Customer Reviews

The Devil's Tattoo

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I saw a movie blatantly attempting to cash in on the questionable success of "Ghost Ship," I knew I needed to sit up and pay attention. "Ghost Rig," originally entitled "The Devil's Tattoo," (a title they should have stuck with considering how much more sense it makes) is a Scottish straight to video production made by people who obviously knew nothing about how cheesy "Ghost Ship" was. I went into this one fully expecting to hate it with a passion. They replaced a ship with an oilrig? Big deal! If they relied on the spirits of dead oilrig workers to scare the audience, "Ghost Rig" would be little better than "Ghost Ship." That was my first mistake because this movie is decidedly different from "Ghost Ship." Even more surprising, and this is surprising, is that I actually liked "Ghost Rig." I know, I know. I don't understand how it happened either.

The plot of "Ghost Rig" is simplicity itself. Ten environmental activists calling themselves Action Planet take over an abandon oilrig named Janus. The owners of the rig plan on demolishing the thing and letting it fall to the bottom of the sea where it will slowly become a reef. Action Planet wants to stop this egregious action, claiming that this plan will cause more damage to the ecological cycle of the sea. The activists fly in on a chopper with the notion of squatting on the rig, thereby forcing the authorities to pay attention to their demands. We know this because members of the group film several video segments of themselves on the platform, planning to release the tapes to the media and hopefully gain supporters amongst the general public. Unfortunately (and there is always an 'unfortunately'), the weirdness begins quickly with the discovery that the rig's maintenance crew has mysteriously disappeared. The only possible clue is a damaged power generator, a problem overcome when the activists fire up a backup to get some of the lights working. Then the madness starts, as one by one the activists fall prey to something decidedly not of this world. The characters soon learn that they can trust no one as they race through the bowels of the rig in an effort to discover exactly what is going on.

The actors playing the characters are mostly nobodies, with the exception of Jamie Bamber who apparently acted in a few Horatio Hornblower television movies. The characters are the usual mixed bag: three slightly cute chicks, a guy in a wheelchair, the unstable leader, the guy who ends up taking charge of things, and one dude who looks like Moby with a nervous condition. Most of them die in mundane ways for a horror movie, with a few stabbings, a strangulation, and gunshot wounds. I cannot say I cared for any of the characters, but I didn't hate them either. That's important because in "Ghost Ship" I despised every character with the heat of a million suns. I guess I liked the thick Scottish and English accents the characters had, especially with the girls. There's nothing like a young woman with a Scottish brogue, is there? Anyway, I couldn't even tell you most of their names. It doesn't matter anyway because most of them die fast.

Since I liked the film for some inexplicable reason, I didn't notice as many plot holes as I would in other B movie extravaganzas. There are a few, though, and it's immensely entertaining to laugh over them:

The team leader brings a gun on board, which infuriates the other members of the group. Why? Did they really think that the authorities wouldn't storm the rig armed to the teeth once they became aware of the group's actions? Didn't it occur to Action Planet that the maintenance crew on board might put up resistance? Why does a gun bother these people so much when it is obvious some of them have serious psychological issues in the first place? One of the women beats the tar out of another member after discovering he's up to no good. These people are not paragons of social virtue and it seems ridiculous they have a problem with weapons. The presence of spears later underlines this fact.

How did Action Planet fix the radio? One of the possessed team members shattered the transmitter with a hammer, but it only takes a short time to get the thing up and running. Why did they need to fix the radio in the first place? Wouldn't there be a back up system somewhere on the rig? It is impossible to believe a radio is the only communications system on the platform in the first place. Wouldnt there be some sort of satellite communications system as well?

Where in the heck did all those spears come from? It's like a magic trick; every time you turn around someone has another spear. They look homemade too, with a knife taped and imbedded in a stick. When exactly did they make these things? And this from people who have moral issues with firearms? Doesn't it present more of a moral hurdle to stab someone to death rather than shooting them from a distance? C'mon!

These three things are only a few of the plot problems in "Ghost Rig." As I said, I liked the film, thought the background music was atmospheric, liked the twisty conclusion, and the indifference I felt for the characters didn't cause too many problems. I am hesitant to recommend this film, though. Just imagine "The Thing" with a brogue and make your own decision.

