Movie Review: “Ink”

I’ve wanted to see the movie “Ink,” I first saw the trailer last year. At that time I was riding the coattails of my “Repo: The Genetic Opera” high and was all about finding new movies that didn’t fit the standard fare at the theater. “Ink” fit the bill. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be widely released due to its independent and lower budget nature. I kept watch to see if it would at least come to Kansas City, but it never did. It was (finally) released on DVD at the end of October and it hit Netflix on November 10th. We watched it on Instant View.

“Ink” is a fantasy/sci-fi independent film about a little girl who’s kidnapped by Ink, a deformed man/creature who wants to use her as a sacrifice to become and Incubus. Incubi have television screens for faces and are the ones responsible for nightmares (and possibly temptation during day hours, though I’d have to watch it again to see if that’s really the case).

It is the Storytellers that come to the girl’s rescue. These are the people who bring dreams. One becomes another captive of Ink as he visits the Drifters to get the codes needed for his transformation. The others, with the help of a Pathfinder (one who finds the beat of the world), work to help her by pulling her father from the emotional wall he’d built around him prior to and in the course of his wife’s death.

I really liked this movie. The effects aren’t at the same standard as, say, Transformers or anything by Dreamworks, but they weren’t bad either. A few of the images were a little creepy, which just adds to its appeal in my opinion. I suppose the originality of the film could be debated, but I thought it was creative, especially right now when it seems like everything coming out is a sequel or a remake. The movie is plot driven, but the characters are interesting in their own right, especially the blind pathfinder. One of the best scenes in the movie is what I refer to as the Chain Reaction scene in which he finds the beat of the world and works with it to set off a series of events to accomplish part of the mission.

The movie, especially the aforementioned scene, was visual eye candy for me, and now that I’ve seen it once, I want to watch it again to find what I missed the first time. Like any movie, it’s not for everyone. The cinematography jumps in a motion sickness inducing way at times, certain parts seemed to move a bit slow. It was also confusing at first, and it took awhile to find the thread of comprehension to figure out what was going on. By the end though, it all comes together.

Check it out here at imdb.com. If you watch it, let me know what you think.