Jake Sawyer, a talented but small-time tattoo artist, travels the world searching for inspiration and ‘borrowing’ the designs of other cultures. Whilst working a stall at an expo in Singapore he is attracted to a beautiful young woman and follows her to an area where an intricate Samoan tatau is being displayed in a spiritual ceremony. On impulse he steals one of the traditional tools used for skin art, and from that moment onward everyone he tattoos has their designs continued by a mysterious force until their entire body is covered and they die. Jake has performed a tattoo for his Samoan lover and now the race is on to discover what spirit possesses her and why...

Not to be confused with the tedious German film Tattoo, which I reviewed back in 2004, The Tattooist is the first of a number of releases Icon have arranged in tandem with Sam (The Evil Dead / Spider-Man) Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, who have beefed-up the production. The script is written by Jonathan King (no, not that one; the one who directed the dark comedy-horror Black Sheep), and the leading actor is Jason Behr, perhaps best known for the series Roswell. Here he takes his attempts to play it cool to such extremes that his reaction to somebody dying is pretty much the same as his reaction to everything else - staid and almost unresponsive.

Having said that, this is a surprisingly entertaining film. Beginning to all intents and purposes as a down-and-dirty street flick, you would be forgiven for expecting hoodlums, gangsters and hit-men to be prevalent; however, the structure quickly adopts an interesting cultural aspect. Its format, particularly in the latter scenes, is reminiscent of some of the Japanese supernatural horror (or J-Horror) which has proved so popular in the last eight to ten years.

Using a spiritual custom or common mythology in contemporary fiction can often work quite well (excellent horror writer Graham Masterton is a case in point; he has utilised this process successfully for a great many years). The story feels totally authentic, due almost certainly to the painstaking research carried out on the traditional Samoan tatau. Even a Samoan cultural advisor and orator was employed. Furthermore, the tattoo designs themselves are highly impressive, being a collaboration between an Auckland tattoo artist and a film make-up supervisor.

So don't be put-off by this film's hammy subtitle, "Evil in Ink", because there's much to appreciate here.

7

Ty Power