Cette nuit, je m'incarnerai dans ton cadavre

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.

THIS NIGHT I WILL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE is the even more fiendish follow-up to the first film. Escaping death and justice, Coffin Joe (Jose Mojica Marins) returns to his mission of producing a son and heir to his legacy of blasphemous eeevil.

Joe kidnaps 6 women, torturing them with an army of tarantulas, and subjecting the unluckiest ones to a pit of snakes. There's also a head crushing by stone slab for one particular male pest! CORPSE introduces us to Joe's hunchback henchman, Bruno. In addition, we are treated to the infamous, full-color Hell sequence, complete with suffering souls!

Once again, as with the first movie, this is a sadistic, demonic masterpiece...

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.

This sequel lacks a little of noir atmosphere present in At Midnight I will Take Your Soul. It also reinforces more Josefel "Coffin Joe" Zanatas's logics in prejudice of mistery (all spiritual or magic elements in the former movie are proved to be only his imagination and fears): he believes there is no life after death, then the only way to be ethernal is to have offspring. That is why he seeks the most perfect woman possible to give him a child, "a perfect child" or preferably "a perfect son" (she may be not only beautiful but also share his eugenics belief, have no fear, and refuse any religion). There is also why he kills those who he believes that will not generate good children, and why be cares so much about children and particularly babies and fetuses. However, two of the best filmed scenes of his career are from this movie: the curse of Janaína and the sequence from him on his bedroom until his entrance in hell. The portrayal of hell in colour, constrating with black and white cinematography in the rest of the movie, is interesting but not the best moment.

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")