Director: Alper Mestçi
Year: 2024
Country: Turkey
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Wanting to get her revenge, a woman visits her family under the pretense of going along for a normal family visit as they hide away at a remote mansion away from the mafia, but as they stay there, a series of supernatural hauntings hinting at a darker secret in the family starts pulling them apart.
Review:
This was a rather fun and highly likable addition to the franchise. One of the better features of this one comes from the immensely effective and somewhat chilling starting point that paints a really engaging start for the ensuing madness to escalate. The initial stages of the supernatural affliction here, with the introduction of the special celestial ritual at a point where it remains a prominent force in the storyline, are given a sense of how precise and devastating it all is compared to the rest of the main storyline about the family trying to get a deadly mafia encounter off their heads. This makes the gradual setup about the family’s continued encounters with the supernatural hauntings and unexplained spiritual confrontations present in the house quite intriguing as it slowly starts to unravel these intertwining plotlines in fine fashion.
That all turns into a series of genuinely terrifying encounters throughout. With the stage set for the series of black magic intrusions to get featured, the interactions involving the summoned spirit targeting the family in their home, from the first sequence with the elderly figure leaping out of the shadows to demonically scream in the mother’s face while trying to deal with her family, or the father getting spooked by the same figure while trying to care for their son, these early sequences of outright demonic imagery are handled rather well at generating the kind of hauntings that will continue later on. As the grandmother continually falls victim to the exploits within the house involving the confines of the occult ritual at the center of everything, it turns this into a fine display as the children experience terrifying nightmares and hallucinations that prove the point of the curse’s power. It all leads to the frenetic and chaotic finale where the true intent of the stories is brought forth and requires the intervention of an expert to finally resolve everything, bringing about quite a lot to like here.
There are a few minor drawbacks here that bring this down. The main issue here is the series of intertwining plotlines that take place, which end up causing this to focus way too much on too many different areas. This makes for a wholly confusing and scattershot plot that has quite a lot going on, from the family moving out of the city to the country house because of the mob interactions that the husband is trying to avoid, only to have it come back around later on with a plot beat being there solely for a body count. The series of hauntings with the family taking place here make no sense, being either about the house itself or the black magic-centered curse that’s enacted that itself goes from being the fault of the grandmother to being a target of the curse, and it never seems to settle on one direct cause that might be difficult for some to follow along. The other drawback to be had here is the franchise-long tradition of suddenly introducing the magic shaman capable of restoring order at the last minute that’s been featured in most of the entries and keeps the familiarity present here, lowering this one slightly.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally enjoyable edition of the series, there are some wholly likable factors to be had here to keep this one going alongside a few minor drawbacks that hold this one down. Those with an interest in the style of genre fare, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the other entries in the franchise will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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