TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Genies not genius: Turkey’s low-budget horror flicks boom
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Behind the scene: Members of the crew and actors work on Forbidden Wedding during filming in Buyukorhan, in the outskirts of Bursa, Turkey, on Sept. 1. (AFP/Yasin Akgul)
K
neeling before a chalk star outside his tumbledown house, an old man performs a ritual to rid himself of evil spirits -- which many Turks believe exist.
Perched behind the camera, director Metin Kuru tries to encourage the actor to convey the sheer agony of being possessed by a genie.
But there will not be many takes, because Kuru needs to finish his film fast to feed Turkey's voracious appetite for low-budget horror flicks, with a new supernatural chiller released every week.
"At the end of the day, I try to produce films with as few technical issues as possible," Kuru said between scenes of Muhr-u Musallat 2 -- Yasak Dugun (Sealed Invasion 2 -- Forbidden Wedding).
Filming many of the scenes in the dark helps.
"The color palette of horror movies is not as varied, which allows filmmakers to shoot with cheaper cameras, less light and smaller crews," Kuru said.
This year alone, 60 new homegrown horror movies will hit screens in Turkey, where demand for entertainment has not waned despite -- or maybe because of -- the economic crises gripping the country.
More from The Weekender
Jakarta’s padel moment
From FOMO to full-blown obsession, padel has captured the city. What comes next may depend less on courts and more on the communities that grow around them.
The battle over memory
And why the government’s plan to rewrite its history books should alarm us all.
Are younger workers getting something right about work?
As micro-retirements gain traction, Gen Z and young millennials are challenging traditional ideas of ambition, success and when it’s okay to pause.
