Sheitan is a film with a message. And that message is that you shouldn’ make fun of people from the country just because they’re different, just because they’re not as “cool’ as you, just because they look inbred and slightly retarded or because they attempt to jerk off your dog. It’s a film that delights in that kooky slightly sinister backwoods weirdness that made Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes and a bunch of shitty B-grade horrors so much damn fun. It’s a place where the audience and characters alike are attempting to gauge wether we’re dealing a benign case of hillbilly weirdness or if something more sinister is festering in the backwoods. Frenchman Vincent Cassel (Irreversible/La Haine) is completely over the top, the hairy wide eyed dipshit caretaker, bouncing around with a delighted Helter Skelter grin, who at first annoys and then begins to terrify a bunch of horny 20 something clubbers, lured to the country in the hope for a little bit of horizontal action. It’s all class, slightly reminiscent of Hostel, imaginatively shot and almost violently edited, where the suspense just keeps building, despite the abundance of incredibly wrong black humour. This French horror from Kim Chapiron wacks on the religious connotations, the kids exiting a nightclub called Styx, a story at the table about someone who made a pact with the devil, and the kids favourite ultra hardcore band named Sheitan. And just so just you know Sheitan is Turkish for the Devil. With its weird inbred sexual connotations, goats that bite, Cassel looking like Salvador Dali on steroids and a bunch of nubile young victims, what’s not to like? Just keep your strange ginger niece away from my dog
EXTRA FEATURES:
There’ a really good making of doco, which basically consists of Cassel, who is also the producer, relating how the project came together and the making of it. Even surprisingly suggesting that he thought it would be the film that ended his acting career. There’ also a hilariously exaggerated video clip of Sheitan, the fictional hyper hardcore rap band from the film and a short vampire film featuring Cassel’ sexy squeeze Monica Bellucci.
Bob Baker Fish
