Thinking about getting a tattoo? Maybe you should watch The Tattooist first. Lasting a mere 1 minute 20 seconds including credits, this micro-short film takes you on a quick tour of a tattoo parlour on an ever-swerving camera under a lot of magenta lighting that foreshadows the blood-red visuals to jump out at you before your next breath.
Unsuspected customers are taken prisoners, drugged, tortured, mutilated, dragged by the hair across the floor. If you have the stomach for movies like the Hostel and Saw series, this one's for you.
One can't expect a very, very short film to dig into a deep narrative. Credit to director Michael Wong that under these limitations he has managed to build a kaleidoscope of disturbing imagery soaked in saturated colours that seem to bleed together to create a mosaic of visceral horror.
There's much we don't know. Who's this tattooist, why is he doing this and who are his victims?
This much we do know: The Tattooist functions as a trailer, a tease, an appetiser. It's a trove of ideas waiting to be fleshed out into a longer feature. There's no shortness of technical and visual confidence from Wong and his team. The mood and energy captured in a minute is a promise of sinister playfulness that will appeal to fans of the genre.
