The late 60s and early 70s saw the proliferation of movies about witch trials and burnings. Off the top of my head, I can think of four in addition to "Mark of the Devil"--"Witchfinder General", "Les démons", "Crowhaven Farm" and "Daughters of Satan". Some of them were pretty good--some of them were just plain nasty. I'd put "Mark of the Devil" in the latter category. Why? Because the film is so sadistic and brutal--and it appears the films were appealing to the basest and nastiest instincts in the audiences.The film begins with a prologue in which they say millions were killed as a result of the witch trials. While many people were killed, it certainly isn't in the millions and the number simply was made up for this film.The rest of the movie involves two separate groups of witchfinders--one working with the evil Herbert Lom and the other working for some other evil guy. Regardless, they murder, rape and torture for kicks and have no interest in doing 'God's will'--unless they worship a god who is 100% evil! A young apprentice witchfinder watching all this slowly becomes convinced that the cause is unjust--but what is he and the rest of the folk to do to stop this madness? As I said above, this is a brutal and sadistic film. Too many scenes are more interested in showing blood, nudity, gore and violence to take the film very seriously. The acting isn't that bad, but the music, at times, is terrible. Imagine a modern film whose musical score often is an organ! It made me laugh because it was so cheesy.

Mark of the Devil (1970) ** (out of 4) Euro-sleaze at its best or worst depending on who you listen to. Set in the 1700s, this film tells the story of Count von Meruh (Udo Kier) a man who comes to work for Lord Cumberland (Herbert Lom) and take offense to his "henchman", the evil Albino (Reggie Nalder) who gets his kicks accusing anyone of being a witch so that he can torture them into a confession. MARK OF THE DEVIL will always be remembered for its original theatrical gimmick, which took a page from William Castle. Theater owners would pass out "barf bags" because the distributor decided to build up the hype by saying this here was the most disgusting and shocking movie ever made. I think many people would find the film disgusting but if the distributors were being totally honest they would have admitted that everything in between of the torture scenes is pretty boring. On one hand, this film has everything you'd want from a Euro film including the nudity, the sex, the violence and the gore. There are many drawn out sequences with people (mostly women) strapped down to one device or another and being tortured. Some have hot irons put on them. Some are stretched to the point of snapping. Some are burned at the stake and some poor souls have objects jammed into them. Considering gore and violence was just being allowed into films, one could argue that this film broke grounds and really pushed the limits. Sadly, so much of the film just seems slowly paced and so much so that you will at times be lucky not to fall asleep. One of the biggest issues is how poorly slow parts of the film are and this includes everything between Kier's character and a woman (Olivera Katarina) who has been called a witch but he feels she's not. Even some of the macho stuff between the Kier and Lom character just comes off laughable. Another thing that holds the film back is its weak attempt to try and show "history" but we all know the main purpose and that's to show gore. Fans will enjoy seeing Kier and Lom as both turn in good performance. The film stealer has to be Nalder who is just so evil and dirty that you can't help but have fun each time he's on the screen. So, in the end, MARK OF THE DEVIL might be an important, early gore film but it's too bad it wasn't better on the whole. THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL it's not.

This is a movie supposedly based on real accounts of the witch hunts in 15th-19th century Europe. Albino (Reggie Nalder) is an evil corrupt witch hunter in a small town. He, at random, accuses people of being witches and tortures and kills them. Lord Cumberland (Herbert Lom) arrives in town with his helper (Udo Kier). Kier falls in love with beautiful Vanessa (Olivera Katarina). Cumberland tells Albino that he is in charge of witch finding now. In revenge Albino accuses Vanessa of being a witch and has her locked up. Things escalate and ends up in an all out rampage.This is the infamous film that was "rated V for violence" (actually R rated) and free vomit bags were given to people who attended the movie. It was a huge hit in the US and spawned many sequels. What this is is a badly dubbed German exploitation film full of pointless female nudity and graphic violence. The acting ranges from OK (Lom and Nalder) to downright lousy (Kier and everybody else). Still this DOES work. The 2004 Blue Underground DVD is uncut and has a pristine print with strong color and good sound. Kier and Katarina are both a attractive and make a likable couple. There's a beautiful music score and some incredible scenery. Also the frequent bursts of VERY graphic violence are incredibly disturbing: people are burnt alive; a tongue is torn out; a topless woman on the rack is burnt with a hot branding iron; a man is stabbed in the eye...it goes on and on. Worst of all is the character of Baron Daumer. Young, attractive actor Michael Maien is shown being beaten up and tortured throughout the course of the film. I almost turned it off when he is forced to sit bottomless on nails as his feet are whipped! This is a vicious unrelenting film. On one hand it IS exploitation. On the other hand this is (I've heard) a pretty accurate representation of what went on way back then. Recommended--if you can get the Blue Underground DVD.

