Marked (I) (2007) User Reviews

Pointless and Silly

[claudio_carvalho · 3/10 · 12 October 2010]

Diella (Tara Carroll), her skeptical brother Mitch (Samuel Child) and their friends Marcus (Sam Sarpong), Danny "D" (Rafael Rios) and Amanda (Samantha Alarcon) are ghost-hunters seeking evidences of existence of ghosts using sophisticated apparatuses. Diella is haunted by the death of her father six years ago and is encouraged by her college professor Dr. Frederickson (Mark Colson) to continue her research. When they visit the house of Amelia Gershom (Pepper Jay) that is haunted by her deceased husband, they get involved in an evil ancient cult of resurrection.

"Marked" is a pointless and silly horror tale. The plot is inconsistent and there is no explanation why the group invests lots of time and money searching ghosts, especially Mitch that does not believe in ghosts. Further, the story is confused and the ancient cult using the Apocrypha is sort of ridiculous. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Marca da Morte" ("The Mark of the Death")

Night Light films strikes again!

[BakuryuuTyranno · 2/10 · 22 November 2009]

I'm rating this one two out of ten because unlike a certain other Night Light production it's not insufferable, but there's still no reason you should watch it.

For example, do you appreciate horror movies with characters who aren't stock archetypes? Characters you actually care about? Look elsewhere.

Intelligent storyline? Nope.

Suspense? Actual scares? No.

Perhaps you'd simply prefer a lot of gore? Maybe inventive kills? Actually no; despite this being a slasher movie the killer kills in the same way repeatedly and it's one we've seen before.

Maybe you're such a sucker for out-of-nowhere plot twists, it doesn't even bother you when, as is becoming increasingly common, they make no sense in context? Well, there's one such silly plot twist in this movie, but it has so little to do with what happens afterward I don't know why they included it.

Low budget supernatural horror thriller.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 7 August 2011]

Marked starts as a young woman named Diella (Tara Carroll) is attacked in her own home by a creepy man named Jake Matthews (Tony Suraci), however Diella's father comes to her rescue but in a struggle with Jake they fatally wound each other. Six years later & Diella is haunted by that night, the night on which her father died & ever since she has devoted herself to the study of paranormal research in the hope of proving the existence of ghost's. Along with a few friends from college & her brother Mitch (Samuel Child) Diella learns of Ameilia Gershom (Pepper Jay) who claims her house is haunted by her dead husband, together they decide to investigate the claims & set up various equipment, cameras & motion senors in hope of obtaining proof of paranormal activity. But all is not as it seems as Diella begins to realise that she is at the center of the haunting & that Jake Matthews might have returned to seek revenge for his premature death...

Edited, written & directed by Dustin Voight this lame supernatural horror thriller tries to be clever & scary but doesn't come anywhere near close to being either, in fact Marked is an eighty five minute test of endurance as far as I am concerned. The script tries to have one or two revolutionary twist's & turn's but you can see them coming from a mile off, they are just so obvious because of the way the film is going. Is it really any great surprise that Diella encounters the ghost of Jake Matthews rather than the mundane spirit of Amelia Gershom's husband? No, it isn't. There's this annoying ending in which Marked just finishes rather than anything else, once Jake's evil ghost turn's up Diella just walks out of the house & then we see her in a mental hospital five years later at which point Jake decides to turn up suddenly just before the end credits begin to roll. What happened to Mitch? Why couldn't Jake leave the house back then but now can suddenly turn up at the hospital? Who cares. Marked is pretty slow going, there are far too many drawn out scenes of teenagers walking around dark houses & not enough time spent building the atmosphere or story, the sub-plot about the evil Professor & the ancient Apocrypha cult & legends seem half hearted & again all too predictable that they will have some sort of relevance as soon as they are mentioned.

