O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão

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.

Nothing really creepy but some breasts here and there and eerie hairy armpits by the girls. Worth picking up for the last story.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Jose Mojica Marins, known as Coffin Joe in the English-speaking world, likely had no model for his style of film; there really was no Brazilian horror scene before him, and little since. This film, a series of three vignettes depicting human depravity, gore and unexpected moments of pathos, is reminiscent of Herschell Gordon Lewis, though a good deal less camp. Some of the cinematography and shot-framing is worthy of Bergman or Polanski ca. REPULSION. Done in crisp B&W, the film also has excellent music (which at times inappropriately overstates itself!), including a theme which celebrates the glory of the man Coffin Joe. This theme, like the rest of the film, may inspire chuckles, but definitely chills as well. Can't wait to see more!

"O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão" is a collection of three creepy and bizarre horror tales.

"O Fabricante de Bonecas" ("The Dollmaker"): In Pirituba, Master Bastos is a respectable doll maker that lives with his four daughters in a remote area manufacturing dolls with impressive eyes. When four criminals break in his house to rob his money and rape his daughters, they learn why the doll's eyes are so realistic.

"Tara" ("Perversion"): A poor balloon seller has a crush on a young woman and stalks her. On her wedding day, the woman is stabbed in front of the church by another woman and dies. After her funeral, the man breaks in her crypt and spends the night with her to satisfy his obsession.

"Ideologia" ("Ideology"): After a debate on a TV show with the journalist Alfredo about the nonexistence of love, Professor Oaxiac Odez (José Mojica Marins) invites Alfredo and his wife Wilma to visit him. Professor Odez offers to prove to Alfredo that the instinct prevails over reason, and brings the couple to the dungeon of his house. They witness the results of the sinister experiment of Professor Odez with people that did not believe on his theory and after a period subjected to subhuman conditions, have become monstrous animals. Now Alfredo and Wilma are imprisoned and submitted to starvation and all sort of psychological torture to prove that the love is dead.

The first tale of violence, with heist and rape, is erotic and gore and has a predictable conclusion. The second tale explores an unusual theme, necrophilia without any dialog. The third one is the sickest tale, with cannibalism, torture, humiliation in an insane experiment of a deranged professor. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão" ("The Strange World of Zé do Caixão")

I think that in the 60's you can talk about "modern" and "old" kind of horror films.The modernity of horror films was determined by the forces acting in the movie: immanent forces that eluded arcane solutions or mysterious set designing with dark, freakish and irrational characters, were forces related to a new notion of Horror. New Horror tried to find, to create, a new idea of terror closer to the "human body", an immanent and "rational" idea of terror.In this way George A. Romero's movies, with their political suggestions, are the more revolutionary in their genre and, well, i think that Marins' movies too, in their particular, experimental way, follow and reinvent the horror cinema modern notion born in 60's. In the beginning of this amazing picture Ze Do Caixao, presenting his three stories, says: "You cannot understand the terror because you are the terror!".In this statement resides the whole picture: especially the third story, the best one, shows that what scared us are the body's extremes, the "instincts" as Ze says.This argument by Marins\Do Caixao creates a modern notion of horror: filming this Marins checks new extreme forms of the bodies, a new way to be, a way that can be easily confused with sadism or with pure bizarre gory cinematographic entertainment.But Marin's way is really more radical than this kind of simple stuffs.It's an experimental way! Even if all the three stories are led by the same argument - the new notion of terror related by the new new notion of body - only the third one is successful to get the argument in a great complete visual way.Other two stories, especially the first one, are obvious and don't suggest anything new about searching a suitable image for the matter. Anyway, a good, funny too, modern and experimental horror picture. I give 9 to the third story and I give 7 1/2 to the whole picture.

'Strange World Of Coffin Joe' is my third Coffin Joe experience. For those not in the know "Coffin Joe" is the name Brazil's horror icon Jose Mojica Marins is known as in the English speaking world. Separating Marins the man from Coffin Joe the IDEA is extremely difficult, if not impossible. I can't think of any real equivalent of Coffin Joe in America or Britain. It's a bit like if Alfred Hitchcock was also Norman Bates... or something. Oh look, I can't even begin to explain what Coffin Joe is all about! Try watching 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' and its sequel 'Tonight I'll Possess Your Corpse' first. Both are full of creepy low budget weirdness. Even then you might not be prepared for 'Strange World Of Coffin Joe'. For one thing it's an anthology with three separate stories (ala Bava's 'Black Sabbath'). On top of that Marins doesn't act in the first two segments (one about four baddies who invade a mysterious doll makers home to steal his loot and molest his daughters, the other about lyrical tale about obsessive desire and necrophilia told without dialogue), and when he appears in the final story he's not exactly the Coffin Joe we know and love(to hate) from the previous movies. He's no longer a bullying grave digger but a Doctor who is respected enough to get interviewed on a TV show called "The Men Who Make The News". One of the panellists who rejects Joe's philosophy on air accepts his invitation to visit his home, and he and his wife are put through an bizarre series of events to prove Joe's belief that love is dead and instinct conquers morality. Or something like that. Anyone who has seen other Coffin Joe movies knows the kind of stuff he spouts. This segment features some truly extraordinary images involving torture, perversion, cannibalism, and even in one did-I-really-see-that? bit, a terrified girl being taunted with a foot long hoagie. No, I'm not making that up. If you like weird low budget horror movies then you MUST check out Coffin Joe! Imagine the love child of Herschell Gordon Lewis and Jean Cocteau and you're getting there, but really Jose Mojica Marins is a true original. The more I see by him the more fascinated I am.