The Devil's Tattoo

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.

A group of eco-warriors occupy a disused oil rig scheduled for demolition. It's not long before murder and madness erupts...

A great idea rendered unwatchable by a cast of dummies and a script seemingly written by a ten year old. Once again, the producers and director have opted for pretty or handsome faces instead of talented actors. Good actors can usually make something of bad scripts, but bad actors always fail... Worst of a bad bunch is Jaason Simmons who gives a performance of such shocking ineptitude I got the uncontrollable giggles every time he spoke, whilst other cast members are forced to repeat cheesy lines like 'I've got a really bad feeling about this' again and again. Unwatchable tosh of the worst kind.

A small group of environmental activists land on and take over an oil rig that seems to have been left vacant. No crew members can be found, but odd things start to happen nonetheless. Sound familiar? It should, as the same formula has been used in horror movies before, over and over. Isolation, internal conflicts between crew members...'Alien' turned it into a franchise, and 'Ghost Ship' wasn't half bad either. This low-budget Brit flick however is no 'Alien'.

You can tell it's director Julian Kean's first time on the wheel of a project of this magnitude. The camera work is simple, minimal. Short clips of the crew keeping a video journal try to establish a documentary-like feel, adding a sense of realism...or trying to, anyway. The acting is for the most part actually surprisingly good. However, where the movie is really lacking, is the writing. There's no credible dialogue, and while the movie takes forever to really get going, there isn't enough character development or emphasis on any one event to actually provide the audience with an interest in what is happening. Nothing happens at first, then a lot happens at once, and you are left wondering what the point was.

There's serious effort here, especially from the cast, but the material they are working with just doesn't amount to much.

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.

Pay no attention to the stupid ramblings of myzyri who could only lecture about the poor acting and low budget graphics. If, like myzyri, you'd rather have a Hollywood big budgeted, tons of graphics crapfest like The Haunting, then by all means skip past this one. But if you enjoy indie films made for the genre rather than filling the studios coffers, then give this one a try.

The Devil's Tattoo borrows much from John Carpenter's The Thing but it adds a supernatural twist to keep things interesting. Neither the cast nor crew will win any Oscars, but who really cares? These kinds of movies are about cheap thrills and keeping things interesting for 90 minutes and this film delivers on both fronts. A very pleasant surprise that only the most cynical or arrogant (myzyri) of silly fanboys won't enjoy.