With little in the way of a script or story to keep one entertained Marked isn't even much fun to look at or delivers on the gore or scares either. There's a bit of blood, a couple of dead bodies are seen & someone has the back of their head ripped off in the films one single gore highlight but overall not enough happens. Although shot in full 2:35:1 widescreen director Voight decides to use a really annoying 'fisheye' technique at times whenever Jake is on screen that has these large black curved borders on either side of the side to create a sort of enclosed circle effect that sometimes closes in on character's faces & seems to obscure half the picture & becomes both distracting & annoying very quickly. It is neither stylish or cool, it looks cheap & nasty. Marked lacks any great sense of atmosphere, the haunted house is far too modern & small, it needed to be much bigger, much darker & more Gothic like rather than all wood panelling.

Apparently filmed in Twin Peaks in California this looks like most low budget horror films these days, cheap & forgettable although competent to be fair. The acting is average, no-one stands out as being great while no-one stands as being awful.

Marked is a boring, predictable & tame supernatural horror thriller that has lame twist's & lacks any sort of proper haunted house horror film atmosphere or scares. Definitely not recommended, Marked is an obscure film for a reason so lets keep it that way.

Yes, it really is a test for your endurance

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 9 November 2012]

I have actually seen worse movies than Marked, but I really have to agree with the previous reviewers that it is really difficult to sit through. To start with, it does look incredibly cheap to look at. The photography are editing are so haphazard that it is not always easy to decipher what is going on, while the film is often too dark in its lighting and the effects are slapdash at best. I too thought that the house was too small and nowhere near creepy enough to be convincing. I would have forgiven Marked for this if the story and script were anything worthwhile. But that was not to be. The script feels as though it was improvised on the spot, I actually want to hear dialogue that actually gives some kind of credibility to the characters and the situations instead of having something that sounds like an extended episode of Ghost Hunters(or something like that. The story is never exciting or suspenseful, it moves along at a snail's pace and because the haunts were so predictable and the ancient cult idea so ridiculously executed has nothing unsettling or shocking about it. The characters are annoying and very cold to the viewers, some like Mitch just disappear just like that with no explanation. The acting is pretty much non-existent, and can someone explain to me the significance of the title. So all in all, it really is a test for your endurance. 2/10, because I'm feeling generous and it didn't make me angry enough for me to warrant it a 1. Bethany Cox

Confused but entertaining

[isaged · 5/10 · 25 February 2013]

After having been reasonably well entertained by "Marked", I found its 2.7 overall rating unfair. Fortunately, slaym666's review IS fair. I'd add that Mark Colson gives a fine performance in his rather crucial role as Dr. Frederickson, that Tara Carroll rather good as Diella, and that none of the other actors are really poor. As other positive negatives, the f-word isn't used very often and there is neither nudity nor semi- nudity, nor any simulations of fornication at all. Yes, the plot is confused and confusing, but it never really drags. Its score is good. Its references to the Apocrypha can be confusing to those familiar with actual Biblical literature, but even these fit a non- standard sense of the word that's briefly mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha. I found the scenery beautiful and appropriately ominous; many of the gore effects appealing to my unsavory tastes, and the white makeup on the ghostly gentleman splendid. I wish that I could smile as he does. I watched "Marked" in 20-30-minute segments as relaxation from doing work on my laptop. It could be that is the best way to watch it.

Above-average but still needs work

[slayrrr666 · 7/10 · 22 January 2010]

"Marked" is a somewhat enjoyable if decent haunted house film.

**SPOILERS**

Out on an investigation, ghost-hunters Diella, (Tara Carroll) Mitch, (Samuel Child) Marcus, (Sam Sarpong) Danny, (Rafael Rios) and Amanda, (Samantha Alarcon) bemoaning their lack of accomplishing anything, are given a new case to try in order to continue their studies. Going to a reputedly haunted house and setting up their equipment, they come up empty at first until they finally get evidence of something in the house. Eventually discovering that these supernatural haunting are all a part of an ancient ceremony that will result in a former associate of the family that was killed to be resurrected through her investigating one of their targets, they manage to find a way of stopping it from coming true.

