This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse

This sequel to At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul once again stars Coffin Joe as the devilish gravedigger. It starts off where the last film ended with our anti-hero found to still be alive, he is taken back to stand trial for his crimes and is found innocent despite the fact that he committed his misdeeds in public for all to see! Anyway he now seeks a woman to bear him a child. To achieve this he captures several girls and kills most of them. It may sound straightforward but really the story-line is most bizarre and senseless. But this is the world of Coffin Joe and nothing else can really be expected to be perfectly honest.

In my view this sequel is better than the original. There are several reasons for this. For one thing José Mojica Marins has developed as a film-maker. He seems to have a – slightly – higher budget and this is used to expand things a little with better set-pieces and a great scene where Coffin Joe descends into Hell. This sequence breaks the black and white presentation and is shown in psychedelic colours. Marins depiction of Hell is highly imaginative and surreal with much grotesquery and sadism. Additionally, the movie does seem to be paced better than the first instalment despite being twenty odd minutes longer. It's also a fair bit gorier and sleazier as well. Coffin Joe dispatches with several of his enemies in a bloody manner by axe, boulder and shoe-applied razors! He also treats a gaggle of women very badly indeed with extended scenes involving lots of big spiders crawling all over then and then a group of angry looking snakes fulfilling a similar end.

It's a wild concoction for sure. It may well be a very low budget film but Marins makes the most of what he's got. And he does, after all, remain the only true Brazilian horror director, so on that basis alone his work is fascinating in itself. Perhaps as a reaction to his country's religious beliefs Coffin Joe constantly rails against theocracy and is a committed atheist. This, alongside his unexpected love of children, is a most bizarre trait for a horror villain and provides an original subtext to proceedings. At Midnight I'll Possess Your Corpse is certainly a film for the attention of cult film fanatics that's for sure.

As most people reading this will already know, This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse is Coffin Joe's follow-up to the excellent At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, and as good as the first film was; for my money, this one is even better! The legendary Brazilian comic book character may be cheesy, and José Mojica Marins' films may be cheap and silly; but he certainly has an eye for horror and this film features everything that made the first film great - and more! Once again, we have a plot without meaning, although there is some direction this time as Coffin Joe steps up his chase to find a woman to bear him a child. He doesn't go the direct route, however - and we get treated to scenes of torture as well as Coffin Joe preaching to his audience about the non-existence of God. The film works in spite of the ending of the first film, which is passed off by way of Coffin Joe being nursed back to health by the people he terrorises, before being cleared of his crimes on the grounds of 'lack of evidence'...even though most of them were committed in front of a crowd of people. Still, it's all in good fun!

With a name like Coffin Joe, you've got to expect the man to have an eye for horror - and the director delights in packing his film with delicious horror imagery, from spiders and snakes to skulls and deformed assistants! The wayward plot once again allows the director to do pretty much anything he likes - and for a man with so many ideas, this certainly isn't a bad thing. Despite a running time of nearly two hours, Coffin Joe's film never becomes boring or trite, and just when you think that the film can't possibly deliver any more surprises; Marins throws in a delightful colour sequence that takes place in Hell! The dialogue is once again a stand-out aspect of the film, as hearing Coffin Joe preach his own set of beliefs never becomes boring and the actor clearly delights in delivering them. The eerie atmosphere is always welcome, and the fact that the film is so clearly designed for entertainment is of huge benefit to it. I'll close this review with a word of warning; do not see this film unless you've seen At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, but once you have seen said movie - this one becomes must see!

Hose Mojica Marins is definitely a director whose films are many times overlooked. His character Coffin Joe is almost like the Freddy or Jason of Brazil. "This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse" is the second Coffin Joe film. After the evil undertaker has been cleared of his crimes, he's back to causing trouble yet again. He kidnaps beautiful women and looks to impregnate one of them to start a perfect race. After the ladies get tormented by spiders and snakes he kills them, leaving only one lady. What makes this scene horrifying is the 100 snakes and spiders that the actresses had to endure. The ghost of the one women vows to return from the dead and take vengeance on him, or is it just his imagination? It's never quite clear. Coffin Joe is an angry atheist who finally finds his evil mate which is the colonel's daughter. Even after him and his hunchback assistant smash her brother's head with a rock, she still likes him. She even skips her brother's funeral to get it on with him. The film's most memorable scene is it's surreal psychedelic ten minute Technicolor vision of hell. Death takes Coffin Joe to hell and he sees people scream in agony as they are whipped and tortured. In the scene fire, brimstone and snakes surround him wherever he goes. "This Night I'll Possess your Corpse" is chilling, gory, bizarre and subversive in it's religious and social themes. It's definitely a classic work of Brazialian cinema that deserves more attention.

Following up the success of his first appearance as Coffin Joe, Mojica filmed the second part of his horror trilogy with his character. The story starts exactly where the first movie left off, with Coffin Joe surviving the supernatural attack of the first movie. Being absolved of the crimes he commited, he returns to his city, still in search of the ideal woman to bear him a perfect son, this time aided by the hunchback servant Bruno. Joe kidnaps and tests several women who may prove worthy of bearing his offspring. All of them fail, and as they are being eliminated (with real live snakes!) a curse is set upon Coffin Joe...a curse that will make the funeral agent see hell in colour! A more ambitious follow-up for the first movie, "This night" suffered cuts and alterations on its dialogues by the military dictatorship censors prior to its release in Brazil. The coloured sequence of Joe's descent into hell (the rest of the movie was shot in B&W) are a fine example of the best that Mojica's cinema has to offer: brilliant, raw ideas on a shoestring budget.

Zé do Caixão (José Mojica Marins) survives and is absolved in court from his crimes. He moves to another small town, seeking out the perfect woman to deliver his son. Zé do Caixão and his deformed hunchback minion Bruno (Jose Lobo) abduct six women from the village and he submits them to a creepy experiment, trying to find the future mother of his offspring to keep alive his bloodline. The pregnant Jandira curses him and only Marcia (Nadia Freitas) survives, but Zé do Caixão concludes that she is not a superior woman. When Zé do Caixão sees the newcomer Laura (Tina Wohlers), who is the daughter of the powerful Coronel, he concludes that she is a superior woman and adequate to deliver his offspring. Meanwhile the Coronel asks his henchman Truncador (Antonio Fracari) to hire a gang of criminals to eliminate Zé do Caixão. But the undertaker seems to have a deal with the devil and never dies. However Laura dies with her unborn son and the population joins to expel him from their lands.

"Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver" is the perfect sequel to "À Meia- Noite Levarei Sua Alma". This creepy low-budget black and white film is more ambition than the first one and blends colors in the journey of Zé do Caixão to hell. It is also supported by a good story, performances, effects, dialogs with blasphemy and gore. The contradictory conclusion with the atheist character summoning God does not spoil the film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver" ("This Night I Will Incarnate Your Corpse")