Hora marcada (Spanish for Marked Hour) was a well know Mexican horror Anthology series produced by Carmen Armendariz in the late '80s similar to Tales from the Darkside.
Using various settings such as haunted houses, vampires and all kinds of supernatural themes, this series of half-hour episodes showed several stories that were the stuff of nightmares to many people during those years. Many know Mexican directors such as Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón contributed in the making of some of these episodes when they weren't as famous as they are now.
One constant theme in the series was the presence of a black-clad woman simply known as the Woman in Black, who, supposedly, was the incarnation of Death.
Tropes in Hora marcada:
- Abusive Parents: "Of Ogres" features a 6-year-old girl constantly suffering abuse at the hands of her dad.
- Asshole Victim: Some of them were this.
- Sra. López from "Dulce Sandra" easily qualifies. Aside from being a generally poor excuse for a teacher not above abusing her young students, she's also deeply xenophobic, even going so far as to accuse Sandra's black maid of teaching her magic. It's thus equally unsettling and cathartic when Sandra and Óscar eventually cause her Gorn-tastic death by voodoo doll.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Somewhat averted in "Not All That Glitters...". You will get exactly what you want and the wish won't be twisted in any way. But the more more wishes you make, the more your right hand will be deformed.
- Bullying a Dragon: In "Dulce Sandra", Sra. López continues to antagonize the titular Sandra even after the girl makes it blindingly clear she practices witchcraft (and is quick to use it in retaliation). This leads to her downfall when Sandra and her classmate Óscar acquire a voodoo doll and kill her via melting it.
- Burger Fool: Exaggerated to a nightmarish degree in "With Everything to Go"/"Hamburgers". Roonie's is literally staffed by zombies wearing mascot suits and operating in a cult-like fashion... and it turns out they eventually become meat sold in the establishment.
- Child Mage: The titular girl in "Dulce Sandra" practices voodoo. Specifically, she's able to move objects, light objects on fire and even conjure up a storm among other things.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Woman in Black is by no means malevolent and instead shows up to transport the dead.
- Deal with the Devil
- Downer Ending: A good chunk of the episodes have this kind of ending.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: What happened to the world in "Doctor Elias and Death". After having Death locked away, nothing could die anymore (humans, animals, plants and even micro-organisms) and the planet couldn't withstand the existence of so much immortal beings.
- Human Resources: In "With Everything to Go"/"Hamburgers" the secret behind the Roonie's burger joint's graveyard shift was that the "employees" were actually re-animated zombies, saving the company lots of money in paychecks, social security, insurances, etc. They looked like regular people at the start, but as their bodies decayed and decomposed, they were dressed in the mascot suits to hide away the rot. And once they couldn't be useful anymore, they were processed as patty meat.
- I Am a Humanitarian: A couple of episodes ("The Sect" and "Les Gourmets") revolved around people indulging in cannibalism.
- I'm Melting!: Sra. López dies by slowly and graphically melting because this also happens to the voodoo doll Sandra and Óscar were given.
- Pac Man Fever: "Videogames". There was no button mashing, but they didn't even bother with placing 8-bit graphics and just featured the game live-action style (with deliberate lower quality to imitate 8-bit graphics). To be fair, this episode was made around 1990, so the The 16 bit Era of Console Video Games hasn't even started just yet.
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Spiritual Successor: Had one in 13 Miedos ("13 Fears", also stylized as M13dos), which itself focused on 13 episodes based on certain fears that plague humanity (fear of death, fear of past mistakes, fear of justice, etc etc). - The Most Dangerous Videogame: The plot point of the episode "Videogames".
- Too Dumb to Live: Some victims can be considered guilty of this.