The Good News: There was some good stuff to this one which hold it up. One of the best features is that there's a really well-done series of hauntings done at the end of the film to really end it on a high note. The house itself is a rather creepy location for setting such action up, so with one strike already, the action that comes along is so much fun that there's nothing to do but enjoy the scenes. From the group's encounters setting up the alarms, which is to introduce the atmospheric location rather well, to the triggered alarms blaring over the ghost going into brutal action and the final encounter being a lot of fun between the two due to the implications already in play from past experience, this is one hugely fun scene and it ends the film well. That the kills featured, from the multiple tearing out of hearts to breaking a back over a table-counter and having a head ripped to pieces, this one is really good there. Even the pre-credits sequence works, for the introduction of a murder by arrow-in-the-neck that is continuously recalled throughout is a fine opening. Aside from the brutality, there's actually a fair amount of scenes which are creepy and actually atmospheric, showing a nice path to take here. The rocking chair shown on the video camera is an absolute standout, for it's a fantastic idea in theory and comes off effectively in practice, working well on both accounts. The scenes of the flashing ghost staring at the camera are also quite effective, and the opening scenes in the graveyard are just purely atmospheric wonders. The trip to find the strange noises, which results in a great scare, comes off nicely, the flashing ghost makes an early appearance, and the setting for this is just outstanding to start with, as the rolling fog and inability to see for great distances is wrapped into a fun sequence that works well. The last plus to this one is the mystery here about the returning ghost and the cult, which is slightly overkill but still comes off rather nicely. From a purely fictional standpoint, it's got some creepy undertones about it, and it does tend to have a connection to the film due to its flimsy story beforehand, but even still it's still got some real heat to it that makes it feel more like a throwback than anything else. These here are all what help this one.

The Bad News: This one had some rather large problems to it that ultimately hurt it. One of the biggest flaws is the fact that there's just a whole lot of rather lame hauntings in here that aren't all too well-done. The first one is the group appearing at the second house to set-up their cameras and other pieces of equipment for the investigation. There's a series of lengthy scenes that focus on them, first talking about some legend that, while important in the film, isn't referenced at all despite all the action based off it, leaving that whole amount of time to be just a bunch of nothing going on for a long time. That there's some action with the group, including the requisite scaring of another through the disappearing-into-darkness-then-leaping-out-screaming type of scene, and the drama about the family relationship being brought up doesn't work at all in here and just makes it all the more hard to get through. A later scene where they appeal to another to let them do the same thing is pretty much ruined through the use of cheap flashing images used to impart that she sees something not really there, and the effect comes off cheaply. Also quite problematic is a series of scenes where a professor lectures a class of ten about the supernatural, and while they're all informative, that they have to be shoe-horned into the film so randomly without explanation is a mystery, and the jarring effect they have on the tempo and pace is noticeable. The last flaw, though, is the fact that the last half of the film is just so overblown and infused with so much that it's hard to take in at once. There's mainly way too much time away from the final house investigation because it has to include the subplot about the shady professor, which is incredibly scattered in design that there's nothing other to do but stay confused at it all. Then there's the cult and their actions, and they're such a last-minute feel it's hard to know why they were needed. These here are the film's problems.

The Final Verdict: While there is some good stuff to be had in here, the fact that the flaws are so problematic is what ultimately hurts this one. Give it a shot if you're into this style of haunted house film or are curious about it, while those that are put off by what's here won't be that impressed with it.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language

Slow and dull

[Wizard-8 · 11 July 2014]

If you were a regular renter of B movies in the 1980s, no doubt you remember that there were some B movie directors who had the gall to make B movies that were shot on videotape. Almost all of them were terrible. "Marked" is kind of an update on that disreputable genre. It's not shot on videotape, but it has that same cheap look and feel as those 1980s movies. Actually, that is not the main problem I had with the movie. The biggest problem with the movie is that it moves at a snail's pace, and contains almost no real shocks or jolts. The no name cast shows signs of talent, but for the most part they don't seem very enthusiastic, maybe sensing that they are in a real turkey. I would only recommend this movie to independent filmmakers who want to make a horror movie - as a lesson on what to avoid when they get around to making their efforts.