Mark of the Damned – review

Director: Eric Miller

Release date: 2006

Contains spoilers

A love letter to the old luchador movies (sort of, the storyline kind of chimes in with them and we have a Santo equivalent, though none of the ring matches), shot in black and white and deliberately without sound so it would be dubbed afterwards – giving it that K. Gordon Murray feel. The thing is, some love letters are better left private… but that’s a bit harsh, this had redeeming features but it perhaps was a bit too left field (and budget light) to work.

That said it did have vampires in it and also a plot supported by incomprehensible babble (I wanted to say technobabble but it was kind of that and kind of occult babble, but, whatever it was, there were swathes of incomprehensible dialogue).

guide to the Hypno Band

It starts with the Rev Amicus Mather (Josh Kennedy) talking about the dangers of spiritualism and the Hypno Band and then pointing towards his relative Cyclops (also Josh Kennnedy) on an expedition. This sees a group of explorers in an underground area searching for… something. They find some monoliths and one by one the group are kidnapped through some strange fog. Before they are all kidnapped, they try to contact Prof Hans Ramirez (Rob Burns, Vampire High) – though the professor can hear them, they can’t hear him.

Jeff Bostic as King Silver

With the expedition vanished, the film turns to the professor and he is looking after a woman named Diane (Amy Kruger). She has a strange bat-shaped birthmark and he is protecting her, though she doesn’t know it, from a cult who want to kidnap her. His motivation, however, might not be that pure. Also drawn in is King Silver (Jeff Bostic) – the aforementioned Santo equivalent. He agrees to protect her although he is also fighting a plague of zombies released by a mad scientist with an earthquake machine – the zombie plague is a bit of a red herring.

vampires

The actual enemies are a group of vampires who worship Yog-Sothoth and who, every two hundred years, get the opportunity to draw their master into our dimension by possessing the body of a specific woman marked by the sign (obviously this is Diane). Look-wise the vampires are either sallow complexioned women or wearing fanged papier mâché masks. When we first see them they attack a couple, biting and leaving the woman for dead and kidnapping the man. They use his blood to resurrect the Vampire Queen (Miriam).

the vampire queen, mummified

The resurrection sees her turning from quite a false looking mummy into the actress as mist swirls. Indeed, there is much mist in all the vampire stuff. We also get transformation into bats… sort of… actually it’s into eyeballs with bat wings. If I am story light in my run-through it’s because the story is kind of chaotic, the narrative a bit all over the place, but that is deliberate one feels. There is tech use that is Santo adjacent, such as video calling the wrestler in his car. There’s also a remote-controlled robot that is set to fight the vampire champion (who is besting the wrestler at the finale). This is a strange beast – probably best enjoyed with a beverage. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK