Hammer House of Horror S01E13 - The Mark of Satan

Welcome back to midnight Viewing. I'm your host, Father Malone. In this season, we're appraising the eighties UK horror anthology classic for the last time. The hammer House of Horror with Me is as always the Projection booths Mike White, leave my soul alone. I'm taking it with me.

Tonight we are looking at the thirteenth and, as I said, final episode of the series, The Mark of Satan. It aired originally December the sixth, nineteen eighty Very Christmas Everybody by Don Shah, directed by Don A. Levy, starring Patrick McHenry, Emrius James, Georgina Hale, Conrad Phillips. This is a mortuary worker who begins to believe he's been chosen by Satan or is he just a loon? Or is Satan's papa?

As you said, Mike, leave my soul alone, Everybody, This. One was a lot of fun. Have you ever seen so Peter McHenry is a new thing for me, even though I'm sure I've seen him and other stuff. But we just did an episode on the Projection with about entertaining Mister Sloan, which was just I think, like what ten years before this episode, Keeter mcknry is like a golden. God in that episode.

And then here he looks the name of the guy that played chef in Apocalypse. Now, oh, fred Forest. He looks like Frederick Forrest. I thought, I wrote down lanky John Hurt. Oh, I can see that.

I can see that. Yeah, yeah, but Frederick Forrest is exactly who is Fredrick Forrest in Valley Girl. As a matter of oh, there you go, there you go. And I was so reminded of other films that we've seen, what is that the Jim Carrey one, the number twenty three or whatever, this whole idea of oh, this number is following me around, the number nine is following me around. And then it also reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live skit where it was parody of the Omen and Buck Henry was I think he was just the main character on that one.

And he pulls back John Belushi's hair and he looks at it from the top and goes, oh, it's just three nines instead of thirty six on his head, And I was just like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it just depends on your point of view. The whole thing of it, Oh two nines is one and nine, and it's one in eight and it's nine. Oh, that's the number again. It's the number again.

I'm like, oh, Jesus, settled down. But I like the paranoia and I like how off the deep end the sky goes, and everything is just confirming his suspicion. This is chewing on nineteen eighty. Oh yes, my goodness, he's receiving messages from the radio antenna or not, pardon me, not a radio antenna, a weather vein. The weather vein is the police warning him of the plot that is unfolding around him.

Yeah, that number nine nine stitches, nine pounds, drawer number nine. Everyone's giving me nines and everything adds up to nine nine letters in my name. I cannot abide numerology. It is so twisted. You can turn anything into anything and get any fucking meaning you out of it, any meaning you want out of it.

The what I kept thinking about is Pie, Thewski film that, to me is the ultimate film about numbers and the obsession with them and their power and they sway that they can hold over the human mind, and they're not doing that here. Because what impressed me in the episode is even like Pie, I think is one of the best films I've ever seen. Honestly, Oh yeah, it's great. The protagonist in that film is off putting from the beginning, like he's not a likable guy. This guy was very likable to me.

Even when he was spouting nonsense. He was so affable about it that I thought this might just be some sort of hobby he's having or something. So whereas in like Pie, we're watching this kind of a prick kind of be proven right and then go on his journey, this guy we watched go down into the darkness over these things and this potential plot or is it all just in his head? And I thought that was marvelous, honestly, because I was with him, Like you said, like there's something so inherently likable about Peter mcchanry, and he's so affable at the beginning, Like when he's talking to Georgina Hale, the woman who lives upstairs, about the numerology, he's spouting it in such a genial tone that it doesn't sound like he's a nutcase at all.

It sounds like a hobby he's talking about, like he's talking about bergwa. Absolutely and no, really good call, especially with the self trepanation that happens in Pie, and you have a very similar thing here. Now I know that it was the casting of the person who's on the slab at first, the person who does say leave my soul alone. I'm guessing that's another actor, but he looks exactly like Peter mckenne. And then when Peter MCing Againry ends up on the table later on, I was like, what was that a flashback or was that not?

But I like that confusion. I like that they're doing that. I like that the guy on the table has the mustache as well. And I really liked what an avatar that mortician's room or the medical examiner's room becomes, especially when he has to use the plunger to get like little bits of brain out of the sink. So nice, brother.

He was using his gloved hands to push little bits of grow into that drain, and then he snapped those gloves off in his own face. I was just like, no, yeah, no one really worked for me. I was just like, okay, Like, even though it is watching someone's mental decline and everything, I was just there. I was so there to see this. And I don't think that if McHenry was a different actor that I would be nearly as activated by him.

But like you said, he just plays a very affable person. And yeah, okay, you feel bad for him going down this path. Two episodes ago, within five minutes, you and I both have the same conclusion, which was, oh, everyone's in on it here. I didn't think anyone was in on it. I thought this was either all in his head or maybe one or two of them might be doing something.

So when Georgina Hale, after he murders his mother, immediately starts helping him dispose of the body, all I could think was, Lady, how is this mortuary attendant who's clearly insane the best bet for you right now? Turn him in? Shame on me because she's in it too. Yeah, that was the whole thing. It's okay, is this Rosemary's Baby kind of thing where everyone around you is just trying to push you in this direction?

Make sure that because it's not just the people across the hallway, it's guy, it's everybody is in on this thing. And yeah, there was a moment because that again, that doctor, that main medical examiner, he is so gregarious and so happy about things, and especially when he's just. Was that a plea to the surgeon or to God? But I'm just like, this guy's great. I really like this guy.

But as the episode goes on, I'm just like, Ooh, is he in on it? Is this? Oh? This could be a conspiracy, this could be a cult. Okay, I wonder what's going on here?

None of that, like you said nothing where I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, Like why don't you bring up how much money you could afford to throw at this thing? No, this guy is not some sort of posh person at all. He's just a menial worker. But he's not the guy who's even holding the knife in the me room. He's the guy cleaning off the knife.

