Mark of the Devil Year: 1969 Director: Michael Armstrong Written by: Sergio Casstner, Percy Parker Threat: Inquisitor Weapon of Choice: Pike Based upon: none IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
None

Rish's Reviews
This happy little flick tells the tale of olde tyme European witch hunts! Udo Kier plays an earnest young witch hunter, brought into an unimaginably corrupt village, where they've taken to finger-pointing like Robert Downey Jr. to narcotics. He finds out exactly how flawed the whole process is, and how dishonest the church has become. And about the rainbow array of torture devices used to induce confessions out of the innocent.
What can I say about Mark of the Devil? Not a lot, really. I think Udo Kier is pretty cool (is he a Scream Fiend?), and the women were attractive. But I'm just not a fan of torture, and this flick was packed with it. What kind, you ask? De-tonguing! Buttock-impaling! Flesh-branding! Water torture! Burning at the stake! Thumbscrews! Stabbing! Beatings! Foot-burning!
Tyranist had his new best pal over to watch this with us, and he was vocally opposed to it almost from the opening credits. Being a boy with practically no money, I have never walked out of a movie, and rarely return a video without watching it to the end. And tyranist, being a librarian in his mind, felt it necessary to watch to the end, simply because it's the responsible thing to do, for you, the three faithful readers of this website. Tyranist's friend had no such convictions, and he made sure we knew he was suffering.
And hey, the movie wasn't very good. It was mean-spirited, bleak, long, and semi-pointless. While there's certainly room to mine good stories from this subject matter (witch trials and the like), this didn't work. Even the ending*, which is something of a cruel twist, fell flat due to poor execution.
The high point was the light and gay song that would play from time to time, bringing a sort of Germanic joy to the proceedings. Well, I laughed, at least.
Oddly, the most famous thing about this movie was the promotion used when it was theatrically distributed. Believe it or not, barf bags were given out to audience members in case of . . . turbulence.
After the film, we had words about whether to review it or not, because, despite the subject matter, this is NOT a horror movie. It's pretty much just sick period exploitation Melodrama. Not a genre you'll find at your local Hollywood Video. I tried to convince him that we HAD to to review it, even to tell people that it's not Horror. Otherwise, why had we endured it?
I'd Recommend It To: That cousin of yours who used to pull legs off spiders and put firecrackers in the anuses of toads. When he gets out of jail, that is.
*Evil really wins, by the way. Not just in this movie, but in life.

The tyranist's thoughts
Meh.
You heard me.
This was so uninspiring, so bland, and so utterly forgettable. Of course, I generally find that true of movies from the '60s touted as the most disturbing ever.
This was first and foremost a period piece. The fact that the period included witch hunts is unfortunate. Udo Kier was nice and that's really about it. I'm fond of Herbert Lom, but his character was so utterly reprehensible that I couldn't like him. The torture scenes were gruesome, but not moreso than any average gore flick of today. And really that was all it had going for it.
The ending was bleak, but not unpredictable. The story was virtually non-existant. The love interest strange and fleeting. Characters seemingly walked onstage and off again without more than a nod.
You know, I don't think this could be remade today. Not that they couldn't get away with more over-the-top torture effects, just that no sane person would sink money into it. Now I feel bad. I paid to watch it. I wish I hadn't.

Total Skulls: 19

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears		Udo Kier
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?