El tatuador

The American tattooist Jake Sawyer (Jason Behr) travels around the world researching tattoos and tattooing clients. While in Singapore, he steals a tool that belongs to the Samoan family of his acquaintance Sina (Mia Blake); however he has a problem with a client that expected that his tattoo could heal his sick son and Jake accidentally cuts his palm with the tool. Jake returns to New Zealand where he meets Sina again and has a cold reception from her family that knows that he has stolen their tool. They visit a Samoan family that has been living in shame since their missing son did not finish a traditional ritual with the tattoos. Sooner Jake finds that his recent clients are chased by a fiend that is somehow connected to the Samoan tool, and he discloses a dark secret in the Samoan community.

"The Tattooist" is a weird horror movie for those like me that are not used to the Samoan rituals and traditions, more specifically to the Traditional Samoan tattooing of the pe'a, body tattoo. I have found many articles about this subject in Google (for example, http://www.samoa.co.uk/tattoos.html) that helped me to understand the plot. Therefore, in my opinion, this movie fails for not providing a better clarification of the Samoan tattoo history. If the viewer clearly understands this matter, the horror makes sense and "The Tattooist" is an original movie of this genre. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Tatuador" ("The Tattoist")

I decided to watch this movie because it seemed like it would be a horror movie that was somewhat more original than usual - I certainly couldn't think of another horror movie centered around the culture of tattooing. While the movie does have some interesting insight here and there about tattooing and South Pacific cultures, the movie fails in its main intent - being a horror movie. For starters, the movie takes a long time before delivering its first real supernatural horror scene. And once the movie starts delivering horror, there isn't really a feeling of menace. Instead, it feels just as slow and boring as things were in the first part of the movie. It certainly didn't help that the protagonist wasn't that sympathetic. The enterprise also suffers from a low budget. While the special effects actually aren't that bad for a low budget enterprise, the surroundings look and feel like a modestly budgeted episode of a television show. This movie actually took three countries working together to make; it's surprising that the filmmakers actually found enough people who thought this tired script was worth filming.

This is an odd movie about a tattoo artist named "Jake Sawyer" (played by Jason Behr) who gets involved in the Samoan mystical realm of tattoos. He steals a Samoan tattoo instrument at a tattoo convention in Singapore. But when he accidentally cuts himself with it he begins to have hallucinations and nightmares. He then wonders if these dreams and visions are connected to the tattoo device that he stole and begins to consider whether he should give it back. Unfortunately, not long afterward his customers begin to die one by one in a grisly manner. When one particular customer named "Victoria" (Caroline Cheong) visits his apartment and shows what is happening to her, he begins to realize that something is terribly wrong but he doesn't fully comprehend what it is yet. However, as she lies dying in the emergency room he glimpses the evil spirit that he has unleashed and realizes that it is connected to the tattoos he has drawn. Determined not to let the same horrible thing happen to his new girlfriend, "Sina" (Mia Blake) he desperately searches for a solution. After that this film begins to get a little uneven. While the world of a tattoo artist might be peculiar, it's difficult to get enthused about it. It's even more difficult to get interested in weird ancient Samoan tribal rituals. And while the acting was adequate, I thought the plot was just too phony and unconvincing. It almost seemed like they were making up the story as they went along. In summation, this film may be worth a look if you're really curious about it. But it's not something that I would put on the top of my list to see.

"He needs a doctor." "No, he needs a tattoo!"

And with that comes the chuckles when the latter line is uttered by Singaporean actor Gerald Chew. The Tattooist is the second New Zealand horror movie to hit our screens here this year (the other being The Ferryman), and this one marks the first Singapore-New Zealand joint venture, with others like Kelvin Tong's Maid sequel being rumoured to be some collaborative effort of this nature as well.

Starring Jason Behr, who resembled Lorenzo Lamas in his previous big screen movie outing with the SkinWalkers, he ditches the long hair and beard for a closer crop, and takes on the titular role as a tattooist who is in Singapore for a Tattoo Exposition, held at the Capitol area. Locals will know that no such area exists (Capitol is just waiting to be refurbished/demolished), and the first 20 minutes of this movie actually had a very sexy vibe to how night time Singapore is portrayed, with its beautiful skyline, and many shots that would have made the Singapore Tourism Board give it its stamp of approval.

Some believe that tattoos give its wearer some mystical properties, as explained in movies like Spider Lilies, and perhaps that's why more than often the creatures drawn on people include fierce ones like tigers and mythical ones like phoenixes and dragons. Rarely, or never at all, do you see a pussy cat, or a rat (if you do, let me know!). Behr's Jake Sawyer earns a living giving tattoos that he hawks as tattoos that can "heal", although being a disbeliever of such prowess, and at the Expo, gets his interest piqued by the Samoan tradition of the art.

OK, so actually he's more interested in Sina (Mia Blake), whom he saw at the Expo, and prior to his journey to New Zealand to learn more of Tatau, he had "borrowed" an old tattoo tool, which to the audience, spells trouble - such stuff can only contain curses, spirits and what- have-yous. And when blessed accidentally with fresh blood from Sawyer's palm, it seems that Sawyer's customers thereafter become victims of strange deaths, spewing tattoo ink and experiencing death by tattoo art. Nonetheless it's up to Sawyer to find out the root cause in a race against time, especially when his lady love is also put at risk.

To add some depth and contribute to the reasons necessary for things that go bump, the theme of shame is examined in the rituals of the Samoan people, which is similar to the value of "face" to the Chinese. Things that bring dishonor to the family is widely frowned upon, and this discrimination brings about unhealthy relationships, especially amongst blood relations. Ultimately, it boils down to interpretation, and the selfishness of man to preserve what is deemed socially acceptable, and the measures taken to preserve mindsets and individual honor.

Director Peter Burger doesn't deliver an outright horror movie, but it seemed more along the lines of a mystery thriller. You don't get the usual tricks like shadowy figures, creaky doors, sudden slamming of furniture, bellowing winds or musical crescendos. In fact, you don't get much of that at all, only the occasional figure seen in a reflective surface, and even then done so low key, it surprisingly doesn't even raise a goose-bump. The way the narrative played out was in the vein of horror movies like Shutter, but without the unexpectedly frightening bits. It was as if the movie was in self-censorship mode, reeling back from full gory details, choosing to let the mind imagine what horrible fates have befallen the unfortunate victims.

And speaking of censorship, I booed at the badly butchered removal of a sex scene. Instead of bowing to box office pressure of an NC16 release, I thought the distributors could have submitted it for a higher rating, thus keeping the movie intact for its inaugural Sin-NZ production, but sorry. The movie boasted excellent production values, so it was a pity to have the experience marred by a bad cut. There were some off-moments in the movie, like the kid-medium and his homies, but taken as a whole, The Tattooist is a surprisingly entertaining mystery thriller that will probably pave the way for more quality (hopefully) collaborations to come.

I thought that the Tattooist was quite a good horror movie. It was about an American tattoo artist called Jake Sawyer, who travels the world, exploring different ethnic themes in his tattoo designs. At a tattoo expert in Singapore, he gets his first glimpse at the exotic world of traditional Samoan tattoo (tatau), and, in a thoughtless act, unwittingly unleashes a powerful angry spirit. In his journey into Pacific mysticism, Jake must find a way to save his new love, Sina and recover his own soul. This ended up being a good horror film and i would strongly recommended it to viewers. And it also gave a good look into how Samoan tattoos are made.