10 Rip-Off Horror Movies (That Messed Up What They Copied)

8. Şeytan

Child's Play Dolly Dearest
Saner Film

The Exorcist sure is something, huh?

William Friedkin's direction of William Peter Blatty's adapted screenplay has thoroughly stood the test of time and is still as bone-chilling today as it was when it first hit cinema screens in 1973.

You know what isn't talked about nearly as often these days? The Turkish shot-for-shot remake that came out less than a year later.

Şeytan, which is unsurprisingly the Turkish word for "Devil", premiered eleven months after the original Exorcist. It features a young girl, the daughter of a rich woman living in Istanbul, who becomes possessed and must have the demon removed from her via an exorcism.

The similarities between this plot and the plight of Regan MacNeil are plain to see, purposefully so. Like we said, the film is almost identical in every way and has become known as "The Turkish Exorcist".

Whilst the movie does try and do something original, replacing themes of Catholicism with those of Islam instead, it mostly comes across as a cheap imitation. The camera quality is much poorer, as is the acting and the special effects.

And the subtitling, oh boy, that's some funny stuff.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.