THE FACES OF WORLD CINEMA

Global fears – local dressing: new Turkish horrors

In Turkish cinema, the dramatic increase of production numbers in the last decade opened the gates for the horror genre (which was virtually nonexistent before), resulting in about ten productions between 2004 and 2010. Many of these films are inspired by previous films of the genre, in terms of content and form. The degree of inspiration ranges from adoption to imitation, from reinterpretation to translation, but almost in each case, in an effort to deal with the collective fears of Turkish society, local and Islamic motifs have been utilised along with the conventions and the themes of the genre. The intersection and interaction of global conventions and local motifs render these films the examples of transnational cultural mode. This paper particularly focuses on the way these films have inserted/substituted local and Islamic motifs into the genre. The interaction of local motifs with the conventions and themes of the genre, such as misogyny, the antagonism of faith and science, or technological anxiety, provides intriguing clues about this transnational cultural mode, where audience reactions teach us different ways of experiencing it.

Özgür Yaren