A Encarnação do Demônio

I've failed poor old Coffin Joe. His movies seem like they would be custom made for my needs: they're low budget, foreign-language movies that have clawed their way to the top of the heap of such flicks based on the strength of their imagery and the indelible presence of the man himself.

The trouble is his movies always lose me. I don't know if it's due to lack of plot, obscure narrative, or poor pacing. I just always lose interest while waiting for something to happen. They have their images, but little else, and this finale to the series is no exception - in fact, with the benefit of a bigger budget, it may have images to trump all the others, including a descent into hell Joe takes which looks like the inside of an intestine, and empties into a legitimately horrifying scene some rather graphic cannibalism.

The film just never took me along for a ride. It's the kind of thing where you keep one eye on the screen, one eye on something else, and wait for an interesting scene. It's missing the glue to link these together.

I must confess to not having seen the first two installments of this Brazilian cult series (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul & This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse). I tried renting them in Brazil, but couldn't find them.

Still, the movie is definitely fun to watch, even without prior knowledge of the story of Josefel Zanatas, the undertaker also known as Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe).

Without giving much away, Zé do Caixão is obsessed with having a perfect son, born to a perfect woman, which he likes to refer to as "the continuation of the blood". He is also a hard-core atheist and sadist.

I personally think that Zé's atheism is one of the most interesting facets of this movie. Instead of slipping through the easy path of satanism, Zanatas (almost an anagram of Satanás, Satan in Portuguese) remains a down-to-the-bone atheist, even when confronted with visions of hell and of past victims of his sadist rites. It is this that gives him his alleged superiority. He is free, as he puts it himself. Free of all belief in false (theist) morals.

This if of course a trash movie, though with much larger budget than his previous work, so one should not expect to see Hollywoodesque special effects. Yet Mr. Marins creativity is still captivating, and delivers marvelous scenes, such as that of a naked woman leaving a dead pig carcass (no special effects here, it was a true pig). Humor is also very present, and at some scenes even very experienced actors have a hard time concealing a smile.

All in all, 7 out of 10. But if you are only concerned with having fun, this movie is a 10 out of 10.

After 40 years in prison, Coffin Joe is released - and he's back on the streets of Sao Paulo to find a woman who can give him the perfect child, in his search, carnage ensues!

I have never seen a COFFIN JOE film until I saw EMBODIMENT OF EVIL, but I will now. Embodiment has elements of so many films, and it's done in a very good way. All the special effects are very good, a lot of the torture is real - no doubt about it! Hooks going through human flesh, lips getting sewn together, it's all here...a bit like SAW-but better! Then there's the eerie ghost figures of Joe's past coming back to haunt him, very stylishly done.

All in all if you are a fan of horror, and don't mind subtitles, give EMBODIMENT OF EVIL a go, even if you hav'nt seen any of the others it does'nt matter.

Well worth a watch - 8 out of 10.

Embodiment of Evil is the third in José Mojica Marins' Coffin Joe / Zé do Caixão trilogy. In them all Marins plays the said anti-hero who is an atheist grave-digger who antagonises the folks who live around him. In the first two movies his antics were restricted to a small village but in this latest instalment he his released from prison and immediately starts wreaking havoc in São Paulo. So the scope does seem to be a little bit wider and the budget does seem to be noticeably larger. I am guessing that cinema fashion had finally found Coffin Joe's type of movie in vogue in 2008. In the past ten years or so there has been an increase in horror films that focus on sadism and torture. Well, it has to be said that this was precisely the kind of thing Marins was doing in his Coffin Joe films back in the 60's. So the resurrection of the character forty years later sort of makes sense.

The first two films in the trilogy were At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964) and This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967). Both were pretty extreme for their time in terms of sadism but both also were generally pretty weird with elements of surrealism thrown in for good measure. With Embodiment of Evil there is no way on Earth you could say that Marins has mellowed out. In fact, this latest instalment is up there with all the latest sadistic horror films in terms of sheer grotesque depravity and excess. However, what sets it apart from most of those is the demented imagination on display. In amongst the sadism is a twisted imagination and many striking visual moments. It wouldn't be a Marins movie without this. So, in the end, this is a very worthwhile end to the trilogy and one that will certainly be appreciated by Coffin Joe aficionados as well as those who like the more visceral side of the horror genre.

After forty years in prison, the evil gravedigger Josefel Zanatas a.k.a. Zé do Caixão (José Mojica Marins) is released by the lawyer Lucy Pontes (Cristina Aché) in accordance with the Brazilian Laws. He moves to the slums with his followers that worship him, and he seeks out the perfect woman for his offspring while haunted by the ghosts of his victims. The vigilante brothers Captain Osvaldo Pontes (Adriano Stuart) and his brother Coronel Claudiomiro (Jece Valadão) from the Military Police chase Zé do Caixão in the slums to kill him and they find a track of tortured and mutilated bodies.

The sick and trash "Encarnação do Demônio" impresses first because of the top-notch gruesome make-up and visual effects. However, the graphic violence is not recommended to sensitive viewers. The story, the screenplay and the acting are reasonable and the ham José Mojica Marins with his monologues is quite ridiculous, but funny. This is also the chance to say farewell to the great Brazilian actor Jece Valadão in his penultimate work. The last name of the character Josefel Zanatas means Satan backwards and misspelled in Portuguese (satanás / Sanatas / Zanatas). The result is a movie with potential of cult that works very well on DVD. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Encarnação do Demônio" ("Incarnation of the Devil")