Before 'The Exorcist' and 'The Blair Witch Project,' This Gory ’70s Horror Movie Took Film Marketing to a Whole New Level

In the years before hashtags and viral clips, horror filmmakers had to get scrappy, dreaming up clever, sometimes outrageous ways to make sure their movies stood out and demanded attention. Few films illustrate this better than 1970’s Mark of the Devil, a West German-Austrian co-production that blended witch-hunt hysteria with sadistic spectacle. Released in the US in 1972, the movie was infamous not only for its graphic depictions of torture but for the way it sold itself to audiences. The film has gone down in horror history less as a piece of cinema and more as a masterclass in guerrilla marketing. Hallmark Releasing, the company that distributed the film in the United States, made sure Mark of the Devil wouldn’t be remembered as just another grindhouse offering.