"What Mark Of The Devil has going for it is a truly sinister performance by the great Herbert Lom as Count Cumberland..." |
After Blood Feast made its appearance back in 1963, it seemed unlikely that another film would become a box office sensation based on a scene of a woman having her tongue yanked out--but it happened just seven years later in Mark Of The Devil. However, unlike the cheap gore antics of H. G. Lewis and his imitators, Mark Of The Devil was a real film, one that shined a completely merciless spotlight on the mass abuse and murder of those suspected of witchcraft in Old Europe. But that tongue-yanking bit still lingers in the public mind, and thus the film seems destined to be forever...
By HARVEY F. CHARTRAND
A true "film maudit," which nipped its promising director’s career in the bud, Mark of the Devil (1970) tells the grisly story of a grim-faced witch-hunter and his debauched henchmen torturing suspected witches in 18th-century Austria. Marred by atrocious dubbing and an inappropriate Eurolounge score, Mark of the Devil still manages to be one of the best witch-hunter films out there, almost on a par with Michael Reeves’ classic Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968).
What Mark Of The Devil has going for it is a truly sinister performance by the great Herbert Lom as Count Cumberland, the official state-sanctioned witch-hunter who brings "order" to a remote village terrorized by rival witch-burner Albino (played by "the ugliest man in the movies" Reggie Nalder). Lom intones, "the day of the local witchfinder is over," as the centralizing authority moves in to coordinate tortures and executions.
Mark Of The Devil is not a horror film so much as a depiction of a dark period in European history with horrifying elements. Torture scenes are based on actual quotes from trials and indictments of those unfortunates accused of practicing witchcraft and consorting with the devil.
An opening voiceover informs viewers that the events in this film are a recreation of three true stories of "witch persecution," that eight million accused were killed in Europe during these witchhunts, and that the victims’ tortures often lasted for years.
The flimsiest indictments were reason enough to condemn an accused witch or devil worshiper. In one instance, a nobleman (played by the film’s producer Adrian Hoven) is accused of being an agent of the devil and subjected to mind-destroying water torture, simply for entertaining his children with a puppet theatre in the privacy of his own home.
Albino’s thugs, lured to his house by the nobleman’s foolish son, view the puppets with fear and disgust--for these animated wooden figures are the work of the devil!--and arrest the puppeteer, who does his case no good by noting that the puppets are "devilishly" hard to maneuver.
In a memorably graphic moment, the nobleman’s wife (lovely Ingeborg Schöner) struggles to defend herself against the arresting advocate, putting out his eye with a long needle used to find "the devil’s mark" on a witch’s body. This horrible scene is filmed from the victim’s point of view: as the needle punctures the eye, a psychedelic special effect is created to convey the onset of sudden blindness. Very nasty!
Despite its flaws, Mark Of The Devil has lost none of its punch in 34 years. The tortures of the innocent linger in the mind. Who can forget the wan Jeni von Bergenstein (Gaby Fuchs), who thanks Count Cumberland for condemning her to death, as this will end her excruciating torture — including thumbscrews, foot-branding and the rack, which has torn her arms and legs from their sockets?
Count Cumberland then changes his mind, as the girl had the temerity to accuse a bishop of raping her. She must recant! As Jeni refuses to withdraw her statement, she is then affixed with a hideous head clamp; her tongue is squeezed by pincers and pulled out by the roots — no doubt the queasiest scene in the movie. And yet the girl’s tortures are still not over — she is lowered into flames, wide-eyed and unable to scream, and burned alive.
We also witness the ordeal of Baron Daume (Michael Maien), accused of witchcraft so the Roman Catholic Church can lay claim to his lands and possessions. The young Baron is pierced by long needles, flogged and flayed, and beaten across the feet while seated on a chair of spikes. Most unsettling!
Is there anyone to root for in this picture? Well, a very young and pretty Udo Kier stars as Count Christian von Meruh, an apprentice witch-hunter working under the guidance of Count Cumberland, for whom he has great admiration. As the story progresses, Christian realizes that most (if not all) of the accusations of sorcery are motivated by greed and spurned sexual advances. Christian even dares to fall in love with one of the falsely accused — Vanessa Benedikt, a buxom, raven-haired serving girl (the gorgeous and vivacious Yugoslavian actress Olivera Vuco).
Christian comes across as a bit of a sap, and eventually meets a sad end. This is one of those stories where the bad guy wins. When the villagers finally retaliate against the witch-hunters, Count Cumberland manages to escape in a stagecoach, barely fleeing the vengeful mob. His young protégé isn’t so lucky.
