"Where the hell did this creepy bootleg E.T. footage come from?" a recent post on io9.com asks.
I'd like to answer this question:
This is Homoti, a movie starring Müjdat Gezen, a veteran Turkish comedian. It tells the story of an alien (Homoti) who fell down to Earth from a planet called Homo. The similarities with the legendary Turkish E.T. are obvious, but they are actually very different movies.
If you're interested in cult movies, you should know enough about the Turkish E.T. You should have also heard about other remakes of Hollywood blockbusters: the Turkish Star Trek, the Turkish Exorcist, the Turkish Wizard of Oz, etc. with all their absurdities and "unbelievable" visual effects.
I've had written about the Turkish Batman, but probably the most famous of these old grotesque flicks is the Turkish Star Wars. On the other hand, although it is generally mentioned in the list, the Turkish Dracula (aka Dracula in Istanbul) is actually of a different breed, as it is not just a kitsch copy, but a tasteful adaptation.
The Turkish E.T. is also on the list, while Homoti is not. Because this relatively new movie (produced in 1987) is deliberately funny, unlike the other ones. Müjdat Gezen emphasizes that they produced the movie for video as a joke with his friends and never distributed it. So it may be a cult now, but not in the way that the Turkish E.T. and the others from older times...
