The Conjuring series, The Nun, Annabelle, The Ring, Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Kruger, 1920, Krishna Cottage, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. All of these titles may be familiar to you.
That’s right, horror.
(Yeah, we’re definitely including HP in this list for how they massacred the book.)
If you’re a horror movie fan (or fanatic) like us, you might be just as tired watching the same old script that has been recycled a million times over. More often that not, there is a couple moving into an old house, the price of which has been marked down over 60% percent.
Not that we blame them with how the housing market being how it is. Any ghosts living in our house are gonna have to start paying rent.
A Turkish Horror not for the faint of heart
Anyway, you might have come across this film during your increasingly desperate searches for something that has you on the edge of your seat. You might have even hesitated, reading the synopsis.
Well, we’re here to tell you to get off your butts and watch it, for the love of horror movies!
Dabbe: The Possession is one of those movies that start off slowly. But for some reason, you can’t help but be glued onto the screen, interested and mystified.
The story starts off with Ebru, our psychiatrist heroine, filming Faruk, an exorcist, performing a rite to drive away a djinn that has taken residence in a young woman’s body. She reveals her thoughts on the situation, providing possible diagnoses, and her thoughts on the exorcism itself. She even questions Faruk who provides, according to her, pseudo-scientific explanations.
The entire movie is fashioned into a documentary type of reel. Changes in camera angles come about due to actual changes in the cameras used during the course of the story itself. Quite like The Blair Witch Project.
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Documentary-type Storytelling
This type of film-making leads to a matter of fact type of story-telling, with the audience being free to draw conclusions alongside our characters.
Ebru and Faruk intend to visit her childhood friend, Kubra but get lost along the way. They come across a cursed tree at the entrance of Kubra’s village and hear stories about the cursed village of Kibledere.
We are also made to know that prior to her wedding, Kubra becomes possessed with a djinn and stabs and kills her fiancé in front of the entire family.
Faruk performs an exorcism, first on Kubra in her bedroom, and then alone in the old house attached to the main house. The second time around, the mirrors used in the ritual are smashed. Supernatural signs point to the outdoor toilet which is then dug up. Black magic tools and totems are found under the toilet.
An even bigger exorcism is performed in a warehouse which ends with the djinn, Sare, being killed. It is assumed that is the end of things before Kubra tries to kill her aunt and runs out to the cursed tree at the edge of the village. Ebru, believing that Faruk is exploiting a mentally ill Kubra, leaves him at the tree and takes her friend to a hospital to be treated.
However, the two come together again to find clues in the village of Kibledere. There, a man named Ilyas tells them that Ebru and Kubra’s fathers used the help of djinns to become rich and killed a djinn which caused them to become cursed. He also tells them that the only way to stop the curse is to dig up Sare’s body and bury it somewhere in peace.
Lost in Translation
This is where the story gets a bit confusing. There might be things that were lost in translation as we don’t really know which djinn was killed and why exactly Kubra was being haunted.
Anyway, we find Ebru and Faruk bury the vase containing Sare’s dead body and Faruk tells Ebru that Sare’s clan has left the village in peace. They come back and tell the news to the happy family and Kubra is seen to be healthy.
Everything is finally normal again.
However, things are starting back up. Faruk is called to talk urgently with Ilyas but Ebru is begged to stay behind by Kubra’s aunt. This is when Ebru kinds a spell in her clothes and, Faruk (and us), finally find out the meaning of the number 7175 which has been haunting them (and us) during the entirety of the movie.
Faruk finds out that 7175 refers to the ancient Muslim belief that Jesus wasn’t killed but was saved by Allah and lives on to this day. The number, in Arabic numerals (read as the Latin word) is VIVO, which means that I am alive, and is used by djinns to signal that they are not dead.
Its as dark as it can get
This is where the confusion of the 2 deaths of the same djinn is clarified. Sare was buried alive by Ebru and Kubra’s fathers and, Ebru and Faruk did the same thing.
Ilyas hits on the car window, shocking Faruk out of his horrified stupor, asking why he did that to Sare, saying that Ilyas’ djinn wife has been captured by Sare’s clan in revenge. At the same time, Ebru finds a possessed Kubra. But shockingly enough, it is Kubra’s mother and sister who attack her. Injured, Ebru faints.
Ilyas reveals to Faruk it was all a trap meant to lure Ebru back to the village as Sare cannot be banished but her host can be changed. Which is why Kubra’s mother and sister planned to have Ebru be the vessel, for her father’s sins. Ilyas is then captured by Sare’s clan.
Faruk rushes back to the house where he finds Kubra’s aunt dead, killed by the mother and sister, and the house empty. Panicking, he goes in search of Ebru. But is hit and thrown into a well, having rocks pelted at him by the mother and sister. He faints.
Ebru comes to, in a grave, and the mother and sister tell her that it is now her chance to be tormented by Sare. She is buried alive, alongside live snakes and the screen fades to black, leaving the audience to interpret her fate.
Review: Watch the Dabbe if Vile Horror gives you a good night’s sleep
The real doozy though, is when we are informed that the events in the movie are based on a true story. The house was sold off earlier and the family ran away that very night. Faruk suffered amnesia due to his injures and Ebru was never found again.
Quite different from the young couple in a haunted house trope right?
Watch Dabbe: The Possession on Netflix today!
Also read, 5 Haunted Hotels In India That Have Spine Chilling Stories