The Devil's Tattoo

It's a good movie, but it seems IDENTICAL to "Ghost Ship"; from the publicity image itself too... even the name, and the face of death over the rig... The best thing of this movie is the unexpected end.

Honestly, I picked this up with hopes of it being entertaining but fully expecting a lame movie. Not a lot of decent horror flicks anymore, so I usually will reach further with that particular genre.

Anywho, this film was a pleasant surprise. The story seems a bit on shaky ground in the beginning but picks up steam for a good second half of the movie. No spoilers here, but I was definitely intrigued by the ending. Quite an interesting turn.

The acting was fair to middlin' with no one giving a particularly memorable role but none sinking the rig, so to speak. Have to give mad props to the writer for naming the enviros Action Planet. No worries about trademark infringement there.

Ok so this movie definitely wasn't great. I do recommend on the basis of if you're looking for a decent movie that finishes strong give it a shot.

I wasn't expecting much from this horror set upon an oil rig, a decent ending would've helped. A group of activists set foot on an oil rig in the North Sea and plan to film what they are doing. They find no crew on the oil rig which is a bit strange. The activists start getting picked off one by one by a mysterious body shifter, once the kill someone they take over that persons body. It's been done before and better, but it's not a total turkey. The problem is all the characters are a bit bland, we've got the paranoid ones, the annoying ones and the shouty females. Once we get to the end we're not really bothered which is a nono for any type of film.

I began watching this film with the lowest expectations possible. It looks like just another supernatural horror story in which `evil' is that what you cannot see. Films like this are always set in abandoned places – an oil-rig this time – where a group of people gets attacked by higher forces. This kind of movies are a trend nowadays, certainly in Britain, as there are multiple similar movies like it such as `Below', `The Bunker' and `Deathwatch'. Generally speaking, these films try to be more intelligent than they actually are and the plots twist and turn so much that it becomes pitiful. Ghost Rig (the slightly less goofy a.k.a for the Devil's Tattoo) fits perfectly in this category, only it receives a little more sympathy from me, since it's a modest and slightly creative production. A group of environmental activists occupy an oil-rig and to their surprise, the whole place is entirely deserted. It seems like the workmen have simply vanished. Fear increases as the activists – surprise surprise – start to die as well. The place seems to be possessed by the presence of pure evil and it goes from body to body, using the activists as hosts. There are constant good efforts to build up a claustrophobic tension and, despite of a few obvious holes, the script is rather solid. The ending is really good and made me appreciate the entire film a lot more. As far as I'm concerned…Ghost Rig is okay, but I've seen it by now! It could have used more excitement and a generally better character study. I sincerely hope scriptwriters will stop portraying evil as being invisible and exclusively supernatural in the future…they're not scaring anybody.

As I say time and time again, if you go into this and others of it's ilk without the expectation of seeing a big budget production you will enjoy it. It's got a decent plot with a surprising twist. It's certainly not scary, which makes it perfect for people who don't want too much of a scare. It's actually more of a mystery. I definitely think this suitable for family viewing with kids around 12.