The Tattooist (2008)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Overrated and overhyped

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

180629: This film takes on two of my passions, one being the horror genre the other art in general; tattooing in particular. It's a fun idea, especially considering the lesser recognized, for North Americans, Samoan perspective. Though featuring not exactly the best acting or storyline, this film does offer a few catchy special effects, about the only reason I'd ever want to look back upon it. Worth watching if you're a horror aficionado but don't expect to be thrilled often.

A boring tattooist with the personality of a dead animal becomes cursed by an evil spirit for misusing his tattooing career. …At least, that's what we're lead to believe, but then the story sort of shifts away from that and becomes a cliché ghost story.There are a few decent ideas wrapped up in here. There's some slick set design, decent camera work, and an interesting visual or two. That's where my compliments end.You can probably assume most of my reasons for hating this film based on my plot description. The character is boring as hell. There's absolutely nothing interesting about him. The actor portrays fear well enough, and might have been capable of expressing an interesting character, but the script didn't provide one. A love story gets wedged in there too. I NEVER complain about chemistry between lovers in movies… but in this case, I will make a girly exception and say that these two people didn't have any reason to give a crap about each other, aside from a compatible set of reproductive organs. Two boring people have boring interactions and suddenly screw each other. It seemed forced, sudden, and unnecessary. Perhaps they should have spent more time developing the characters, rather than having every single person prattle off historical facts about tattoos. Seriously, we don't care.The trailers and plot synopsis suckered me in with some seemingly original and cool concepts, but as written above, this simply ended up being another cliché whodunit ghost story. Screw that. That's not at all what I bought this movie for.The score is terrible. Some of the best moments in the film are completely ruined by a crappy, cheap-sounding soundtrack. The rap music didn't sit well with me either. It was annoying and it just didn't fit.The only reason I would ever recommend this film is so you can laugh at the hilariously out-of-place scene involving the fat ethnic kid who can communicate with the dead when he rides in a fast car and blasts rap music loud enough. You think I'm kidding… but that seriously happens.Someone got a decent idea to start with, but then they were lazy about every other aspect of the production after that point. The writing is lazy, the characters are lame as hell, the score sucks, and there are some ridiculous moments that just don't fit. The overall presentation is as about as compelling as the hair on my scrotum.

The Tattooist starts in Singapore where American tattooist Jake Sawyer (Jason Behr) is attending a tattoo festival, while there he sees an attractive woman named Sina (Mia Blake) & he follows to a traditional Samaon tattooing session. Jake is intrigued & steals a Samoan tattooing tool on which he cuts his hand later that night, Jake decides to fly to Aukland in New Zealand to find Sina & return the tool he stole but starts to experience strange dreams & visions. One of Jake's old friends gives him a job as a tattooist in his place, Jake manages to find Sina & they start having a relationship together. However the dreams & visions won't go away & Jake discovers that those he has tattooed are dying is mysteriously circumstances & strangely their tattoos have grown, Jake finally comes to the conclusion that an evil Samoan spirit is using him to kill those Jake has tattooed & since Jake tattooed the love of his life Sina she will be next unless the evil spirit can be stopped...This New Zealand Singapore co-production was directed by Peter Burger & I thought The Tattooist was a terrible attempt at a supernatural horror thriller, I thought The Tattooist was just plain bad from start to finish on so many levels. For a start it's very slow going, almost half the film has gone before anything even remotely horror orientated happens & the story just doesn't work for me at all. There's a Asian ghost story kind of feel about it as some vengeful ghost kills a few people & wants the world to know about the wrongs done to them while they were alive & the whole tattooing angle is just awful. The scenes between that fat Samoan tattoo master & Jake the cocky American are just embarrassing as it comes across as two duelling tattooist's trying to out-stare each other, it seems some like this film but I just found the seriousness of it all had the opposite effect on me & I thought it was quite funny at times. Then there's that little fat kid who can contact ghost's while driving along listening to a bad rap song, there are some bad moments here. There's also the moments when Jake tattoos people, they just sit down in his chair & the goes to work, they never say what they want or where they want it & then these people just get up & walk out without paying, I'm not being funny but if I was having a tattoo (which would be for life) then I'd at least want to pick the design & where it was going. Also during the opening sequence Jake's father cuts a tattoo from his arm, at that point surely Jake wasn't eighteen & he wouldn't have been legally allowed to get a tattoo so how did he have one? The romance between Jake & Sina feels as phony as a three pound note, the whole Samoan tradition's & belief's angle is dull & the twist ending is pretty bad as a collection of coincidences come together to solve a murder mystery of the lamest order.Now what I am about to write is only a personal opinion but I find excessive tattoos on a body absolutely repulsive, I don't care who i offend saying that but I do & I cannot understand why anyone would want horrible ugly pictures or patterns permanently etched onto their skin. I have nothing against anyone with lots of tattoos but I just think it looks repulsive & the way The Tattooist tries to place tattoos as a sexual thing (Jake tattoos Sina just before they have sex) & tries to sexualise them is something I could not relate to at all in any way. There's no real blood or gore here, a strip of flesh is cut from someones arm & there's a bit of blood splatter but nothing else. The Tattooist doesn't feel like a horror film either, the lighting is bright & there's no mood or atmosphere to any of this as it plods along.The IMDb says The Tattooist had a budget of about $3,000,000 which I find hard to believe as next to nothing happens, where did all that money go? What was it spent on? Mostly filmed in Auckland in New Zealand. The acting is average at best & no-one stands out as being particularly good.The Tattooist is a terrible horror thriller with a hint of Asian ghost story thrown in that revolves around the world of tattooing, it's a bad combination all round really as this is just terrible apart from a few unintentional laughs.

If you are like me, you use this site to Gage what to rent. I am shocked this movie got such a low rating (5.1 stars when I checked), in fact I almost didn't rent it because of that, I only picked this up because fangoria gave it a great review. My best advice is to watch the preview, and if you think it looks good then watch it. The preview is not misleading at all, and the movie has much more to offer. I was happily impressed with this movie. The Acting was great, the scenes were visually enticing, and even brought you into a different culture. The idea was truly refreshing and also pulled off very well. I have seen plenty of movies with great ideas, but it was too hard to pull off, which ruiend the movie. This however, was not one of them.Now with this review you are probably wondering why I didn't give more than 10 stars. That is because the first 45 minutes were slow, and at the time almost seemed irrelevant. Turns out (of course) they are not all irrelevant. There were just some funny things I noticed, like a guy comes into his shop and he just starts tattooing the guy without asking what he wanted. Overall this movie was great and I strongly recommend it to any true horror fan (that means if you like movies such as "The Titanic" and dislike horror films, don't rent this to give it a bad rating.) This movie will not have you at the edge of your seat, or give you nightmares, or make you jump, but it will make you realize that they still make great creative horror movies that are truly a treat to watch