Well, I Finally Watched It...

And Mom was right. Mark of the Devil is filled with....

• rape
• nudity
• sex
• dismemberment
• tar and feathering
• immolation
• and torture of all types (whipping, stretching, crushing, branding, and of course the famous tongue extraction)

All in the context of religious oppression. The film pretends to be a dramatic commentary on the horrors of witch hunting and carries an introduction to that effect (after sufficient time into the story so you know what's coming); it's a literary device of course, an excuse for some some pretty ugly content. Aside from that, the English dubbing is bad, the music worse.

Had I seen this at age 9, it would have probably been the first nudity I was exposed to. It is uncomfortably sadomasochistic; there must be a sizeable group of people that are consciously or subconsciously aroused by this sort of thing. An unfortunate behavioral perversion and certainly not to be presented to children as normal or neutral. I remember throughout the 60's-70's, there were many references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, who served I think as a more commonly welcome metaphor than I'd like to think.

It was fun, however, to see Herbert Lom in a different sort of role. You may remember him from the Pink Panther movies.