
seem to make my mind up about this one, can I? I wanted
to love it but in the end, it's just an okay horror
drama and I'm giving it credit for being stylish,
original and competently made.
Very little.
Amazing sound effects, just amazing. As for the music,
it was very well made and suited the movie perfectly.
Musallat could have been a great movie had it only
focused more on being a horror flick and less on being
a drama. I've never been able to enjoy drama's for
the reason that my attention span is too short and
this one sure is a slow burner. Competently made and
definitely original but not for everyone.
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