Coffin Joe

Director Jose Mojica Marins took Brazil by storm with the 1963 release of "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul," the first entry in what would soon become known as the Coffin Joe franchise. It may be quite surprising that such a low budget black and white film made in Brazil forty years ago would merit a DVD release, but when you watch the movie, you will readily agree that there is something special about Marins's project. After the release of this movie, the Brazilian director churned out numerous sequels that ultimately led to his becoming a pop culture icon in his native land. Marins often turned up in public dressed in the trademark Coffin Joe attire: a black cape, a black top hat, and hook-like fingernails about three inches long . Genre fans in the United States picked up on the Coffin Joe craze and sought out hard to find copies of his films until an American video company released them in the U.S. 

Coffin Joe's works as an undertaker for a small Brazilian town. He is not a popular figure with the locals, who cannot stand his sadistic bullying or his mocking attitudes towards God and Satan. Joe laughs at the silly superstitions of the townspeople as he chows down on meat on Fridays and heckles people in a religious procession. When Joe isn't preparing bodies for burial, he spends time taunting his wife at home, hitting on his friend's girlfriend, and hanging out at the local pub. Coffin Joe's biggest concern in life is his ability to produce an heir to carry on his "bloodline." Since his wife suffers from infertility, Joe cannot stand to be around her and must always be on the lookout for a gal who can have children.  

Joe's hotheaded antics eventually result in several grisly murders. In the course of his crime spree, he visits a fortuneteller who senses his evil and predicts a series of events that will culminate in Coffin Joe's demise. The undertaker scoffs at such supernatural nonsense and continues on his merry way. In various scenes, Joe murders and brutalizes his way through town. He disposes of his wife with a nasty looking spider, gouges out eyes, cuts off a man's fingers, drowns someone, and flogs a local at the pub. You just know that this guy is eventually going to get what's coming to him, especially after seeing his blasphemous jaunts through the local cemetery where he roars in derision at the dead and questions the very existence of a supreme being. Coffin Joe does finally learn that fooling with the primal forces of creation brings about events of a decidedly unpleasant nature. 

Marins brilliantly realizes his creation in this film. His performance as Coffin Joe only delves into the melodramatic on a few occasions, for most of the time he exudes an aura of palpable danger. The scenes where the undertaker questions the supreme deity reek of dark atmosphere, made even more intense by the black and white picture. To top the whole thing off, the movie employs some of the eeriest background music  heard in awhile. The music and pitch black atmosphere help to conceal the low budget production values used in the film. The best effect in the film occurs during a sequence where Coffin Joe encounters the 
ghost of one of his victims. In order to create a creepy aura surrounding this walking spirit, Marins glued glitter (yes, glitter!) directly onto the negative.  

Following `At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' (1963), Coffin Joe unleashed `This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse' on the unsuspecting populace. `This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse' is the proper sequel to `At Midnight...', and even more effective film. Coffin Joe had a bigger budget, which meant more money for special effects, which meant even more live tarantulas and spiders to victimize his poor actresses with. 

`This Night...' is even more terrifying and outrageous than it's predecessor and is best known for it's vivid Technicolor depiction of hell. Dante has nothing on Marins, and this 8+ minute rendering of hell is indelibly etched into my psyche for perpetuity. This is the only part of Marin's wicked film that was shot in color and the contrast betwixt this vivid, lively, lysergically kissed scene and the rest of the carefully captured black and white motif is quite striking, rendering it all the more effective. 

The third film in this amazing `trilogy' is inimitable `Awakening of the Beast' (1969). This delirious tale was banned by the Brazilian government until 1986. Upon its official release, `Awakening of the Beast' was regarded by many as Marin's Masterpiece. This film serves as a portrait of drugs and moral decay in modern-day Brazil. In this incredible work, four subjects are chosen for an experiment. The experiment involves giving the subject LSD and exposing them to Coffin Joe posters and films. I will leave it up to the viewer to draw their own conclusions about this perplexing and alluring film.  (Amazon)