------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Rating : 3/10
Directed By : Peter Burger
Jason Behr (Skinwalkers)
Mia Blake (Without a Paddle)
David Fane
Robbie Magasiva (Perfect Creature)
Supplied By : Sony Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : June. 19, 2008
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PLOT A tattooist unwittingly unleashes a forcible deadly spirit through an ancient Samoan tattoo tool. Now marked for death, he will need to uncover the source of the evil in order to save his new love, and recover his own soul. | ||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| THE REVIEW This Singapore/New Zealand joint joint effort, THE TATTOOIST. revolves around the character of Jake. Jake is a young Tattoo artist that has gained a little acclaim for his work, but the thing is that he doesn't gain it quite honestly. Jake, starving for new ideas to keep his career thriving, results to traveling to different parts of the world to learn and duplicate the many tattooing styles(in other words, he steals them). His nest style of choice is that of the Samoan culture, an art that they call 'Tatua' While at a tattooing exhibition in Singapore he comes across a group of Samoan artists who take pride in the spiritual meaning of their art. Intrigued by the exotic traditional tattooing tool that they are using, Jake quietly snatches an unoccupied tool nearby.....this would later turn out to be a grave mistake. On his way out of the expo, a run-in with a local ends in Jake cutting himself on the hand with the stolen tool. This would unexpectedly releases an angry shamed spirit within Jake thus making Jake Sawyer the virtual tool of the entity. After the cutting incident Jake begins to see freakish visions, including seeing the evil spirit in which haunts him. However the hauntings and terror do not end with only Jake, but also with anyone he tattoos - shortly after someone is tattooed by Jake they end up all dying mysteriously horrible deaths...all in which have to do with the ink from their tattoos. When Jake's newfound love Sina seems to be heading towards her own demise at the grips of the spirit Jake must rush to find out the meaning of the mystery that surrounds the Samoan tattoo tool he once stole. The premise behind THE TATTOOIST, has got to be one of the strangest and ridiculous sounding plots I have come across in quiet sometime(and hey, in my opinion it even beats at the premise of a film like TEETH). Part mythological, THE TATTOOIST is a Horror film that centers around the strong religious beliefs the Samoan people have when it comes to the art of tattooing. At the beginning of the film it explains that the culture takes the art so seriously, as each family has their own style or brand(which differs from the male and female members), and if someone went against their heritage and used tattooing as a novelty, then that person would forever live in shame - something the Samoan people believe is worse than death itself. The film doesn't do a very good job of making it clear, but I believe that in the film, Jake Sawyer, an accomplished tattooist is being punished by the spirit that is unleashed because he didn't respect the art(he stole almost all of the designs he has become known for). There is also here, a subplot involving the spirit that I just didn't get all too well, but it involves the wrongful death of the young man the spirit once was. When I first read the plot for THE TATTOOIST, I honestly thought(and still do), that this was the most ridiculous thing I have ever read, but at the same time, I have to admit that it is somewhat inventive - before this I have never heard of a 'killer tattoo' movie. Writing the script is Jonathan King whom recently made his directing debut with BLACK SHEEP,(I have yet to see this film myself, but it have received some good reviews) a film about a killer flock of sheep, so I guess it can be expected. The film's main focus is the meaning that the art of tattooing holds for the Samoan culture, and it the way that the film treats it is that it's serious, and that when you're part of such culture, when you're tattooed it's not the novelty that us Americans know, but a family tradition, and the film comes across as wanting us to believe that breaking this tradition is 'scary'. This film however is not easily set up for people(like myself), who know very little of this culture as it explains everything within this film as if we should already be familiar with the happenings. Those happenings are not explained upon too much, and I thought that it hindered the film, leaving it a confusing mess, and that the only thing easily understood were the gruesome death scenes. The production values for the film were quite nice, as well as it's special effects, affects that try to draw inspiration from the various Japanese imports that came before it...and they might've had more of an impact had Peter Burger been able to create a more suspenseful atmosphere to accompany the effects. In the end, I thought that THE TATTOOIST seemed like nothing more than a film with a flashy gimmick, sure many cool tattoos are on display here, and we have yet another plot driven by a ghostly spirit, but the problem here is that the characters aren't really all that detailed, as some plot elements are only roughly explored, while others are not fully emphasized. Though out the film, we only know the basics about who Jake is. The film starts out with a flashback from Jake's childhood in which his father, a religious man scolds him for giving himself his first tattoo, a tattoo that his father blatantly removes with a knife in an effort to free him of sin. This was a great way to start, but from that point on, it is only lightly touched upon, and is more or less abandoned. There is also the love interest aspect involving Sina here, which I think was the weakest element in the film, as there just wasn't too much provided to firmly validate the relationship. Honestly I didn't enjoy THE TATTOOIST very much, and really felt that the film's atmosphere and suspense...elements that THE TATTOOIST rightly should've had was made less important in favor of other aspects such as gore an appearance above all, |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| GORE
METER 4/10 It's really hard to explain this films gore. Lots of bleeding from the inside out with each victims bodies oozing with black ink - if anything it looks good |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| MUSICAL
SCORE 5/10 The score and soundtrack is an equal mix of a classical suspense score and various rock and hip-hop tracks. |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM THE TATTOOIST is a film that starts off at a slow pace, it progresses faster when the deaths start, but after that does only a little to interest, leaving various plot points introduced early on in the film with no explanation. As I said, from the beginning I was a little iffy about the plot, but even still, I had a bit of interest in this film due to it being different, but after seeing it, I can't say that I really enjoyed it. For the most part the script seems underdeveloped and rushed in some areas, perhaps with more character development and further backstory in terms of Jake Sawyer's(Jason Behr) motives for copying other people's art for his gain and etc., the film would've been a lot more plausible and easier to follow....it is however worth seeing, if only once I suppose. This DVD will be released on June 24, 2008 |
||||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| STILLS | ||||
|
