Rating: 
Summary: Fast forward review
Review: The first thing that catches my attention about Mark Of The Devil is the opening sequence with the Morricone-like music that graces it. What I found to be disturbing was the fairy-tale like location and the sadism that visited. The town seems like a peaceful alpine Mayberry, but its denizens will sell each other out to the worst forms of torture at the drop of a hat to save their own skins, which as the point of this movie proves, are worthless. The real horror, and I do believe this was historically true, is the helplessness of everyone in this film to stop the events of witchfinding once they are set in motion. There is nothing more terrifying than for someone else to have complete control over your life-and Lom holds a whole village in his hand, end revels in being able to pull their strings and bring out the worst qualities of the helpless villagers.
Herbert Lom is adequate as the villain; he does a good job with his character's ability to barely conceal his Sadean lust. Udo Kier is also interesting as the ingenue. Granted where this film does begin to spin out of control is when the director tries to imbue his hero/heroine with a freewill choice of foiling Lom. Then it's time to suspend your belief for the remainder of the film. The ending almost redeems the original mood. All in all a pretty worthwhile see.
Rating: 
Summary: there's more to bad had from this than you think
Review: The first thing that catches my attention about Mark Of The Devil is the opening sequence with the Morricone-like music that graces it. What I found to be disturbing was the fairy-tale like location and the sadism that visited. The town seems like a peaceful alpine Mayberry, but its denizens will sell each other out to the worst forms of torture at the drop of a hat to save their own skins, which as the point of this movie proves, are worthless. The real horror, and I do believe this was historically true, is the helplessness of everyone in this film to stop the events of witchfinding once they are set in motion. There is nothing more terrifying than for someone else to have complete control over your life-and Lom holds a whole village in his hand, end revels in being able to pull their strings and bring out the worst qualities of the helpless villagers.
Herbert Lom is adequate as the villain; he does a good job with his character's ability to barely conceal his Sadean lust. Udo Kier is also interesting as the ingenue. Granted where this film does begin to spin out of control is when the director tries to imbue his hero/heroine with a freewill choice of foiling Lom. Then it's time to suspend your belief for the remainder of the film. The ending almost redeems the original mood. All in all a pretty worthwhile see.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor excuse of a film
Review: This is probably one of the most if not the most graphic films I have ever seen. I suppose it was written to shock people into understanding the horror of ignorance and the suffering of all during the middle ages, but it passes the point of being shocking in its portrayals of torture and death. One of the great aspects of the film genre is that we DON'T have to see everything. "Mark of the Devil" gives the viewer absolutely no release. The gore and carnage are SO graphic that they make the movie unwatchable. I stopped watching half way through, and I'm one of those people who NEVER stops a movie, no matter how bad. Don't make the same mistake I did by even starting it in the first place!
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money
Review: This was just a particularly nasty Hammer horror-style of film with a lot of unpleasant torture scenes and some crappy acting to boot. It's really not worth wasting your money on, but it does at least have Herbert Lom in a post-Pink Panther role in what must surely be the film he wants to forget more than any other!
Rating:
Summary: Overall, a good movie
Review: When I purchased this movie I was actually expecting a very graphic and horrific movie. It is rather tame compared to the current slew of slasher type flicks. Sure, the movie portrays torture but it isn't as graphic as the reviews make you think. Its all relative I guess... if you have never seen anything like it, sure it may shock you but it is far from being offensive and too graphic to watch.The movie was actually quite good from a plot standpoint. The movie starts out by letting the viewer know that it is based on actual documents related to the "dark era" of witch hunting. It is something we all know took place and this movie just shows what took place.
Rating:
Summary: Walt would not approve
Review: While purporting to be based on "actual accounts" of witch trials, MARK OF THE DEVIL is obviously serious about nothing except being a sadistic turn on. Make no mistake about it, this is a graphic, gruesome exercise in Nihilistic pessimism not to be viewed by the faint of heart. It is to violence what hard cord pornography is to sex: a reduction to and wallowing in the most explicit details the censor will allow. The fact that we know they are faked doesn't make the horrific actions any easier to watch. With one major exception, the virtues of MARK OF THE DEVIL are all negative. It is refreshingly free of the optimistic cant that infects most movies. There is no effort at any "positive human values." Quite the contrary, the movie both dramatizes and appeals to the bestial side of human behavior. This emphasis on the negative doesn't make the film any more true to life than Hollywood's Pollyanna view of experience. Given how infrequently such negativism is allowed to be expressed on screen, however, its utter relentlessness here is salutory. People watch movies for all sorts of reasons, to match all sorts of moods. I don't see why we shouldn't have something to watch, say, after we've had to deal with an idiotic bureaucrat, or after we've been stuck in traffic for two hours, or after having to sit through a Disney movie... The film's bleak take on life can satisfy the darkest mood. MARK OF THE DEVIL has the one positive virtue of many exploitation films, a lot of highly inventive filmmaking. This extends not just to the gory inserts, but to a first-rate use of the locations, a wealth of period décor, very sharp editing, and a resourceful, imaginative use of the camera. None of this is likely to make it less offensive for those who turn away from a negative portrayal of humanity. On the contrary, it may make it worse to know that the film was made by talented people. But if nothing else you come away from this film knowing one should always give the Devil his due.
