60's José Mojica Marins

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL
(1964)
Overall: GOOD

The seminal Brazilian horror villain Coffin Joe was first brought to life in At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul.  Shot on non-existing sets with hardly a budget to be noticeably seen and using actors of the lowest revere, José Mojica Marins' first of several staring ventures for himself as the despicable, nihilistic, blasphemously hedonist undertaker Zé do Caixão is laudable for a few reasons.  As an independent film made in a country with virtually nothing in the horror camp preceding it, Marins was taking on uncharted terrain and the lack of restraint he shows makes At Midnight one of the more violent and uncompromising genre works of the day.  There is a determination on display to go beyond making just an offensive exploitative drive-in movie, especially considering the fact that such exploitation films were not really a thing yet in 1964.  Marins vigorously attempts something more cautionary in a comeuppance way, but also pushes the boundaries by having such a vile, remorseless protagonist.  There is good ole spooky stuff and plenty of cliches present, (two fourth-wall breaking introductions, a cackling gypsy witch, fog ridden cemeteries and crypts, gruesome deaths, superstitious villagers), but the themes are more profound if still presented in an amateurish yet fun way.

THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE
(1967)
Overall: GOOD

For round two, (produced three years after At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul), José Mojica Marins returns with an apparently larger budget and the standard, "go bigger" sequel approach with This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse.  Taking place immediately where Midnight wrapped up, Marins is Coffin Joe again, gets his eyes miraculously fixed because movie scripts, and then sets up shop in presumably another town with a hunchbacked/burn victim assistant and limitless resources for some reason.  These are the kind of details that are deliberately glossed over to make way for gruesome set pieces and what Marins seems to be setting up as Coffin Joe trademarks.  Amping it up from the very no-budget preceding film, instead of just one woman and one spider, several are tormented with many.  Also, Marins' nails are even longer and more ridiculous, plus there are snakes, a slow moving stone/head crushing, a swamp that acts as quick sand, and Zé do Caixão gets lucky with a willing lady to take his seed.  Marins portrays his top-hat wearing, Nietzsche-quoting bad guy with a hint more anti-hero qualities, (he has a less-creepy soft-spot for children), but his diabolical tortures are even more over the top and remorseless, even with a Catholic influence overtaking things at the end.  Everywhere else, he incessantly denies all delusions of his guilt ridden visions, including the best scene in the movie, being a nightmare hell quest in color no less.

TRILOGY OF TERROR
(1968)
Additional Dir - Luis Sérgio Person and Ozualdo Candeias
Overall: MEH

Teaming up with two other Brazilian directors for an anthology film consisting of three stories adapted from the TV show Além, Muito Além do Além, (Beyond, Much Beyond the Beyond), José Mojica Marins handles the final "Macabre Nightmare" segment which is the most straight-laced horror outing of the bunch and ultimately the most rewarding.  Marins' "favorite" on-screen representations of squeamish terror, (rape and spiders), find a home here again and the director shows a consistent knack for notable visuals.  Unfortunately, the sum of all the parts bogs the film down  as the other two portions are either dull or very baffling.  Luis Sérgio Person's "Procession of Dead" is filler-level forgettable and has the absolute worst "day for night" sequence ever filmed, (unless its sudden jump from an unmistakable broad daylight midnight to pitch black was intended).  Though Ozualdo Candeias' opening "The Agreement" rides the line of being so oddly overblown that it comes out good, it is also messy and impossible to follow.  Out of the three stories, this inadvertently makes it a disastrous one to lead with as it sets the later two up on very rocky footing.  Still, this is an unusual yet somewhat recommended Brazilian horror vehicle that often gets buried under mountains of more noteworthy works.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE
(1968)
Overall: GOOD

Another anthology outing from José Mojica Marins, (this time handling every story himself from the director chair), The Strange World of Coffin Joe has a misleading title in that it is not part of the Zé do Caixão saga.  Marins' famous character only appears in the film's introduction, spouting more rambling, "true nature of fear and man" nonsense.  Every story quite typically varies in quality and they all continue Marins' fascination with mankind's vileness.  They also all feature rape, which is unfortunate from an "entertainment" level yet perhaps necessary for Marins' depraved, religious transgression message.  The filmmaker's insistence on depicting his villains as diabolically over-zealous degenerates is certainly intentional, but the extent to which he skews the moral message to the point of often having the bad guy "win" is not something for everyone's tastes.  Speaking of taste, this is the most nasty of Marins' 1960's works, the ending segment "Theory (Ideologia)" acting as a sadist horror fan's wet dream.  The middle "Obsession (Tara)" is rather pointless really, only serving as a silent, macabre breather and the opening "The Dollmaker (O Fabricante de Bonecas)" is a rather predictable excuse to have more women get manhandled.  This whole is considerably captivating though and definitely worthy of the word "Strange" in the title, as is most of Marins offbeat, stylized work.