This ending isn’t as downbeat as it sounds, as Lom’s character, although cruel, is tormented by sexual impotence and therefore rendered somewhat more sympathetic than say, Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins. Cumberland’s disastrous attempt to fornicate with the nobleman’s wife (as she pleads for her husband’s life) is tough to take. And let’s face it, Christian may have qualms, and he is only a novice, but he is still a witchfinder and so is hanged from a tree.
The advocate encircles Christian’s abdomen with a ring of spikes and squeezes hard. The ghastly instrument pierces him from all sides, effectively eviscerating him. Christian’s agonized screams draw Vanessa. Arriving too late, she breaks down at the sight of her dead lover, who rescued her from the torture chamber.
Although many critics denounced Mark Of The Devil as a sadistic spectacle and a "how to" of medieval torture techniques — Lom himself said he was "horrified at how cheap and nasty the whole thing was" — it did well enough at the box office to generate a slew of claimed sequels, each one bearing less of the imprint — or "mark" — of its originator (as happened with The Howling series) and not even numbered in the proper sequence.
First out of the gate was Mark Of The Devil II (1972), with Eurovillain Anton Diffring taking over from Lom as the witchfinder and Nalder providing a link to the original (although in a different role, as Albino is killed off in Mark of the Devil).
Among Mark Of The Devil II’s more graphic scenes: a man is dunked via a pulley system into freezing waters in an iced-over lake; a naked woman is strung up spread-eagled and lowered onto a giant thick spear in a very vulgar fashion; a priest’s foot is shoved into a sizzling hot iron boot; and a 10-inch needle lances a nun’s forearm. And that’s just for openers!
Filmed in Mexico in 1975, Juan López Moctezuma’s Mark Of The Devil 3: Alucarda, The Daughter Of Darkness is a contemporary tale about the Satanic possession of two young girls in a convent.
Next comes Mark Of The Devil 4: Horror Rises From The Tomb, filmed in Spain in 1973 and released in 1976. In medieval France, a warlock (Paul Naschy/Jacinto Molina) is beheaded and his wife tortured and executed. Centuries later, an isolated group of people discover his head buried on their property. Soon it comes back to life, possessing them and using them to commit sacrifices and to search for the rest of his body.
A 1971 Spanish zombie flick directed by Amando de Ossorio was retitled Mark Of The Devil 5: Return Of The Blind Dead when it was re-released in 1973. It recounts the revenge from beyond the grave of a band of Knights Templar, who return from the dead 500 years after they were blinded and executed for committing human sacrifices. The reanimated knights terrorize a rural Portuguese village.
And finally, the made-in-USA Mark Of The Devil 6 (also titled Mark Of The Devil 666: The Moralist) is a low-budget saga of a serial killer/religious freak who slaughters people he blames for the downfall of society. Mark Of The Devil 6 was filmed in 1995 and bears more of a resemblance (at least thematically) to David Fincher’s Se7en than to the film that launched all these "sequels" way back in 1970.
The 2003 DVD release of Mark Of The Devil features an interview with its credited director, Englishman Michael Armstrong, who recounts the many battles he waged for control of the film with actor/co-producer Hoven (an Austrian). The production company Atlas Film International fired Hoven as director, replacing him with Armstrong, imported from England, where he had just completed The Haunted House Of Horror (1969) with Frankie Avalon and Jill Haworth.
Miffed, Hoven destroyed all copies of the script, leaving Armstrong no alternative but to improvise. Armstrong spoke no German and could not communicate with the crew, most of whom were still loyal to Hoven. Cameramen conspired against Armstrong, shooting scenes unsupervised and without his permission. (Hoven is no longer around to tell his side of the story; he died in 1981.)
Considering all the obstructionism Armstrong endured, it’s a wonder Mark Of The Devil turned out as well as it did. Armstrong swore he would never direct another film unless given full creative control. This didn’t happen, and to this day, Armstrong (now 60) has kept his promise (although he did write screenplays, including Screamtime and House Of The Long Shadows, both released in 1983).
The title of the DVD featurette on Armstrong’s shoot from hell is most appropriate--Marked By The Devil.
Thanks, Harv. Mark Of The Devil certainly made a "splash" when it was first released, aiming directly at the blood-and-gore film audience and at least it did not disappoint in that respect. And we suspect it has some validity as an uncompromising look at the real horrors of the European witch hunts. In a way, though, its "bad" reputation has tended to keep it from serious consideration by film scholars...thus, in a real sense, it continues to be "marked by the devil."
Article copyright © Harvey F. Chartrand
