10 Horror Movie Rip-Offs You Won’t Believe Exist

2. Seytan (1974)

Mahakaal Movie
Saner Film

Also known as 'Turkish Exorcist' (which really says it all), Seytan is essentially a scene-for-scene remake of William Friedkin's instant classic, made so swiftly that the original was still in Turkish cinemas when it was released.

Seytan was directed by the late Metin Erksan, a twenty-year veteran of the Turkish cinema community known mostly for kitchen sink realism and working-class drama. By the early seventies his career had largely foundered, and the former arthouse filmmaker, who only a decade before had been hugely feted at the Venice and Berlin International Film Festivals, was reduced to making mockbusters of recent Hollywood hits to make his lira.

In fairness to Erksan, he does a competent job of remaking the movie on a tiny budget. All the big moments from The Exorcist are here. However, it’s also odder than a sock sandwich, mostly due to the hilarious English translation in the subtitles, the bizarre Raimi-style crash zooms and the decision to go blue for the vomit scenes. Weird.

Seytan’s most intriguing elements stem from replacing the Catholicism of the original with a more psychoanalytic approach coloured with Islamic references. The young priest undergoing a crisis of faith is now an urbane psychologist; the Quran is used for the exorcism sequences.

There’s a lot more that could have been done there, but creativity was never the point of this endeavour. Seytan was Erksan’s last big movie before he moved into directing television, finally retiring altogether in 1982 to teach.

Contributor
Contributor

Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.