Tattoo

R

1981

1h 43m

Horror

List

29%

7 Reviews

Tomatometer

60%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

A twisted tattoo artist (Bruce Dern) kidnaps a model (Maud Adams) to realize his dream of a masterpiece on skin.

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Demented N

Not bad could of been Better more like one of the more graphic Columbos (The one starting Rue from the Golden Girls) I couldn't help feel that any second Dick Van Dyke was gonna pop up and solve the mystery from diagnosis murder. The movie isn't really slow from the word go it's cooking, but the writer and director seem to know what to do when suspenseful things are happening, but haven't got a clue how to write or direct genrel chit chat conversations. All in all it's not a bad movie I just wouldn't watch it again anytime soon,.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

07/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Here's a fairly lame attempt at an 'erotic thriller' which wastes an exceptional turn by Bruce Dern as tattoo artist Karl Kinsky, who sees his occupation less as a career than as a spiritual calling. Maud Adams is Maddy, the air-headed supermodel who inexplicably becomes the object of his hopeless, sexually-stunted desire; Adams has precisely 1/100th the talent and conviction of Dern, and consequently watching her suffer at his hands is painful for all the wrong reasons. Essentially Karl wants to cover her body with his 'mark' (elaborate tattoo work) so that she'll stay with him forever. You see, Karl has some strange ideas about women which straddle the line between oafish servitude and sexual sadism. The way the film unfolds the mystery of his character is a betrayal of Dern's fine and nuanced performance, since the script doesn't have much intelligence built into its design. The screenplay by Joyce Buñuel, daughter-in-law (!) of the great Luis Buñuel takes none of the master's delight in human perversity, instead settling for leering sensationalism and by-the-numbers suspense film clichés. Director Bob Brooks knows how to use his camera to create striking images, but there's only so much a well-placed set of female breasts can convey before the script needs to kick in with some valuable subtext. And as I mentioned before (and feel obliged to mention again), Adams's failure to register even a single believable emotion doesn't help the film's cause. One wonders what might have been if Brooks and Buñuel had taken a more challenging route with their story rather than serving up De Palma-Lite. Unfortunately, this is a deeply stupid movie that doesn't even succeed as camp.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Slow-moving, overacted and overwrought.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

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Audience Member

Despite Bruce Dern's fine performance, the plot has quite a few holes, and ends up being a hollow genre exercise rather than a fully realized story.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

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Audience Member

A mentally ill tattoo artist kidnaps a model to create his masterpiece on her body.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/21/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Haha it's one of those films, isn't it ... you either love it or hate it. I saw it a couple of times when I was at school and I still remember it 'til today. Maud Adams was gorgeous in it ... and like Pamela De Graff said ... it was an 80s pre-cursor to Boxing Helena.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

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Bob Brooks

Director

Bruce Dern

Karl Kinsky

Maud Adams

Maddy

Leonard Frey

Halsey

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Bruce McCabe

Boston Globe

Tattoo is a flaccid, rancid and astonishingly tedious melodrama making a theatrical appearance before landing on the pay TV screen at 1 or 2 in the morning where it belongs.

Apr 28, 2018

Full Review

Larry Vitacco

Philadelphia Gay News

Aside from Dern, the only other redeeming value of Tattoo is Arthur Ornitz's evocative camera work.

Rated: 2/4

May 27, 2020

Full Review

Chris Alexander

Alexander On Film

As Kinksy, Dern offers the best of what he can do, giving us a character who is in some respects, neither man nor monster, but a different species entirely.

Jul 30, 2018

Full Review

David N. Butterworth

La Movie Boeuf

As sleazy a viewing experience as one might expect from a movie in which Bruce Dern kidnaps Maud Adams and scribbles all over her.

Rated: 2/4

Aug 31, 2016

Full Review

Rob Thomas

Capital Times (Madison, WI)

Overheated psychological horror schlock.

Rated: 1/5

Jan 12, 2006

Full Review

Chuck O'Leary

Fantastica Daily

An effectively creepy psychological thriller with Bruce Dern at his unhinged best.

Rated: 3/5

Oct 9, 2005

Full Review

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Synopsis

A twisted tattoo artist (Bruce Dern) kidnaps a model (Maud Adams) to realize his dream of a masterpiece on skin.

Director: Bob Brooks
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
Original Language: English
Runtime: 1h 43m