When I recently took my trip to Romania for Halloween, I noticed a lot of weird things, nothing of the supernatural sort but odd. One that stuck in my mind was the distraught face of a woman who missed a local tour bus as it was j u s t taking off. I understand that feeling well, and what stuck in my mind is how fast the woman ran but still missed. Perhaps had she not carried so much luggage she would have made it.1970's 'The Mark of the Devil' is like that, it reaches far but just misses. One of the many sleazy witch-burning films that sprang up in the wake of Michael Reeves's swansong 'The Witchfinder General', 'Mark' surprisingly has lot going for it than most of the other rip-offs. It's certainly not the classic that a few have made it out to be, but it's also not as shamelessly bad as some reviewers have said(it IS pretty shameless though, with one of the worst musical scores of all time).In 16th century Austria a busty tavern wench named Vanessa(Olivera Katarina)resists the advances of disgusting wench--I mean witch hunter Albino(Reggie Nalder)and summarily finds herself accused of witchcraft. Thankfully one of the witch hunters, Christian(Udo Kier, who really puts the pretty in pretty boy)has some compassion for her, and unlike Albino actually genuinely believes in what he is doing and is not in it for the profit, but it complicates matters that he DOES suspect her of witchcraft. This causes an obviously budding romance between them to develop much more slowly, and much more realistically than in other films. Things are further complicated when renowned witch-hunter Count Cumberland(Herbert Lom)arrives in town after hearing allegations of Albino's corruption. Will he be our young couples Saviour? Or will he be even worse?At first, the distant but apparently kindly Cumberland seems as far from Vincent Price's Matthew Hopkins as you can get. He lets several people go free and it's clear that Christian respects him and sees him as a father figure, and the feeling is mutual. We get the feeling that Cumberland is just a misguided but noble man and that he can eventually be swayed to see the light just as Christian was and that he will emerge as the hero of the piece.That is until it becomes clear that Cumberland is bat sh*t insane and even more dangerous than Albino at his worst. Our young couple is screwed.Herbert Lom gives what is possibly his greatest performance as Cumberland. This apparently kindly but pigheaded man's gradual revelation as a completely irredeemable and evil monster is genuinely horrifying. It may be one of the best portrayals of understated evil ever portrayed on the screen. Even the hardened murderer and rapist Albino cannot compare to Cumberland's madness. He recognizes Cumberland for what he is and is soon snuffed out. He may be a rapist, murderer and all-around sleaze bag, but at least he admits it to himself. Nalder is a sickening joy to watch in his scenes with Lom. Udo Kier is a bit stiff as Christian, but his gradual transformation from a deluded but honest man to a freedom fighter as he realizes his mentor is mad is excellent. The fact that his years of friendship means nothing to Cumberland, as well as his futile attempts at redemption as he realizes that he is just as responsible for the executions as anyone else is brilliantly portrayed. It's a harrowing portrait of a man forced to compromise his beliefs as everything he knows comes crashing down. It's a compelling contrast to 'Witchfinder' where the film's likable, level-headed hero Marshall; starts out as a noble freedom fighter and gradually compromises his morals until he becomes every bit as bad as his nemesis and no longer can relate to his friends and loved ones. Here, the hero starts out identifying with the villain before compromising his BAD morals and reforming, but whereas in 'Witchfinder' our hero lives to become corrupted, here he dies to reform(he's not named 'Christ' for nothing). Olivera Katarina is also great as Vanessa. In some ways she too is similar to Marshall, her blind quest for vengeance against Cumberland is what causes the death of her lover, until she too has a led a mad 'witchhunt' which has mostly harmed the innocent and destroyed any chance at happiness she had.So what keeps 'Mark' from becoming a classic? Well, the film has plenty of problems, from an unbearable, unfitting, awful musical score that will cause you to want to harm small animals and children, to awful dialog, to cinematography which ranges from laughably amateurish to Oscar-worthy(sometimes in the same scene!)but what ultimately kills it is it's attitude. The film is attempting to be a sensitive, intelligent historical epic but feels more like a sleazy exploitation film(probably because it IS a sleazy exploitation film). The T & A shots are gratuitous, there are several lame attempts at humor and the films marketing campaign made it clear that the film's primary objective was shocking people, as the film was rated 'V for Violence' by the filmmakers, and marketed with 'Free barf bags!!', making it clear the gore scenes were meant to be the centerpiece. So much for art.(Did I mention that the score sucked too?)With better direction, a more mature approach and a better score this could have been a genuine classic. But it JUST misses. Still, compared to the other 'Witchfinder' rip-offs, it certainly could have been worse.~