O Ritual dos Sádicos

In the first half of the film, after an interesting opening lettering simulating comic books, a beautiful cinematography and a cunning edition (often with dark humor) depict a wide range of sexual depravation situations (sometimes combined with mysoginy, violence, and work harassment). Those bizarre cases are interwined with a debate between psychiatrists, in a noir footage, about the possible causal connection between those dire social events and the usage of illegal drugs. One of those experts is José Mojica Marins, the director himself, who is also known as his character Coffin Joe, then merging reality, the story of the present movie and also his previous films (besides a horror comic book character who also appears in a newsstand). It is mentioned that another scentist, Sérgio, made experiments with LSD with four patients to investigate that issue. Then, Coffin Joe appears in a TV show being interviewed by intelectuals about his role as filmmaker in Brazilian cinema, being judged as in a court. After that, the movie continues showing Sérgio's experiment to find out if there is a relation between LSD and perversion. After going with the four patients to watch Coffin Joe's films in a theater, he shows them images of that character and uses syringes to inject the solution on them. That last quarter of the film is partially coloured, what does not happen in rhe whole rest of the film. Situations even worse and weirder than in the beginning of the film take place inside their thoughts and minds. In those scenes, Coffin Joe shows his sadism and mysoginy, and have magic powers that did not appear in his three first movies portraying the character. The four human guinea pigs have macabre hallucinations, and the young woman suffers lots of violence, just like undistinguishable unknown people who are present in that hellish nightmare. Off course the whole film is an excuse to exploitation, and there is very little story between the weird real or oneiric situations. However, José Mojica Marins does try innovative cinema aestethics throughout the film. In the end, researcher Sérgio explains his experience (no spoilers here), when they are also shown in the mentioned TV show. Coffin Joe has the elements to keep making his films.

Having recently caught this strange film on Independent Film Channel,it certainly warrants a viewing, if only for the curiosity of Jose Mojica Marins.

Primarily,he uses two scenarios: a round-table of psychiatrists discussing drug addiction,and alternate scenes of the addicts in question, who are given LSD as part of the experiment.

The poverty and demoralization (particularly of women in Brazil) is explored, and the scenes are stark, turning gradually to crude, horrific and even at times humorous. There is one scene in particular where a young woman is interviewing for a job as a maid and she envisions her prospective employer, who is obese and wolfing a plate of pasta)as a hideous looking Pekingnese dog.

Overall a creative and strange commentary on the drug cultures of the late 1960's and 70's.8/10.

The more Coffin Joe movies I see, the more I'm amazed that he isn't mentioned more in the English speaking world. Jose Mojica Marins (a.k.a. Coffin Joe) is a horror icon in his native Brazil, but has only a small (but very enthusiastic!) cult following elsewhere. 'Awakening Of The Beast' is probably not the best place to start with Marins work. It's one of his most striking and original, but also quite confusing for a fan, let alone someone unfamiliar with the whole Coffin Joe trip. Best to watch 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' first. In that movie Marins created his evil undertaker character Ze do Caixao (anglicized as "Coffin Joe"). In 'Awakening Of The Beast' Marins appears both as himself and as Coffin Joe. A group of intellectuals on a TV show debate the evils of drugs in contemporary Brazilian society. We are shown various vignettes of drug-fueled perversion, some of which are very surreal! This takes up three quarters of the movie, the rest concerns an experiment a psychiatrist makes on four volunteers dosing them with acid and subjecting them to Coffin Joe! This stuff is even wilder than what has come before, and in colour to boot. 'Awakening Of The Beast' is an extraordinary movie and quite unique. Hard core horror buffs may be perplexed, but fans of psychedelic exploitation like Roger Corman's 'The Trip' and Russ Meyer's immortal 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' will be in heaven! This is Coffin Joe's happening baby, and it freaks me out!

Dr Sergio leads a panel of doctors including writer and director Jose Mojica Martins in an episode of TV programme "Enlightening the Darkness". They discuss the effects of drug use on Brazilian society and discuss a set of experiments that Dr Sergio carried out with LSD and a group of users from different social classes.

What follows is a film in two parts. The first part follows Dr Sergio telling the panel stories of people using drugs and the effects they have. Essentially this is a series of short scenes where the drug takers turn to violent perverted acts after the drugs. Most of these include sexual violence directed towards women, others include sex scenes that have all the sensitivity and direction of soft core porn. Overall the lesson seems to be that drugs cause these perverted scenes and that drugs are bad. For this half of the film the "story" is disjointed and hard to follow - the discussion isn't set in any context and it just feels like an exploitation film - this is easy to believe as Mojica the director is famous for cheap horrors etc.

The second half sees the discussion become more structure as Dr Sergio describes his experiments on four LSD users. What follows a short set up is a 15 minute series of full colour (the rest is black & white) hallucinations featuring the director's alter ego - the evil Ze do Caixo. These hallucinations are quite disturbing and include a lot of violence toward women carried out by Caixo. Director Mojica comes up with very imaginative visions but they are all too gaudy and trashy horror. Again these feel overdone to shock his audience.

Following the experiments Dr Sergio reveals that instead of LSD he used distilled water and presents evidence to the same that is too easily believed ("it says distilled water!"). The conclusion of the experiments (and the film) is that these images came from the people themselves and not the drugs - therefore drugs are harmless and the people who do bad things as a result are sick anyway and you can't blame the drugs. This is a very weak conclusion given the evidence that has just gone before.

The film is an interesting bit of exploitation from Brazil - worth watching once for the film-student style of direction. However the presentation of perverted images and violence linked so closely to drug use makes the film's pro-drug message totally unbelievable and very hard to shallow (even if you agree with legalising drugs).

I really don't understand why so many people around the world rave about Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe). I've seen two of his films: "Esta Noite Encarnarei No Teu Cadáver" and now "Ritual Dos Sádicos" and I was disappointed.

His films run like this: long scenes filmed by a non-moving camera spiced up with long speeches by Zé do Caixão. The way he imagines Hell (Esta Noite Encarnarei No Teu Cadáver) or a psychedelic trip (O Ritual dos Sádicos) are somewhat funny but they are no visual wonder at all - people howling and squirming around, long dark corridors, lights blinking and suddenly we stumble on another of the lengthy speeches delivered by Zé do Caixão in which there will be reflections about life, death, the human vanity etc.. It may at fist seem funny, but as there are many of these speeches, as the time goes by the laughter will disappear and boredom take its place. Imagine a radio horror play illustrated by slide images and you won't be far from Zé do Caixãos films.

Zé do Caixão has good ideas and a very dramatic fantasy - his main problem it that he expresses his obsessions more by words than by images - his nightmare images are static. I think that in a film images and words should flow together - there should be something like a symphony.

All in all, I don't deny Zé do Caixãos imagination but (unlike, for instance, Dario Argento and Jean Rollin) he is not able to express fully the richness of his world visually and that is essential in a film.