Şeytan (1974) is a Turkish remake of The Exorcist (1973). And it’s not just a remake, but a paint-by-numbers recreation of Friedkin’s film. The filmmakers behind Şeytan even went so far as to use Mike Oldfield’s iconic score ad nauseam. Of course Şeytan was made with but a fraction of the budget of The Exorcist so many of the scenes are silly and campy rather than unsettling or scary.
The most important difference between the two films is that while The Exorcist is about the crisis of spiritual faith, Şeytan is about the crisis of faith in the methodology of psychiatry. In Şeytan there are no priests standing watch; the heroes of this film are simply psychiatrists with an interest in Satanic neuroses. This changes drastically the central conflict. In Şeytan good and evil square off as a conflict between science and superstition.
There are other differences as well. The moody images of Owen Roizman have had no influence on the work of Nihat Çifteoğlu. Çifteoğlu lights everything in flat, bold compositions as if he were shooting an old made for television film. This exposes the cheap special effects while also diminishing the impact of the central performance. What should be dark and mysterious is instead bright and colorful.
Director Metin Erksan seems to have shot Şeytan hastily without any real concern for the material. The aim of the film was clearly to get a Turkish version of The Exorcist in cinemas as quickly as possible. For that reason Erksan’s direction is all over the place and actors all seem to be approaching the material with very different ideas and attitudes.
And yet this is part of the fun of a film like Şeytan. It’s an unintentional parody of a wildly popular film that will appeal to that film’s fans. Şeytan is so goofy and misguided that it is compulsively watchable and entertaining; an exercise in oddball choices and cheap effects. Few horror comedies are, intentionally or not, as hilarious as Şeytan.
