There are horror movies that scare you. There are horror movies that entertain you. And then there’s Dabbe 4: The Possession — a film that traps you in a 145-minute Turkish fever dream, beats you over the head with holy verses, and dares you to make sense of any of it. Directed and written by Hasan Karacadağ, this is the fourth entry in Turkey’s never-ending D@bbe franchise, a series that insists on answering the question nobody asked: What if The Exorcist were rewritten by a conspiracy theorist after three espressos and a Google Translate session? To its credit, the film takes its job seriously — perhaps too seriously. It’s like a PhD thesis on Islamic demonology written by someone who really loves screaming. Let’s start with the runtime: 145 minutes. That’s two and a half hours of shaky camera work, echoing screams, and people yelling “Allahu Akbar!” while furniture vibrates. By the end, you don’t need an exorcism — you need a chiropractor and a nap. The story, allegedly, follows Kübra, a bride-to-be who, just before her wedding, is possessed by a jinn named Sare. On her henna night, she murders her fiancé in front of everyone — because apparently, you can’t spell “romance” without “ritual homicide.” Her childhood friend Ebru, a psychiatrist with a camera and too much optimism, decides to investigate. She brings along an exorcist named Faruk, who looks like he’s one sermon away from a nervous breakdown. Together, they travel to Kübra’s cursed village — because in Dabbe movies, the phrase “Let’s stay home and call the police” has never been uttered once. From there, the film becomes a blur of religious lore, dirt, and people making terrible decisions in dim lighting. There’s a cursed tree, a code carved into its bark, and several buckets of ectoplasmic nonsense. Faruk digs up organs under toilets. People find black magic scrolls hidden in bras. Every five minutes, someone faints, screams, or lectures about ancient scripture. The movie’s big mystery — the number “7175” — is treated with the gravitas of The Da Vinci Code but ends up meaning… “VIVO.” As in “I am alive.” Which, ironically, is more than you can say for anyone’s brain cells by this point. Every revelation brings more questions: Who buried the djinn alive? Why is everyone related? Why do the walls bleed? Why does every scene look like it was filmed through a potato? And most importantly, why did I think watching this sober was a good idea? Let’s give director Hasan Karacadağ some credit — he’s passionate. You can feel it in every zoom, every epileptic flash cut, every sequence that goes on for three minutes longer than it should. He’s trying to build a cinematic universe of Islamic horror, and that’s ambitious. Unfortunately, his version of subtlety is like being hit in the face with a Quran wrapped around a camera. The film’s aesthetic can best be described as “Blair Witch Project meets a PowerPoint presentation on possession.” Everything shakes, everyone screams, and there’s enough night-vision footage to make you wonder if they were filming an exorcism or auditioning for Ghost Hunters: Istanbul Edition. Still, there’s a weird charm in how committed it is to its own chaos. Karacadağ doesn’t care if you’re confused, tired, or mildly possessed yourself — he’s going to give you lore, damn it. Whole books of lore. He pauses the action mid-scream to explain djinn taxonomy, religious numerology, and the family tree of every cursed villager since the Ottoman Empire. Irmak Örnek, who plays Ebru, deserves an award — not for acting, but for surviving. Her character spends most of the movie alternating between skepticism and hysteria while being dragged through muddy villages, dusty houses, and a series of bad decisions. Kübra (Cansu Kurgun) gets the juicier role — literally, since she spends half the film drooling, contorting, and shrieking like a banshee who just failed a Pilates class. It’s an impressive physical performance if your benchmark is “Possessed person auditioning for a Turkish soap opera.” Then there’s Faruk, our exorcist, who radiates the kind of energy usually reserved for men who think sage and Wi-Fi interference can solve hauntings. Every line he delivers sounds like a sermon shouted through a fan. By the time the film reaches its tenth exorcism scene, you start rooting for the djinn. At least it’s trying to end things. Let’s talk about the cursed tree, because Dabbe 4 really wants you to. It’s the emotional and literal root of the story — where the djinn Sare was allegedly buried. Of course, the twist is that she wasn’t dead. So, what do our heroes do? They dig her up. Alive. Because apparently, the moral of every Dabbe movie is “If you see something supernatural, poke it with a stick until it murders you.” This unleashes Sare’s wrath, which manifests as snakes, jump scares, and an abundance of subtitles that say “(Screaming in Arabic).” The film then decides to toss logic out the window entirely. People die. Other people come back. A villager has a djinn wife and a deformed child. At some point, someone gets buried alive with snakes — because subtlety is for Western horror. At two hours and twenty-five minutes, Dabbe 4 doesn’t just test your endurance; it challenges your faith in linear storytelling. Every time you think it’s ending, it finds a new subplot, a new sermon, or a new reason to spin the camera like it’s on a carnival ride. By the final act, the film has devolved into a screaming match between theology and chaos. Ebru gets buried alive, Faruk gets hit in the head so hard he develops amnesia, and the credits reveal that nobody learned a damn thing. Kübra’s family disappears, the curse continues, and the audience collectively wonders what they just watched. Visually, the film’s biggest horror isn’t the jinn — it’s the editing. Every few seconds, the frame cuts, the sound peaks, and the camera whips around like it’s being exorcised too. If you muted it and added Benny Hill music, it would play like a demonic slapstick. The special effects range from “respectable student project” to “free app download.” The jinn appears as a smoky blob that looks like someone forgot to render it properly. The lighting is either pitch-black or overexposed enough to qualify as divine revelation. And yet, there’s something endearingly bonkers about it. You can’t accuse Dabbe 4 of being lazy. It’s just completely, unrelentingly deranged. By the time the screen fades to black, you’re left wondering if you’ve been converted, cursed, or just concussed. The movie preaches, it shouts, it digs up ancient evils and refuses to bury them again. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being lectured by a preacher who also happens to be possessed by his own PowerPoint presentation. There’s ambition here, sure. There’s even a kernel of good horror — the idea of djinns as eternal victims and avengers. But it’s buried under layers of noise, repetition, and unnecessary camera spins. Dabbe 4: The Possession isn’t a movie — it’s an endurance trial. It’s what happens when you give a theology major a camera and too much caffeine. It’s messy, overlong, confusing, and somehow still entertaining in the way only a train wreck can be. If you survive the runtime, you don’t need an exorcist. You need a therapist. Final Verdict: ★☆☆☆☆The Gospel According to Confusion
The Possession of Patience
Jinn and Tonic
Hasan Karacadağ: The Turkish James Wan (If James Wan Hated Editing)
Acting: The Real Horror
The Curse of the Cursed Tree
The Long Road to Madness
Jump Scares for Jesus
Faith-Based Fatigue
Final Judgment
A demonic symphony of noise, nonsense, and neck pain. It’ll possess your time, your sanity, and possibly your will to live — but hey, at least the jinns were having fun.
