A writer with a writer's block accepts a job as caretaker at a remote
island hotel to really concentrate on his writing, with only his wife and
son there to distract him. However, the slightly spooky place soon gets to
him, especially after he finds an ax he insists on taking everywhere, much
to the horror of his wife. Eventually, the wife feels more freaked out by
her husband than anything else on the island, so she tries to leave - but
hubby has sabotaged the boat to make sure she stays. And soon, hubby
chases her and the boy through the hotel, too, and while hiding from him,
the wife accidently smothers the boy trying to keep him from making a
noise - but on a macabre note, that's just the bait she needs to lure him
into a trap. She renders him unconscious and locks him inside a freezer,
then looks for a way to get off the island, which she finds in the boat of
a sailor who has just stopped by to look after them. But while she still
tries to get the boat going, hubby has freed himself from the freezer, has
killed the sailor, and now kills his wife, just when she's about to leave
... In the end, the writer has overcome his writer's block and written a
book about his ordeal - which soon becomes a bestseller. A
haunted house thriller that's clearly recognizable as the Turkish The Shining
- and while Turkish versions of foreign films are often
charming in adding some local flavour to their blueprints and making up
what they lack in budget with enthusiasm, this simply is not the case
here. In Biri Beni Gözülyor, Stanley Kubrick's accomplished scare
tactics are simply replaced with standard shock scenes that are not even
well executed, the great sets of teh original are substituted by a few
very standard hotel rooms, a non-descript lobby and a boring basement that
do nothing to serve the film's narration, and the story buildup here seems
totally muddled - and of course, an actor with the screen presence of Jack
Nicholson, a vital part of The Shining, is sadly missing here.
Plus, I'd be hard-pressed to find another movie with as many out-of-focus
shots as Biri Beni Gözülyor. Now
to make one thing clear, Biri Beni Gözülyor is not only a bad
film when compared to a masterpiece like The Shining
- it quite
simply is a very bad film, even standing on its own.
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