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| The Strange Hostel Of Naked Pleasures |
Coffin Joe Horror Films
Never heard of Coffin Joe? Starting in the 60's, Brazil was desperate to break into the horror genre I guess and using the things that scare Brazilian people (which apparently is a lot of religious gobbledygook and superstition about dead people) they went with a young and ambitious film maker/actor/media personality, Coffin Joe.
I get IFC and the Sundance channel which means I get to experience some good foreign films... and a whole mess of bad ones. One month for whatever reason, IFC, I think, decided to 'dig up' the Coffin Joe films as a set and show them off for a whole month. Or at least it seemed like a whole month. Wanting to see both the foreign and the period type piece of horror I decided to invest some time (these things go a bit long) and see what the Coffin Joe phenomenon was all about. Ooof, was that a nauseating experience. Never mind that he speaks in symbolic hyperbole that you need a translator to get straight (even though they did dub the movies in English it really doesn't help) and that nothing made much sense and some got downright silly (my favorite was the B&W movie, which most of his films were, with scenes of 'Hell' in brilliant color, like only Satan gets the cost of Technicolor for his domain.).
Coffin Joe is still alive by the way. His real name is Jose' Mojica Marins and he was and is considered quite the media personality, especially as Zé do Caixão, loosely translated in English as 'Coffin Joe'. His first film as this character was in 1963, named At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. Saw it. Didn't understand a bit of it. But for the Brazilians this is as much as part of their culture as Night Of The Living Dead is a part of ours. Coffin Joe's real name in the movies, rarely spoken, was Josefel Zanatas, which again as a loose translation using part of the first name and the last name being spelled backward is 'bitter Satan'. Okay. Coffin Joe wears a black suit, a cape and a top hat. His most notable features are his grotesquely long, curled fingernails. I mean this guy must have spent a fortune in fills at his local beauty shop since he kept them long in real life in order to 'stay in character'. What a trooper. To completely explain his personal philosophy, I borrowed from wiki, sorry, but there's no better way to explain it:
Never heard of Coffin Joe? Starting in the 60's, Brazil was desperate to break into the horror genre I guess and using the things that scare Brazilian people (which apparently is a lot of religious gobbledygook and superstition about dead people) they went with a young and ambitious film maker/actor/media personality, Coffin Joe.
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| The first appearance of 'Coffin Joe'. |
I get IFC and the Sundance channel which means I get to experience some good foreign films... and a whole mess of bad ones. One month for whatever reason, IFC, I think, decided to 'dig up' the Coffin Joe films as a set and show them off for a whole month. Or at least it seemed like a whole month. Wanting to see both the foreign and the period type piece of horror I decided to invest some time (these things go a bit long) and see what the Coffin Joe phenomenon was all about. Ooof, was that a nauseating experience. Never mind that he speaks in symbolic hyperbole that you need a translator to get straight (even though they did dub the movies in English it really doesn't help) and that nothing made much sense and some got downright silly (my favorite was the B&W movie, which most of his films were, with scenes of 'Hell' in brilliant color, like only Satan gets the cost of Technicolor for his domain.).
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| Jose' and his incredible nails. |
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| This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse |
Coffin Joe is an evil, amoral character who considers himself superior to others and exploits them to suit his purposes. He hates morality and superstition (which he includes religion as) to the point of obsession. His central belief is that (self) imposed superstitious beliefs tend to prevent individual development, inhibit positive social change. Those who do not accept his central belief are considered to be weak, lack power, and limited in their ability to rationalize objectively. Those who share with him similar beliefs are considered to have power and intelligence above the 'normal' person. The primary theme of the character is his single-minded obsession with the 'continuity of the blood'; he wants to sire the 'superior' child from the 'perfect woman'. His idea of a 'perfect woman' is not exactly physical but someone he regards intellectually superior to the Brazilian average, and in this quest he is willing to kill anyone who crosses his path. Coffin Joe's weakness is his overconfidence in his primary belief. The overconfidence inhibits his ability to cope with forces that reveal themselves to exist, contrary to his beliefs.
If you understand any of that, you pretty much know how all his movies are going to go and how they will end. Or not. He is very inconsistent with this 'philosophy' and often seems to infuse new stuff at will, just to make things more interesting. The very first Coffin Joe movie I saw was about how he ran a motel where all these people checked in except for one couple he wouldn't allow in. The night was filled with debauchery (Brazil being much more lenient in what was allowed on the screen than the US) and when the jilted couple return in the morning with the police to file a complaint, instead of a motel, they find a cemetery. They were alive, so they couldn't come in. Right.
Other 'Coffin Joe' movies to, umm, enjoy:
If you understand any of that, you pretty much know how all his movies are going to go and how they will end. Or not. He is very inconsistent with this 'philosophy' and often seems to infuse new stuff at will, just to make things more interesting. The very first Coffin Joe movie I saw was about how he ran a motel where all these people checked in except for one couple he wouldn't allow in. The night was filled with debauchery (Brazil being much more lenient in what was allowed on the screen than the US) and when the jilted couple return in the morning with the police to file a complaint, instead of a motel, they find a cemetery. They were alive, so they couldn't come in. Right.
- At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963)
- This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
- The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
- Awakening of the Beast (1970)
- The End of Man (1970)
- The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe (1974)
- The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures (1976)
- Hellish Flesh (1977)
- Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978)
- Perversion (1979)
- Embodiment of Evil (2008)
Watch at your own discretion. Know that you may, and most probably will, become incredibly confused, and know this was just another notch in the horror film genre, still proudly distributed by Brazil.
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