A medianoche tomaré tu alma

This is my first forray into the wonderful world of Coffin Joe, and having read about Marins and his films was still not enough to prepare me. Not because "At Midnight..." is a great film by any set of conventional standards; it's a low-budget affair and it looks like it. What really makes it compelling is how passionate it is in all its blackly surreal glory.

Coffin Joe (Ze Do Caixao) is the atheist, unscrupulous undertaker of a small, religious community somewhere in Brazil. This set-bound place is more of a (at times too) convenient playground for Marins to explore his dark fantasies than any sort of realistic community. Its inhabitants are mere props to be abused, scoffed and laughed at. A sizeable guy who dares to stand up to him gets whipped in the face. His sole preoccupation is to find a woman worthy to bear him a son and thus "continue his bloodline". Coffin Joe strides through this fictional (and perhaps symbolic in Marin's mind) world, mocking the superstitious villagers, defying god, Satan and the dead, sometimes all of them together in a matter of minutes.

If "At Midnight..." is set apart from every other horror movie of its time, it's because the morbid, macabre imagery (skulls, plastic bats, cobwebs, tarantulas; you know the drill) is undercut by a Nietzche-esquire atheism that bites. At times it's as if the whole movie serves as nothing more than Marins' soapbox, his way of venting against the conservative and religious. How much of what Coffin Joe declares in the film are meant to be serious is anyone's guess. However it's exactly the fact that it works so well on a camp level (like a blasphemous Ed Wood flick) that redeems the film from all heavy-handedness.

In that aspect, and as far as what one would expect from an early 60's horror movie, "At Midnight..." is both avant-garde in its own micro-budget, often crude but unashamedly enthusiastic way and surrealistic. Mandatory viewing for fans of cult movies and I hear the sequels are better which I'll have to see for myself.

The Brazilian film "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" (1963) features a character who is a strong contender for the most hateful, obnoxious, despicable, slimy and loathsome creature in horror movie history. He is Ze do Caixao, a name that, loosely translated from the Portuguese, means Coffin Joe, and he would go on to become a wildly popular figure in Brazilian culture over the years; kind of like an amalgam of Baron Samedi and Freddy Krueger. As played by the film's director, Jose Mojica Marins, Ze is quite unforgettable. Bearded, caped and top hatted, he bullies and browbeats the inhabitants of his small village, and does away with those closest to him, all in his sick pursuit to father a son and continue his bloodline. Perhaps most shocking, in the largely Catholic country of Brazil, he is a taunting atheist, who eats meat on Good Friday and even forces others to do the same! No living person seems able to stand up to Ze. But the unliving...ah, perhaps that's another story.... Filmed on the cheap, this picture still works marvelously, featuring as it does many scenes of casual and brutal violence (wait'll you see what Ze does to his barren mistress), some interesting FX (I love that glittery ghost!), fairly intense acting (especially by Marins and that gypsy witch), and a very freaky score (wails, screams, echo effects, etc.). One scene in particular is very fine; the one in which Ze rails against heaven and hell during a thunderstorm and drunkenly demands that God and all spirits do him harm. Pretty intense stuff. Anyway, that gypsy woman, at the film's beginning, warns us NOT to watch this picture, as it will make us suffer, but I'm glad that I stayed with it. And oh...a modern-day interview with Marins is included on this DVD. If you want to see something REALLY scary, take a look at his fingernails!

I was scouring the local mass media a/v store when on a cart I saw a title that caught my eye. Shaped like a coffin was this box set sitting with one of his twins. Being a horror fan I couldn't help but be interested (It looked very similar to a Misfits box set some moons ago).The title of this set was simply "The Coffin Joe Trilogy". My mind raced back to all those years of Fangoria stockpiled in the back of my mind. I grabbed, I bought and I loved every minute of the set. The first film which ,according to the notes on the inside, is a phenomena in Brazil. The character Coffin Joe is the local cinema boogeyman (ala Fred Krueger)and yet again teaches us that the lack of a budget only stimulates creativity. 8/10

It's very impressive and ambitious for Jose Mojica Marins to get this project done when he had only 15 cans of negative film stock to start with, 2 of which got stolen leaving him only 13, and not having a main actor so having to play the part himself. Most of locations were indoor sets, except for one outdoor location. Although it may seem like the lack of planning and abrupt decisions could have affected the outcome, it in fact did not. This film has some great work, starting from Jose's performance with his monologues and single take unedited continuous scenes, all the way through the very impressive set and production design and special effects. They actually manually glued glitter on the negative to get that cheap effect of halo around the spirits. I always give credit to people who are willing to get things done no matter what the budget or circumstances. Several hair raising moments make me think that this film must have been really scary for it's time 40 years ago. Overall, this is a brilliant film that is very cinematic and relies on traditional but very effective tricks of the trade to make it work.

Almost like a "the seventh seal" for horror films.

I love the idea of Coffin Joe ("Joseph The Grave"). I love his output. I love that he has channeled his obsessions into movies about deranged, obsessive characters. I can only admire and respect him.

I don't care that his movies are cheap. I don't care that they are slightly inept at times. Ed Wood's movies were cheap and inept, but they were also filled with passion and a neatly formed world view.

They are also rich in texture, designed with love and passion, self-contained and mostly set-bound like early Universal and PRC horror films (STRANGLER IN THE SWAMP, for example).

Jose Majica Marens is a true original and his movies are like nothing else you have ever seen. He enjoys hurling blasphemy at the Catholic church, he likes beating up hypocrites and his Coffin Joe indulges in random violence, rape, scaring women with spiders and general debauchery.

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL has a single-mindedness about it that makes it lovable. Joe wants only one thing -- to find a woman who will bear him a son. Since he's a brutal, loud, angry man, women aren't returning his calls, so he's frustrated. This frustration fuels virtually all of his movies.

Meeting Coffin Joe for the first time can be either a confusing, bewildering experience or the start of a beautiful relationship. It was the latter for me.