Nothing original; not an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but I actually liked Ghost Rig in large part due to the unpredictable twist of an ending. After expecting a mindless afternoon of watching a "shouldn't have rented", I got instead a "not too bad at all."

I bought this DVD on recommendation by a friend who'd seen it in the UK and I was happy to find it over here in the States. I was definitely pleasantly surprised by this film given I had not heard about it prior. The bunch of characters had good depth and the cinematography was well done. All in all, it is a welcomed addition to my collection of horror movies.

Ghost Rig is about a group of environmentalists who decide to bunk down on an old abandoned oil rig to try to prevent it being sunk into the ocean. Soon after the group arrived they start dying one by one, and like in most survival horrors it soon becomes a race to escape. The gimmick of this film is that there is a evil Spirit on the rig and it go from host to host killing the former host as it leaves, this created paranoia and distrust among the characters as they never know who the Spirit is in.

You will not really see anything you have not seen before with Ghost Rig, it is a survival horror and that is pretty much it. However the rather nice location of an oil rig, something which is not used in to many movies, and a few twist and turns change things up enough for the movie to be interesting. Now if you are looking for blood and gore you will not be satisfied with Ghost Rig, the evil entity do rack up a body count after a while but there is not much gore, however the film do have a nice atmosphere and while I would not call it scary it is entertaining.

As with all low budget horror movies my expectations for this movie was rather low, I was however positively surprised by Ghost Rig. It is not a great film in any stretch of the word but it is rather ok. I think there was some sections of the film which where to drawn out, and at times the film could get a bit confusing, but all in all I think that Ghost Ship is pretty good.

If you are looking for a bit different but still following the typical script survival horror then you might want to give this film a try, especially if you can find it used or cheap, Ghost Rig had some problems and it is obvious that it did not have the biggest budget in the world but it kept me entertained for the one and a half hours it lasted and I consider it a good buy.

First, it doesn't take many words to say how bad this film was. It had potential, but it was never fulfilled. The title doesn't go with the film, as there is not a ghost in sight or in presence. Instead, it is about a demon that moves from one host's body to another: Just about every character is killed. The ending is a bit of a surprise;, not what you think it might be. That was a pleasant surprise, at least.
America should have stuck with the original title, as it fits. The movie is low-budget and cheesy and the viewer can tell that it was filmed in a soundstage. There's very little done to make you believe you are on an oil rig out in the middle of the ocean, especially during a horrible storm that supposedly keeps anyone from leaving. Once the storm hits, we're never given a view of the storm outside, which would have helped the viewer believe where they are supposed to be. Even when they show the exterior camera views inside the control room, outside we see no storm raging.
As my review title suggest, don't waste your time on this one. Go see another movie. For a horror film, this movie isn't scary in the least.

The Devil's Tattoo (Julian Kean, 2003)

Oh, America, what are you thinking sometimes? Taking a movie with a cool name like The Devil's Tattoo and renaming it for the American market to Ghost Rig? Stupid. And typical. And you wonder why many Americans think no one makes good horror save Asia these days. Sheesh. Worse, this surprisingly watchable Scottish supernatural horror flick (yeah, it gets stupid at the end, but what a concept!) got the expected crap distribution on this side of the pond. Pretty much no one in this country saw it before its TV debut on cable's Chiller station (which is, I think, some sort of Sci-Fi Channel spinoff; they show a lot of the same stuff). Knowing how badly these things are mangled in translation to basic cable, I hunted down a copy of the original theatrical cut, and I have to say, I enjoyed this one a whole lot more than I expected. Well, not a surprise. I wasn't expecting much from something called Ghost Rig, now, was I?

The Devil's Tattoo is the story of a group of ecoterrorists--oh, excuse me, environmental activists--who occupy an abandoned oil rig in order to stop it from being sunk in order to create a "natural reef". (I don't get why they would consider that a bad thing, but that's me.) When they get there, they find it deserted, which is odd; there should at least be a skeleton crew around for maintenance. When one of them finds a videotape of the maintenance crew, they begin to suspect that something's wrong. It gets worse when one of the activists gets bitten by a rat whose bite has exceptionally nasty consequences...

