Overview: Cultural icon, anti-establishment statement, sadistic lord of carnival horror! With his iconic long fingernails, top hat and cape, Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) was the creation of Brazilian filmmaker José Mojica Marins, who wrote, directed and starred in a series of outrageous movies from 1964 to 2008.

Newly restored from the best available elements and packed with new and archival extras, Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe is a love letter to one of the great iconoclasts of horror, who forged his films in the face of military dictatorship and religious censorship to become Brazil’s national Boogeyman.

Blu-ray Verdict: Up first is AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964), where an unholy undertaker in search of the perfect woman to propagate his bloodline, and is where Zé do Caixão made his screen debut with this first Brazilian-produced horror film.

Without a doubt, Zé’s actions show him to be an amoral individual. To be certain, he seeks to use women exclusively as a path to his own fulfillment. This individualistic attitude is actually antithetical to Latin American culture, as it is more common for everyone to look out for each other. Of course, Zé can’t be seen as a representation of anyone or anything except his own malicious desires.

At times the movie is a little confusing, but the last ten minutes easily make up for any shortcomings. Indeed, the low-budget special effect in one scene is one of the neatest things that I’ve ever seen.

Up next is THIS NIGHT I’LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1967) where three years later, his quest would continue, with Zé embarking on an even more brutal campaign of terror, aided and abetted by his hunchbacked assistant.

This movie picks up directly from the events of that fist film. Xe (Coffin Joe) is badly injured and on trial for his crimes, but within the first few minutes of the movie, we put those things aside so that Xe can begin his quest to create a perfect son. See, Xe doesn’t believe in good, or God, or much of anything for that matter. To him, the pursuit of his life is to pass his beliefs and his seed on to a son, who can keep his beliefs alive.

He starts this quest by kidnapping 6 women and torturing them in a sort of trial by godless game show, where the winner gets to be subdued by Xe’s love. These scenes offer some of the best moments of the film, with some frightening images that masterfully play with the line between sex and violence.

This is, almost, where the look and feel of WHITE ZOMBIE meets the kinetic film style of Rob Zombie. This is the kind of movie that you could watch on mute, at a party, with some metal or goth music in the background and still sit and enjoy for the sheer visionary impact of it.

Along next is THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE (1968) and is an anthology of three short horror films featuring a strange dollmaker, a necrophiliac balloon seller with a foot fetish, and a psychotic professor involved in sadistic rituals.

Still worth seeing but maybe you better skip the first story about a doll maker being robbed, but it turns out rather awry for the robbers because they think they can rape the doll makers daughters without any consequences. But it’s rather weak and you could see it coming miles away.

Part two isn’t that much better but placed in the time when it was made then this must be shocking because this is about necrophilia. And we do actually see the man going for the death body. But it takes almost 20 minutes before the necrophilia comes in.

But the best is last for the third story. Here we see it all, lesbian action (nothing to see, but shocking back then) and a man being pierced with needles and one drinking boiling melted metal. Towards the end the couple watching it all will pay the price. Not bad at all.

Then sex, perversion and sadism abound in THE AWAKENING OF THE BEAST (1970) as a psychiatrist experiments on four volunteers with LSD in this surreal examination of 60s drug culture.

The movie shows a board of panelists discussing modern-day drug use and the harm it causes. Lots of talking heads permeate the action and raise some valid points, although there are so many viewpoints that at times the film is muddled and the message unclear.

Marins basically plays himself and has to prove himself in front of a disbelieving jury suspicious of his films. Towards the end of the film, an experiment takes place in which LSD users are made to believe that they have entered the hellish world of Coffin Joe.

The following fifteen minutes are a colorful, hallucinogenic tour through depravity and chaos, packed with memorably bizarre imagery and a lot of imagination.

Diverging from horror toward satirical black comedy, THE END OF MAN (1971) sees a naked stranger emerge from the sea to perform miracles in a nearby town and become a modern messiah whose deeds will affect the whole world.

The End of Man is one of the strangest of José Mojica Marins movies ever! Unlike his usual offerings, this one isn’t a horror flick. It’s hard to know exactly how to classify it to be perfectly honest. It starts with an enigmatic man called Finis Hominis emerging naked from the ocean.

He then travels around interacting with various people. He saves the vulnerable and powerless against corrupt authority and the amoral. He exposes widespread hypocrisy. Before long he is considered a messiah figure.

Despite not really being a horror film, The End of Man is typical enough for a Marins picture. It’s extremely cheap with the very low production values we have come to associate with the director; while it’s as strange and surreal as his other films too.

