Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe
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.
An unholy undertaker in search of the perfect woman to propagate his bloodline, Zé do Caixão made his screen debut with the first Brazilian-produced horror film, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. Three years later, his quest would continue in This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, with Zé embarking on an even more brutal campaign of terror, aided and abetted by his hunchbacked assistant.
The Strange World of Coffin Joe, meanwhile, 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. Sex, perversion and sadism abound in The Awakening of the Beast as a psychiatrist experiments on four volunteers with Lsd in this surreal examination of 60s drug culture.
Diverging from horror toward satirical black comedy, The End of Man 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. Rarely-seen sequel When the Gods Fall Asleep continues this blackly comic trajectory as our messianic cult figure sets out to right wrongs, expose corruption and end social unrest.
The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures 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. In Hellish Flesh, 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!
Meanwhile, in Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, 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! Finally, in Embodiment of Evil, 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.
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.
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Movie + 2 extrasAt Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
Movie + 2 extras
1964 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
Once seen, never forgotten! Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) makes his screen debut in José Mojica Marins’ At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, the first Brazilian-produced horror film.
Zé do Caixão is an undertaker in a small Brazilian town, searching for t...
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Movie + 2 extrasThis Night I'll Possess Your Corpse
Movie + 2 extras
1967 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
The success of At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul embedded Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) in the psyche of Brazil. With his iconic long fingernails, top hat and cape, writer, director, star José Mojica Marins became the living embodiment of his creation, a...
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Movie + 2 extrasThe Strange World of Coffin Joe
Movie + 2 extras
1968 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
The Strange World of Coffin Joe is an anthology horror film hosted by Zé do Caixão featuring three short films directed by José Mojica Marins which feature a strange dollmaker, a necrophiliac balloon seller with a foot fetish, and a psychotic profes...
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Movie + 2 extrasThe Awakening of the Beast
Movie + 2 extras
1970 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
Sex, perversion and sadism abound in The Awakening of the Beast as a psychiatrist experiments on four volunteers with LSD in this surreal examination of 60s drug culture.
What starts as a pseudodocumentary featuring a panel of psychiatrists and wr...
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Movie + 2 extrasThe End of Man
Movie + 2 extras
1971 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
Diverging from horror toward satirical black comedy, The End of Man sees a naked stranger (played by Marins) emerge from the sea to perform miracles in a nearby town and become a modern messiah whose deeds will affect the whole world, but things are...
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Movie + 1 extraWhen The Gods Fall Asleep
Movie + 1 extra
1972 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
Continuing the blackly comic trajectory of The End of Man; in the rarely seen sequel When the Gods Fall Asleep our messianic cult figure (once again played by writer and director José Mojica Marins) sets out to right wrongs, expose corruption and en...
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Movie + 3 extrasThe Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures
Movie + 3 extras
1976 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
In The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures, José Mojica Marins stars as the mysterious proprietor of an isolated guest house where, on a dark and stormy night, an eclectic group of strangers seek shelter. Is the proprietor Zé Do Caixão? Why do all the...
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Movie + 2 extrasHellish Flesh
Movie + 2 extras
1977 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
In Hellish Flesh, writer and director José Mojica Marins stars as Dr. George Medeiros; a brilliant scientist but neglectful husband, whose wife takes a lover and plans to murder George for his fortune. When the plot fails, the doctor is badly disfig...
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Movie + 2 extrasHallucinations of a Deranged Mind
Movie + 2 extras
1978 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
In Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind a psychiatric doctor driven to insanity by nightmare visions of Zé do Caixão trying to steal his wife, is helped by colleagues who enlist Zé’s creator José Mojica Marins to convince the patient that Zé does not e...
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Movie + 6 extrasEmbodiment of Evil
Movie + 6 extras
2008 • Brazil • Directed by José Mojica Marins
In 2008 Zé Do Caixão returned to screens in Embodiment of Evil, the official third film in the ‘Coffin Joe Trilogy’ which began with At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul in 1964 and continued with This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse in 1967.
Released fr...
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The Strange World of José Mojica Marins
Movie
2001 • Brazil • Directed by André Barcinski
The definitive documentary on the life and work of José Mojica Marins by Andre Barcinski and Ivan Finotti.
