Tattoo (1981, Bruce Dern, Maud Adams, Leonard Frey) – Classic Movie Review 13,605

The 1981 erotic horror thriller film Tattoo stars Bruce Dern as an eccentric tattoo artist and Maud Adams as a fashion model, whose relationship turns evil.

Co-writer/ director Bob Brooks’s 1981 erotic horror thriller film Tattoo stars Bruce Dern, Maud Adams and Leonard Frey, as a relationship between an eccentric tattoo artist and a fashion model turns evil.

It is a deeply unattractive and worrying variant on themes from Psycho and The Collector, with psychotically loopy tattoo artist Karl Kinsky (Bruce Dern) abducting and drugging his seductive model Maddy (Maud Adams), using her body as the canvas for his skills and then raping her.

The merest glimmer of an interesting idea here is lost beneath the welter of ugly images and dangerously disturbing attitudes.

Joyce Buñuel (daughter-in-law of Luis Buñuel as she was married to his son Juan Luis Buñuel) adapts director Brooks’s story for the screenplay.

Also in the cast are Rikke Borge, John Getz, Alan Leach, Cynthia Nixon, John Snyder, Peter Iacangelo, Trish Doolan.

Tattoo is directed by Bob Brooks, runs 103 minutes, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Joyce Buñuel, based on a story by Bob Brooks, is shot by Arthur Ornitz and Michael Seresin, is produced by Joseph E Levine, Richard P Levine and Robert F Colesberry, is scored by Barry DeVorzon, and is designed by Stuart Wurtzel.

Producer Joseph E Levine edited the film without informing director Bob Brooks. Feminist group Women Against Pornography protested against the film for equating violence with love.

The songs ‘What’s Your Name’ and ‘Shot in the Dark’ are written by Barry DeVorzon and Michael Towers, and sung by Euca Burrows. 

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,605

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