Rarely-seen sequel WHEN THE GODS FALL ASLEEP (1972) continues this blackly comic trajectory as our messianic cult figure sets out to right wrongs, expose corruption and end social unrest.

The film is a sequel to Marins’ 1971 film The End of Man (Finis Hominis), in which the character of Finis Hominis, an influential, messianic culture figure turns out to be an escaped mental patient. Rather than the horror themes which Marins was noted for, the film, like its predecessor, is low budget black humored social satire.

In this film, Finis Hominis (after returning to the asylum) again feels the need to escape the asylum in order to put right the world’s increasing social unrest that he sees in the news. There is also a parallel sub-plot regarding the impending closure of the asylum due to the cessation of funding from an anonymous benefactor.

THE STRANGE HOSTEL OF NAKED PLEASURES (1976) brings Zé do Caixão back to the screen as the proprietor of an isolated guest house where, on a dark and stormy night, an eclectic group of strangers seek shelter.

At an isolated inn - Hospedaria dos Prazeres (Hostel of Pleasures) - the owner (Jose Mojica Marins, who is also Coffin Joe) turns away some and allows others already in the guest book to stay. Those without a place to stay are enraged, as after all, there’s a storm outside.

Yet he has room for hedonistic Hell’s Angels, a couple sneaking out on their respective partners, a man ready to kill himself, gamblers out to bankrupt someone and criminals escaping their last robbery.

When they wake up in the morning, all of the clocks and their watches are set to midnight. That’s because they’re all in Hell and the absence of time is one of the many things they must deal with, as well as having to watch their deaths again and again. The owner warns them all that they don’t want to see his evil side - Coffin Joe!

In HELLISH FLESH (1977), Dr George Medeiros is a brilliant scientist, but a neglectful husband whose wife takes a lover and plans to murder George for his fortune, but the doctor is only disfigured and returns with a plan for revenge!

Brazilian horror film features director Marins again playing the lead role of a doctor who has acid poured on his face by his cheating younger wife. The wife eventually takes his money and runs off with her playboy lover but the doctor has his own ideas for revenge.

This is a rather bizarre and surreal film, as one would expect from the director, but it’s not as bizarre as you might think. There’s a few gory sequences, mostly with the acid, but outside of this the film is more talk that anything else.

The story is told in a straight forward fashion, which again, might upset die hard fans of the director, but I think if people give the film a fair shot then they should enjoy it.

Meanwhile, in HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND (1978), the colleagues of a psychiatric doctor driven to insanity by nightmare visions of Zé do Caixão enlist the character’s creator, José Mojica Marins, to convince the patient that Zé does not exist – but all is not as it seems!

Dr. Hamílton (Jorge Peres) is a psychiatrist who is having nightmares in which Coffin Joe is taking his wife. Hse seeks help from filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins, who assures him that he created Coffin Joe, who doesn’t really exist.

There are only 35 minutes of new footage in this movie with the rest coming from censored scenes from past films including Awakening of the Beast, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe and The Strange World of Coffin Joe.

By this point, even though it’s mentioned several times in this movie that Coffin Joe was not real, he has become real. He has become more than an idea and is Brazil’s national boogeyman. He exists in our imagination as real as an actual living being. Kind of like, oh you know, Freddy Kreuger, who took a similar path 16 years later.

Lastly, along comes EMBODIMENT OF EVIL (2008). Marins returns to the role that made his name one last time, as Zé do Caixão emerges onto the streets of São Paulo in 2008, haunted by ghostly visions and the spirits of past victims, and still in pursuit of the woman who can give him the perfect child.

Released after 40 years of imprisonment, Coffin Joe (Jose Mojica Marins), with the help of his faithful henchman, Bruno, returns to his quest for immortality through an abominable offspring. This time, Joe and a small band of dedicated followers must battle a wicked police force, a maniacal priest, and a pair of blind witches! Not surprisingly, much bloodletting, nudity, and hideous death ensue. Will Joe finally get what he desires / deserves?

Embodiment Of Evil sums up everything, culminating in a carnival house of horrors. Marins pulls out all the bloody stoppers, making Coffin Joe a true figure of pure eeevil! A final, unspeakable triumph...!

