Ink

Liev: "This is what you were"

A 2009 low-budget indie fantasy film directed by Jamin Winans. When people go to sleep at night, certain beings come to them and give dreams. Storytellers supply happy images, while Incubi are evil creatures who give people nightmares and encourage vanity or despair in the individual. These creatures are both usually unseen by mortals and exist in a murky, dream-like mirror world of their own. However, neither of these creatures can directly influence the real world. It is implied that Incubi can indirectly influence certain individuals during the daytime, by building up their pride or tearing them down through whispers of despair.

The main story is centered around a little girl, Emma, who is abducted into the dream world by the namesake villain Ink. A group of Storytellers try to rescue her by bringing her separated father to her bed as her body lies in a coma. This involves one of the coolest chain reactions in film. (Which is no surprise, considering it's made by the same people who brought us Spin.)

The movie hit it big on bittorrent sites in early November 2009. The director squealed with glee. This reaction was the second admission by a film director or film producer that "unauthorized" downloads can be good for getting the word out for a work.

Tropes used in Ink include:

• Action Girl: All girls here kick ass Buffy Style.
• Anti-Villain: Ink.
• Berserk Button: Don't remind Allel of her failure. Or taunt her. And. DON'T. Mess with Emma around John. In ANY form.
  • Ink's a little touchy about his inadequacy.
• Big Damn Heroes: Subverted when Ink kidnaps Emma. He thrashes the main Storytellers before they call in reinforcements, and even then he still escapes. The best they do is slow him down.
  • The Pathfinder manages to activate a magical distress beacon just in time.
  • Also Ink. Granted, he was in the room the whole time, but The Reveal hits him in time to pull a Heel Face Turn and rescue Emma.
• Blind Seer: Jacob, the Pathfinder.
• Black and White Morality: It's pretty obvious that the Storytellers are all good and Incubi are all bad. The drifters, however, are mostly neutrally in the middle, not caring to choose either side. There are a few who are shown to be swayed in their allegiances, though.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The Prince.
• Character Title
• Chekhov's Gun: The mass summon signal.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Most of the Incubi invariably walk around with permanent Stepford Smiler faces, although the Keymaster Incubus in particular has a creepy moment where you see the smile spread across his face from his initially neutral expression. It seems to stretch pretty wide.
• Cluster F-Bomb: John has one of these before his crash in the beginning of the movie.
• Crazy Prepared: The one and only time that Ink is at a disadvantage in a one-on-one fight, he makes it clear that he would rather kill Emma and lose his chance to join the Incubi than be defeated.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Natural Light = Real World. White, Green, and (Beige/Orange?) are the Spirit World, Nightmares (and Incubi-induced thoughts), and Dreams respectively.
• Dead Little Sister: John's wife fits into this role.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Pathfinder in spades
• Deliberately Monochrome: The dream/other world is colored this way.
  • The basic dream world is faded except for that last bit at the end..., the Incubi world is green, and the Incubi have masks that make their faces monochrome and apparently less terrifying than when removed.
• The Determinator: Nothing is going to stop Ink from getting to the Assembly.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: Inverted, it didn't ruin the movie's success, but instead improved it.
• Disability Superpower: The Pathfinder is blind, but can "feel the beat of the world" which allows him to set off chains of events leading to a desired outcome. As long as there aren't any branches in his path.
  • Doubles as Awesome By Analysis
• Disaster Dominoes: OH, Jacob...
  • You can guess how some of them stack, but others are a complete surprise.
• Dissonant Serenity: When John is walking through the hospital to find Emma's room, while the Storytellers are having a huge brawl with the Incubi all around him. Justified in that the fighting takes place in another plane of existence that he can't perceive.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Creepy guys standing bedside as little girls sleep.
• Driven to Suicide: In one reality, John does this after the loss of both his wife and his daughter. This leads to him becoming Ink after his death.
• Foil: Ink is a foil for John as they the same person. It also seems that Liev is meant to remind Ink and Emma of the wife/mother.
• Epiphany Therapy: The Storytellers give John dreams of his dead wife to convince him that seeing his daughter is more important than his job.
• Foreshadowing: "This is who you were"
• Friend to All Children / Friend to All Living Things: Liev in spades.
• Fridge Brilliance: What would have happened if Ink and John were not redeemed at the same time?
  • Liev can undo what already was done.
• Fridge Horror: See the first above, and also, what happened to Liev?
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Ink's pallid, goblin-like appearance is referred to as scarring caused by his suicide. It's also his motivation in that he believes joining the Incubi will rid him of his ugliness.
  • If you look closely, he has scars, or at least very thick veins and imperfections all over his head.
• Hair of Gold: Emma. Odd, because her parents and maternal grandparents (or at least grandmother) are dark.