Yeah, that's Emra's James. You're talking about the head medical So good, so good. I stopped the episode and went and looked him up, and I only the only other thing I've ever seen him in was Dragon Slayer. He plays the female leads father in that. And next on my list is everything em Miss James was in because I thought he was a fucking delight.

Broke my heart when he was in in The Conspiracy, honestly, and he has my favorite moment in it, and talk about pushing boundaries. Now, not just all of the blood that we get to see, all of the gurur that we get to see throughout this entire episode, but in that opening scene when he's describing two, he's describing to Peter McHenry, the dying man, talking about his soul and the quandary of that, who was he addressing that question? When he's doing that, he's slowly peeling open a corpse's skull, like the skin over the skull, and then he takes a little divider and you can see him place it out of frame, and then he says something about how there are other practices in the world that are barbaric, and then you hear snap and he goes ah the human brain and I nearly passed out.

It was a fucking sound effect and it was so fucking disgusting. Yeah, now this one is top to bottom, just such a solid way for this whole show to go out. I know, I wasn't that impressed with the previous one and the one before I think neither one of us were that into but this hits those highs that we were seeing in previous episodes where it was just like, what is going on with this TV show that is so strong and his again such great actors in here, like mckenry is just really solid top to bottom, and he's not He's no Pierce Brosnan as far as his popularity here in the States or anything. But it's just such a great starring role for him in this. Yeah.

Georgina Hale was one of what's his name Ken Russell's stable of actors. She was in The Devils. She played one of the nuns, Philippe, and so for most of the episode I was wondering why did she take this role as this like housewife, And then once she was attacking the priest and chewing through his neck, I thought, Oh, that's why. That's the Georgina Hale. I know.

Yeah, Well, she was in a lot of Can Russell's stuff. I'm just looking at her CV and it's like the first three things that come up. You mentioned the Devil's the boyfriend Maller Just wow, Okay, she must have gotten along with him pretty well. One of those Ken Russell girls. God bless every one of them.

Yeah. No, And I love her role. I love this whole thing of Yeah, him murdering his mother and yeah, I was just like is that in his head? Is that what's going on? Is that for real?

There's no way he could have just killed his own mother? Yeah, sure enough, Okay, shocking shockings. And again just off screen. He's just doing it like it's all from the waist up and we stabbed, And I'm like, is he can't possibly? They did not just do that.

They just fucking did that. And then at the end, when he finally decides he's gonna drill into his own skull like the guy who did previously, it's because they want him to eat the baby. They keep chanting it, the baby, eat the baby. Yes, I couldn't believe that. Yeah, this one was dark, man.

Like. They didn't show this episode very much like in No. In fact, when they repackaged it for syndication, they didn't include this one and you couldn't see it for ten or fifteen years or so. Oh man, why I can't remember the name of the episode, but the one with the kid's birthday party had all the blood spread house they bled to death. Thank you.

I know that one really affected you when you saw it. I could see this one. If I had seen this when I was that age, this would have scared the shit out of me. What if I had seen this around the time I saw like The Omen and the Exorcist and stuff, this would have been the one like this, to me is my conception of Rosemary's Baby, where you're just hearing the fucking voices man like, you don't need the external stimulation all that much. You're just gonna do it yourself.

It's horrifying. M Oh my god, is that it is? That it? We've come to the fucking end. Yeah, I'd say it, because this is such a high note to go out on.

Yeah, I can't. I can only bemoan that there's not more. That's the first time we've done that, said at the finale, please more of this? Oh yeah, And they stumbled twice, and their stumbles were so far above the stumbles of every previous thing we've said, any random Rod Serling night Gallery this is Those two were better than any random fucking third season twilight'son eighty five, for Christ's sake, even Darkseide had some clunkers in there that I will never watch again. I could easily watch this entire series again and just go.

If I was showing it to somebody, go the last two we'll probably watch first, yeah, the last, the penultimate two. Yeah no, but to starned. Otherwise, solid show and this has been such a delight coat to go through. God bless you, Hammer you will be missed. Now.

On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we'll be starting a whole new series under the bitterly ironic iuy of mister roll Dahl. That's right. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we're taking a look at the first two episodes of Tales of the Unexpected. Those are A Man from the South and at Missus Bixby and the Colonel's Coat. I already know one of those fucking stories is awesome until we reconvene in a tiny cottage in Norwich.

Where can people find you? Mike White. Everything that I do is available over at wordingwaymedia dot com, including the show that I do once month where Chris Sashi and I talk about Colombo. It's called The Shabby Detective. And we are on a little bit of a I don't want to say hiatus, but we're taking a break between season seven and then the TV movies that happened way later in the eighties, so we're kind of catching up on some Sorry blanking.

We're catching up on some Lincoln Levinson stuff and some Peter Falk stuff. In the meantime, it's going to be watching some Murder by Natural Causes pretty soon, which I'm very excited about because I don't think I was in the play in high school, but a friend of mine, some friends of mine were in that play in high school, so I had no idea I was watching a Lincoln Levinson joint all the way back when I was like seventeen. So it'll be interesting to see mister hal Holbrook taking on that role of my friend Leon played all those years ago. How about you Father alone. Oh, I have a fan fondness for mister hal Holber, I'll tell you that much.

As for me, if you're listening to Midnight Viewing, you listen to the show, then I do. Every Friday we have Father Balloon's Midnight Viewing, where I look at everything new in streaming and in the cinemas. And every Monday it's either one of these here anthology shows or we do one of the fests with HB. Right now, we're involved in the Von Doom Fest as we count down the Marvel's cinematic universes path to doomsday until next time and the next season. Try to enjoy the daylight st