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY CONTENTS:
Brand new 4K restorations from the best available elements
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all films
Original lossless mono audio for all films (except Embodiment of Evil)
Optional English subtitles on all films
Coffin Joe: Against the World!, an illustrated collector’s book featuring new writing by Tim Lucas, Carlos Primati, Jerome Reuter, Amy Voorhees Searles, Kyle Anderson, and Paulo Sacramento
Reversible sleeves featuring newly commissioned artwork by Butcher Billy
Double-sided fold-out poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Butcher Billy
12 postcard-sized double-sided art cards

DISC 1: AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL
Brand new 4K restoration from a 35mm interpositive and a 35mm print
Archive audio commentary with writer, director and star José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)
Coffin Joe’s Sadean Underworld, a new video essay by film scholar Lindsay Hallam
Damned: The Strange World of José Mojica Marins, the definitive documentary on the life and work of José Mojica Marins by André Barcinski and Ivan Finotti
Bloody Kingdom, José Mojica Marins’ first short film with director’s commentary
The Adventurer’s Fate and My Destiny in Your Hands, excerpts from early works by José Mojica Marins
Theatrical trailer

DISC 2: THIS NIGHT I’LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE / THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE
Brand new 4K restoration of This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse from the original 35mm camera negative and 35mm interpositive
Brand new 4K restoration of The Strange World of Coffin Joe from a 35mm interpositive and a 35mm print
Archive audio commentaries for both films with José Mojica Marins, Paulo Duarte and Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)
Eccentric of Cinema, a new interview with author Stephen Thrower examining the early life and influences of José Mojica Marins
On Tonight’s Horror Show!, a new video essay by film scholar Miranda Corcoran looking at the mythic figure of Coffin Joe within the canon of horror hosts
Alternative ending for The Strange World of Coffin Joe with commentary by José Mojica Marins
Theatrical trailers

DISC 3: THE AWAKENING OF THE BEAST / THE END OF MAN
Brand new 4K restoration of The Awakening of the Beast from a 35mm interpositive and a 35mm print
Brand new 4K restoration of The End of Man from the original 35mm camera negative
Archive audio commentaries for both films with José Mojica Marins, Paulo Duarte and Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)
The Strange Mind of Coffin Joe, a new interview with author Guy Adams exploring the esoteric aspects of José Mojica Marins
A Woman for Joe, a new video essay by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas exploring the complex gender politics of Marins’ filmography
Alternate opening titles for The Awakening of the Beast
Theatrical trailers

DISC 4: WHEN THE GODS FALL ASLEEP / THE STRANGE HOSTEL OF NAKED PLEASURES
Brand new 4K restoration of When the Gods Fall Asleep from a 35mm film print, the only known existing element
Brand new 4K restoration of The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures from the original 35mm camera negative
The Demonic Surrealism of Coffin Joe, a new interview with scholar and filmmaker Virginie Sélavy exploring the parallels between the work of José Mojica Marins and the European and South American surrealist movements
Delirium, Surrealism, and Vision, a new interview with author Jack Sargeant
Apostle of Evil, a new interview with Dennison Ramalho (co-writer of Embodiment of Evil) about his early connection to Coffin Joe
Mojica in the Snow: Tonight I Incarnate at Sundance!, footage of Marins attending the Sundance Film Festival in 2001
A Blind Date for Coffin Joe, a short film by Raymond “Coffin Ray” Castile
Theatrical trailer for The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures

DISC 5: HELLISH FLESH / HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND
Brand new 4K restorations of both films from the original 35mm camera negatives
Archive audio commentary for Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind with José Mojica Marins, editor Nilcemar Leyart, Paulo Duarte and Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)
Aesthetics of Garbage: José Mojica Marins, a Complicated Icon, a new interview with filmmaker Andrew Leavold (The Search for Weng Weng) examining Marins’ place in the Marginal Cinema movements of the 60s and 70s
Beyond Good and Evil, a new video essay by film critic Kat Ellinger
Theatrical trailers

DISC 6: EMBODIMENT OF EVIL
Original lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 audio options
Archive audio commentary with producer Paulo Sacramento and co-screenwriter Dennison Ramalho (Portuguese with English subtitles)
Learning from the Master, a new interview with screenwriter Dennison Ramalho
Fantasia Film Festival Premiere Footage, archival footage of José Mojica Marins at the film’s premiere
Apprenticeship of Evil, an archival interview in which Ramalho pays tribute to José Mojica Marins and looks back on their friendship
Official Making Of and Experimental Making Of, two archival featurettes about the production
Deleted scenes with commentary by director José Mojica Marins
Visual Effects: Purgatory, an archival featurette with commentary by director José Mojica Marins
Storyboards, an archival featurette with commentary by director José Mojica Marins
Theatrical trailer

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