Simply Perfect

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

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.

After inadvertently stealing a tool and applying a native tattoo that holds special significance in their culture, a careless tattoo artist finds those he's marked under attack by a vengeful spirit and must find a way of stopping it's deadly rampage.This was an overall mildly-troubling but still enjoyable effort that really makes a lot of it's strides with the uniqueness of it's traditions and cultures that are exploited. The Polynesian culture is displayed here as being quite exotic and inviting, which is by itself hardly ever explored to begin with, and the foundations laid within make for a hearty and potentially-chilling ghost story that gets showcased here. As well, the fact that it's not a traditional ghost as far as what's commonly been utilized in such films is quite original, and it's scenes of revenge and torment on the characters in the second half gets the best scenes as the bleeding ink, opening wounds and more are quite bloody and really exciting. That said, there's still some problems here and it's mostly the slow beginning which doesn't really let on it's a horror film at all what with it being about tattoos and the such, so those who aren't into that lifestyle might find this one lacking. Also, the fact that the ghost/spirit is a CGI utilized joke takes a lot of the sting out of it's scenes when it looks so putrid and non-threatening, but overall it's still a good bit of fun.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Nudity, a sex scene and drug use.

American tattoo artist Jake Sawyer wanders the world, exploring and exploiting ethnic themes in his tattoo designs.At a tattoo expo in Singapore, he gets his first glimpse at the exotic world of traditional Samoan tattoo, and, in a thoughtless act, unwittingly unleashes a powerful angry spirit.In his devastating journey into Pacific mysticism, Jake must find a way to save his new love, Sina, and recover his own soul...This film has a lot going for it. Not only is it one of the more convincing films about vengeful demons, it's actually an original idea and not a remake of a Japanese ghost story, which is refreshing.Sure, there are similarities to the Grudge and the Ring, but these days that cannot be helped. It's not that scary, and there are a few pointless characters, but the lead holds the film well, and the ending is more convincing, than the gore-fest i was predicting.So if you are expecting a gore packed horror, look elsewhere, but if you want a movie that concentrates more on it's story rather than trying to make the audience jump, this is for you.

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