It's got some script problems, but it's got a lot going for it. The cast (including both Jamie Bamber and Kerry Norton from the new Battlestar Galactica) range from adequate (Jaason Simmons, who seems kind of miscast here) to really surprisingly good (Norton), and the camerawork is quite nicely handled. And like I said, the concept? Phenomenal. It's been done before (telling you in what would give it away), but not quite like this, and I loved the way it was pulled off here. Or, at least, I loved the way it was pulled off here until the climax of the film, which goes overboard on the silliness. (Oddly, once the climax is over, it goes back to being fine; the last few scenes tie everything together in the best possible way.) If you missed this one the first time around, and you almost certainly did, don't let the fact that it showed up on Chiller stop you from renting it. Fun stuff, this. ***

This movie can be quickly summarized as a modest twist on a theme that has been used multiple times, and as such it offers minimal thrills and chills. However, there are a couple of interesting plot points that make this movie worthwhile for a die-hard fan of horror.

The plot line is interesting. A group of supposed environmentalists has occupied an oil rig to prevent it from being turned into a reef by being collapsed into the water. After landing on the oil rig, they discover that the maintenance crew that was supposed to be there is missing. The ten members of the team continue to search the rig to restore power and find what happened to the maintenance crew. During the search one they find strange symbols and soon thereafter one of the team is bitten by a rat. After that, we see a team member kill another team member, but the killer turns up dead.

The movie continues along until the interesting twist at the end that makes you wonder why the person who pressed to come onto the rig in the first place handled in the way he did, instead of a way that was ultimately fatal to nearly everyone. Of course, then we wouldn't have had a movie.

Another reviewer stated that this movie makes use of the body inhabiting ability of the creature in "The Thing from another World," later remade as "The Thing." That statement is inaccurate. In these two movies the Thing was an alien creature from another planet. In "Ghost Rig" the being is a (gasp) demon. Among several disappointments I had was that this movie had no ghosts such as those found on the much more interesting "Ghost Ship."

I was also disappointed that there was little scare factor in this movie. The movie is a demonic murder mystery with minimal chill factor. There were minimal special effects, so the story is minimally about the demon, other than serving to knock off one member of the team after another, leading to the ending.

Many movies are meant to be enjoyed for the journey. This one aims for the conclusion, which provides only moderate justification for watching the whole thing from beginning to end. My recommendation is to rent this one from the bargain bin of your local video store rather than buying it as a permanent part of your collection, unless you are a demon killer movie collector and have to have this entire genre.

My first experience with a Scottish straight to video..GHOST RIG suffers from a pace that is too slow for a horror movie of this nature to be totally effective. Too much of it is shot in the dark, and the characters don't establish exactly who or what they are. Jamie Bamber as Tom, the hero, and Jaason Simmons as Vincent, the fanatical leader, are well cast and the rest of the cast is adequate, if not thespianically (is that a word) sharp. It's not a horrible move, it is watchable and has some good plot twists at the end.
Rent..don't buy.

Ghost Rig is a low budget horror movie that takes the script from John Carpenter's "The Thing" and reworks it for an oil rig. The premise is almost exactly the same. In this movie, a group of environmentalists go aboard an oil rig to shoot a documentary. Initially looking for the maintenence crew, they find the rig abandoned. However there appears to be some sort of entity on board that can take control of a person's body. Once the entity leaves to hide in another body, that person dies. The group flies into paranoia in trying to determine which of their party is possessed. Along the way, they discover the secret behind the entity's presence here which is not an original one.
Because "Ghost Rig" copies the plot so closely, this movie actually builds some semblance of suspence. The characters are marginally interesting. At least the director tried to pass them off as intelligent and "important" within the context of the story. There are no party-hearty dimwits among this group. Unfortunately, a total lack of originality and and uninteresting payoff dooms this movie to the bargain basement genre of horror releases.

What the hell have the people here rating this higher then 2 stars been seeing in this?

This movie has been so boring from start to finish. A group of press people have landed on an oilrig about to be detonated to save it for some reason. But they can't find the crew that's supposed to be on it. As they search they end up being killed off. Zzzzzzzzzz

This movie is kinda the same thing as LOST VOYAGE. Only LV was enjoyable where as this movie stinks. Its not scary, the attempt at scares are absolutely pathetic, and not in a FUNNY way at all. PLEASE, I'm begging you to ignore these other reviews and understand this movie sucks.