• "Hell Yes!" Moment: The ending gets two of these: when Ink realizes who he is and delivers an enormous can of whoopass and when enough Storytellers show up to drive off the attacking Incubi from the hospital.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain - Ink, so very much. He isn't even very ineffectual, aside from letting the key-drum which would have allowed him instant access to the Assembly (and made the movie MUCH shorter) get broken, but the Incubi like to play off of his low self-esteem. That, his sheer determination, and a series of sympathetic moments put him in Anti-Villain territory by the end of the movie. Then he has his Heel Face Turn and kicks EPIC amounts of Incubi ass.
• Infant Immortality: Brutally subverted in Ink's parent timeline. Played straight in the other timeline.
• Jerkass: John started out as a nice guy, with something of a Jerkass Facade, then became a real Jerkass, then a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Pathfinder, at times.
• Kick the Dog: Ink, after Liev's surrender.
• Large Ham: The Pathfinder, again. Sadie also hams it up quite a bit as well.
• Leitmotif: A particular static noise follows the Incubi, the pops of the appearing Storytellers, and Jacob's "One, two, three, four" and its sometimes accompanying music. Even the drum 'keys' could be considered this.
• Masquerade
• Meaningful Echo: The 'fighting monsters' John does. Especially, "You mess with my daughter, you mess with me!", albeit non-verbally.
  • This is who you were; Something's got to stop the flow.
  • The forehead touch, especially at the end.
  • This is who you will become; This is who you will choose to be. You don't have to choose this.
  • And so, SO much more.
• Meaningful Name: Many of the Storytellers have names from the Bible (i.e. Gabe, Sarah). The Storyteller who goes to help Emma and is captured by Ink is named Liev, which means "godly one" and it's also an anagram of 'live', which seems to be what she's urging John/Ink to do. Ink sounds like the first part of Incubus, as in, he's an incomplete incubus.
• Mood Whiplash: Jacob's This Is Sparta moment is immediately broken by his continued antics.
• Noble Demon: Ink.
• No Budget: Made on a quarter of a million dollars.
• Oh Crap: That is a LOT of Incubi...
• Once More, with Clarity: The first scene of the movie.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The spirits of the dead can end up either as Storytellers, Incubi, or Drifters. Storytellers are good people who give people happy dreams (and can kick ass when needed, but not affect the physical world). Incubi give people nightmares and try to influence them to increase the amount of pride and selfishness in the world. Drifters are the most like traditional ghosts, owing allegiance to neither side, and most seem to be caught up in the obsessions they had in life. All spirits can be killed by another in the same way that humans can be killed, but it never says what, if anything, happens to them after that.
• Pet the Dog: Ink gets one when he prevents Sadie chopping off all of Liev's hair and further humiliating her.
• Power Fist: Gabe breaks out some brass knuckles for the climactic fight.
• Pride: Pretty much what the movie is about.
• Redemption Equals Death / Redemption Earns Life: This is a tricky one. After realizing his Tomato in the Mirror status and saving Emma, Ink asks her for forgiveness and helps her wake up to find her father at her bedside. The John that we've spent the movie watching gets his daughter back while the one who became Ink no longer exists.
• Reset Button: Two - the one that fixes things broken when Storytellers fight, and The Stable Time Loop-breaking one at the end.
• The Reveal: Ink is John from a Bad Future. Specifically, he completed his business deal, let Emma die alone in the hospital, spiraled into depression and blew his brains out, scarring his already twisted soul enough to turn him into monster.
• Running Gag: "Hello, dirt..."
• Sacrificial Lion: Liev the Storyteller
• Satan: LOOK at the Prince. He even has it in his title! And think about his followers; down to the names.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: These replace the Stepford Smiler screens all of the Incubi wear when they get ready to fight.
• Scissor Crazy: Sadie does not like Storytellers.
  • Sadie does not like other women, particularly lovely ones. Consider her reason for being a drifter and personality.
• Screw Destiny: this is the Pathfinder's power, which he uses to put John in the hospital and gives the Storytellers a window to give John a nice dose of Epiphany Therapy
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: John & Ink do this with the Storyteller's help, although John remains oblivious to the 'time travel' part, and Ink doesn't realize it until The Reveal.
• Simple Staff: Allel carries one.
• Sinister Schnoz: Ink.
• Stable Time Loop: The Incubi's plan for Ink's initiation ritual is to create one.
  • Does that mean that it became a Timey-Wimey Ball after Ink asked for forgiveness?
• Stepford Smiler: Aside from the Prince, every single one of the Incubi has a screen in front of their faces which projects this image. And they have sharp teeth.
• Tear Jerker: "She's going to be okay." The scene is even worse if you close your eyes and turn the sound up.
  • Emma, about to be sacrificed: "When I die will I be a storyteller like you?" Liev: "No. You will be much greater than that."
• This Is Sparta: Shake. The. Shit. Out of her.
• Tomato in the Mirror: See The Reveal above.
• Traumatic Haircut: Liev gets one from Sadie.
• Uncanny Valley: Purposefully and rather effectively done with the Incubi. The screens in front of their faces greatly distort and exaggerate their Stepford Smiles to a disturbing level.
• Urban Fantasy
• Villain Tracking Failure: The Storytellers can teleport and yet can't keep ahead of Ink.
• Waistcoat of Style: Gabe sports one.
• Was Once a Man: Ink and the junk collector were once men. Who knows what Sadie once was.
  • A woman?
• When You Coming Home, Dad?
• Why Don't You Just Stab Them: The Prince doesn't even bother to gloat over Liev.
• You Shall Not Pass: Each of the main Storytellers pulls one of these to buy John more time.