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Canan and her
husband have just moved into a new house
and are happier than ever. It doesn't take long before
Canan realizes that something's wrong with the house
though. Paintings are moved, her cat is acting strange
and her neighbours are starting to freak her out. What
she doesn't know is that a demon is living under the
same roof as her and it's got its eyes set on her soul.
Semum has been very well received in Turkey and has
even been called the best Turkish horror film ever.
Well, I don't know about that but it's certainly not
something we see every day from Turkey - but we did
see something similar in the 70's when Turkey tried
to copy The Exorcist. Director Hasan Karacadag (who's
also responsible for the Kairo rip-off D@bbe) wanted
to make a true Turkish horror film without getting
influenced by American film industry. Well, he's failed
at that because Semum is indeed an Exorcist rip-off
(this guy seems to have problems coming up with his
own ideas) but he has succeeded in making an atmospheric
and occasionally suspenseful horror flick.
There's nothing really new about the story, it's a
mash-up of several horror flicks with the Exorcist as
its key ingredient. A couple moves into a big house
and quickly realize that there's something wrong.
Canan is soon possessed by an evil spirit, Semum, and
her husband starts to wonder what's really going on
with her as he doesn't believe in what she's saying.
Definitely nothing new here but I have to commend
Hasan for the first act of the movie which is both
well written and fairly suspenseful. The second act
of the movie however is just a blatant Exorcist rip-off
and it didn't do much for me. Perhaps you need to be
Turkish to really be able to enjoy this movie because
I sure as hell can't see why it's gotten so many
positive reviews (it has a 8.2 rating on IMDb for
christ sake). So I'm guessing that most of you are
wondering what a Semum really is.
Well, I'm not sure but apparently it's some sort of
religious monster that spends their entire existence
searching for souls to inhabit. Like I said before,
this is probably a whole lot more entertaining if
you're Turkish and know all of this stuff. Anyway,
Hasan has improved as a director from D@bbe. Some
of the angles are just mind-blowing and I was overall
really impressed with his work here. It looks
spectacular - and not because of its higher budget.
I also appreciated the fact that he took his time to
build up the characters so that we would get a chance
to root for them - even if 2 hours is a little too
long for me (this is the third movie I watch this week
where I've had to make a comment about the ridiculously
long running time - what's going on?).
Overall, Semum is an okay horror flick and it's nice
to see something different come out of Turkey for
once. It's certainly not something I'm going to watch
again but Hasan deserves a lot of credit for daring
to make a horror flick like this. Hopefully he will
make a slasher flick next because god knows that
Turkey needs to produce more slasher movies (has there
ever even been one made? I don't know). If you're a
fan of The Exorcist, this might be worth checking out,
but don't trust the reviews on IMDB because it's
really not all that great. It's okay but that's it.
Nothing to say here really.
Helped create a good atmosphere but I can't really say
that I was very impressed.
Forgettable Exorcist rip-off which didn't do much for
me. It's an okay movie but it's a bit too long and a
bit too unoriginal for my taste. It's refreshing to
see something different from Turkey though but I just
wish that they would stop recycling others scripts
and come up with some ideas of their own instead.
Worth a watch if you're a fan of The Exorcist.
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