Rating:
Summary: Walt would not approve
Review: While purporting to be based on "actual accounts" of witch trials, MARK OF THE DEVIL is obviously serious about nothing except being a sadistic turn on. Make no mistake about it, this is a graphic, gruesome exercise in Nihilistic pessimism not to be viewed by the faint of heart. It is to violence what hard cord pornography is to sex: a reduction to and wallowing in the most explicit details the censor will allow. The fact that we know they are faked doesn't make the horrific actions any easier to watch. With one major exception, the virtues of MARK OF THE DEVIL are all negative. It is refreshingly free of the optimistic cant that infects most movies. There is no effort at any "positive human values." Quite the contrary, the movie both dramatizes and appeals to the bestial side of human behavior. This emphasis on the negative doesn't make the film any more true to life than Hollywood's Pollyanna view of experience. Given how infrequently such negativism is allowed to be expressed on screen, however, its utter relentlessness here is salutory. People watch movies for all sorts of reasons, to match all sorts of moods. I don't see why we shouldn't have something to watch, say, after we've had to deal with an idiotic bureaucrat, or after we've been stuck in traffic for two hours, or after having to sit through a Disney movie... The film's bleak take on life can satisfy the darkest mood. MARK OF THE DEVIL has the one positive virtue of many exploitation films, a lot of highly inventive filmmaking. This extends not just to the gory inserts, but to a first-rate use of the locations, a wealth of period décor, very sharp editing, and a resourceful, imaginative use of the camera. None of this is likely to make it less offensive for those who turn away from a negative portrayal of humanity. On the contrary, it may make it worse to know that the film was made by talented people. But if nothing else you come away from this film knowing one should always give the Devil his due.
Rating:
Summary: Prepare to be disturbed!
Review: With it's Heidi type music, and frequent European overacting and bad dubbing, this interesting little flick will cause you to do a little soul searching. Not, "is God real?", but "what on earth posessed me to watch this?". Austria 1770, so thought do gooders would go about, (under the authority of the Church) and hunt witches. That's the plot. Not so bad....until the credits finish running. There are very realistic tourture scenes, burning humans at the stake, the rack, ripping out toungues, one nasty jab to the eye, and other squeemish moments. Nothing is predictable! Anything you expect to happen doesn't. And don't pay too much attention to lovely couple, they are just a weak subplot to tie the whole sickening mess together. Don't miss this rare treat! Oh, and don't eat anything before and during that reminds you of body parts or fluids.
Rating:
Summary: Captavatingly sick
Review: Ya' like seeing chopped body parts;women's tongues being ripped out of their heads;a guy being killed by Chinese watertorture;breasts, and sadistic maiming and mutilation ??? Then Boy-Howdy do we have the film for you!This movie attempts to present itself as a historically accurate docu-drama ( guffaw-guffaw), but it's nothing more than a gore-fest.Lay off the guacamole and chips before viewing this one.
Rating:
Summary: Fast forward review
Review: You can tell when a sleaze film has hype by checking out the auction action, and the uncut DVD version of this is reaching 3 figures! No, it's not worth it, unless you're some kind of collector. But even a tape is a good acquisition for sex sleaze fans. There are several scenes for a compilation vid. Let's see, first we got one of the mean witch finders cornering a girl in a bar and sticking a needle in her bare back. No nudity, but fairly realistic. Then we got a nude in a rack with various whip marks and such, having her footsies warmed up in full detail. There's a female whipping, but fully clothed, and too much cutting back and forth between the girl and the ugly face of the guy doing the whipping. We got two witch burning scenes, about as good as such things get, but no nudity. Oh yeah, I forgot, one girl is cured of talking too much, but it's more of a gore scene if you catch my drift. That's it, I afraid, aside from wasted potential in the form of a nude sitting in a nail chair and being whipped, but oops . . . it's a guy!! Really bad call by the producers there. One star for the two burnings, one for the girl on the rack, one for the other scenes, but one star demotion for insufficient fast forward warning that you're checking out a male set of boo-toks. There. Want to pay full boat for two stars? Total clip length worth saving; about a minute and a half. Wouldn't it be interesting to make one of these movies that had no plot at all, just a lot of realistic tortures? And no focusing on the priest dude holding a feather pen in his hand yelling for confessions either, makes editing the clip a pain. Ah well, they don't seem to be making these sleaze movies anymore. Maybe we could talk someone into making one about Uday, you know, current events being the cover? But no Olympic team stuff, please, let's stick to babes, eh?
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