The Devil's Tattoo

I caught this one on Prime under the title GHOST RIG and from the outset it's obvious that this is a cheap British rip-off of the Carpenter classic THE THING. This time around we get a group of environmentalists who take over an oddly deserted North Sea oil rig to stage a protest, only to discover something unpleasant going on. It's as cheap as chips and familiar from others of this ilk, with the sets and staging largely unconvincing and a total lack of lighting which doesn't help much. The budget is so low that we don't see any threat. Amusingly enough, GAME OF THRONES star Rory McCann stars alongside TV's Noel Fitzpatrick; who knew he was an actor before he became the country's best-loved vet?

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.

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.

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.