La Marca del Demonio

I stumbled upon this 2020 Mexican horror movie titled "La Marca del Demonio" (aka "Mark of the Devil") whilst perusing the horror titles on Netflix. And with this being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, much less even heard about, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

Writers Jose Ruben Escalante Mendez and Ruben Escalante Mendez put together a rather bland and mundane script for the movie. And the mixture of the Necronomicon, Ancient Ones from the Lovecraft Mythos and ordinary Catholic religion made for a very odd combination, and it just didn't work all that well.

Sure, taking the elements of the Lovecraft Mythos and putting into a movie is usually something I appreciate, but in "La Marca del Demonio" it just didn't work. Because director Diego Cohen utterly failed to capture the essence of the Lovecraft Mythos, nor were there any sense of cosmic dread about in this movie, which is what the Mythos is all about. And while they had the names of Cthylla and Ythogtha correct, these are hardly entities that possess humans. At least get your Mythos lore right if making a movie.

The acting performances in "La Marca del Demonio" were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they seemed talented enough. Just a shame that the material they had to work with in terms of script and storyline was such rubbish.

Visually, then "La Marca del Demonio" was okay. There were a few special effects throughout the course of 82 minutes that the movie ran for. You're not in for an overwhelming spectacle of over-the-top special effects, however. But it should be said that the special effects were fair enough.

If you enjoy horror movies, then "La Marca del Demonio" is not a movie I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on.

My rating of "La Marca del Demonio" lands on a three out of ten stars.