Badmovies.org Forum

While browsing through Netflix suggestions, I came across Ink. It looked like it could be at least mildly interesting to me, so I gave it a chance. It was nothing like I expected, and I was very pleasantly surprised by this creepy but very touching movie.

The storyline begins with the Dream people appearing on a street at night, delivering good dreams to people. One character is out of place, though: Ink, a deformed demonic character, arrives at the bedside of a young girl and manages to steal her soul to sacrifice to the Incubus clan, the bad guys in the movie. Ink is in torment and wants to join the Incubus because they have promised to take away all feeling from him. The Incubus are some of the creepier looking characters I have seen in movies. They are all middle-aged men wearing Matrix-like long, black coats and big glasses. Not too creepy so far, I know. But the simple addition of a lighted glass plate in front of their faces and a flickering image of their faces on that plate give them a nicely creepy look. I looked for a good image to post but didn't find one.

Back in the real world, the little girl has lapsed into a coma. Her mother is dead and her father is so involved in his business affairs that her grandparents have taken custody of her. The dream people believe that her father needs to come see her to help her find her way back, so they enlist the services of the Pathfinder, a blind, snarky character who can feel the rhythms of existence and manipulate them to achieve his purposes. Ink, after having his means of arriving immediately at Incubus headquarters destroyed during a skirmish with the dream people, has to take an alternate route. Along the way, he encounters the Storyteller, a mysteriously important person in the dream world. She surrenders herself to Ink and allows herself to be bound so that she can accompany the girl and offer comfort.

I won't reveal the ending here, but I will say I teared up a bit. Ink is a touching movie. I guessed the "twist ending" in advance, but it still works, as the effectiveness of the movie doesn't really depend on it. If there is a problem with the movie, it is that in some ways it comes across as a children's movie, and in others it comes across as a movie for adults. The Incubus, as I said, are quite spooky, while Ink himself is more pathetic and almost darkly comical. In describing the plot, it sounds like a children's tale, but it isn't really presented that way. I can only say it was an excellent independent film that was unfortunately unable to find a large distributor. It is far more original than any big studio movie I have seen in the last several years. I strongly recommend watching it. And if you don't have Netflix, I think it is actually free to watch on IMDB.com.

Glad you liked it, I did too...

(https://caps-public.s3.amazonaws.com/content/3421738/THUMBNAIL_IMAGE)

The Winans (director/producer) tried a strategy of allowing people to download the movie for free, hoping that people would then pay for a DVD/Blu-ray version.  Don't know if that strategy worked out financially or not but it looks like they're still putting it out there for free. 

Interesting. According to wikipedia, as Rev suggested, they "embraced the piracy," and the strategy DID lead to higher DVD and Blu-Ray sales in return. When you can't control a thing, find a way to make it work. Good for them.