Encarnação do Demônio

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.

"Nails grow even after death."

I wholeheartedly enjoyed the previous two installments of the Coffin Joe Trilogy, so I felt obliged to watch this one as well. The film takes place forty years after the previous one, when Coffin Joe is finally released from prison. Upon release, his goals are the same: kill petty humans and create the perfect offspring.

Even after all this time, José Mojica Marins remains true to his original films. Despite the serious gap of time between the last two films, Embodiment of Evil maintains the same style as his other ones and has a classic cult horror type of vibe. The writing is wonderfully disturbing, and this film strengthens Coffin Joe's character, something I didn't expect.

On the other hand, I feel the franchise itself was damaged with this. It relies on the success of the other two movies to drive it forward, as we see Coffin Joe repeatedly haunted by the black-and-white ghosts of his past. Embodiment of Evil hardly lives up to the mastery of the previous two installments, though it tries very hard. There's a purgatory scene that's okay, but it hardly compares to the hell scene in This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. There's also a straight twenty minutes of torture porn which doesn't seem to fit well with the rest of the trilogy.

In comparison to the other two, this one is definitely the weakest. Embodiment of Evil has some good moments, and it's a worthwhile watch to round out the trilogy. That said, it relies too much on the grotesque and not enough on the main character that defined the originals.

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.

Embodiment of Evil (2008)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

After forty years in prison, Josefel Zanatas (Jose Mojica Marins), aka Coffin Joe, gets released and goes right back to his old ways of trying to find the perfect woman to give him a son. While Joe searches out the best woman, he's haunted by ghosts from his past while a vigilante police Captain is in hot pursuit. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL was a highly anticipated film as pretty much every trash fan in the world went nuts when they hear Marins was bringing back his cult character. Whereas the first few Coffin Joe movies went for surrealism and strangeness, this one here instead goes for non-stop violence and gore. There are a few scenes here that would make countless torture/porn movie turns their head in fear. I mean, how many movies can you think of where they torture a woman by pouring hot cheese on her and then letting a rat go to work? The violence here is often quite graphic and it even goes towards some sexual violence including a really brutal scene where there's pretty much a cannibal orgy going on where women are biting off a certain part of the male anatomy. It should go without saying but only the strongest of stomachs will be able to handle this movie so the majority of people should just stay away. Marins has no problem getting back into his Coffin Joe performance as he's certainly fun to watch here and looking a lot like Orson Welles. The rest of the cast fit their roles just fine as well. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL does lack in regards to its story as it seems to drag out in spots and there's no question we've seen this type of thing many times before. I wish a little more had been done with the character returning but fans of gore and violence should at least be entertained by that.

I've been an avid horror/exploitation fan for nigh on thirty years, and aware of the work of José Mojica Marins for twenty five of those, and yet this is the first of his films that I've actually seen. What the hell was I thinking? If his other stuff is anywhere near as bats**t insane as Embodiment of Evil (and the flashbacks in this film indicate that they might be) then I've been missing out on some seriously messed up movies.

The belated third film in Marins' Coffin Joe trilogy (the other two being 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' in 1963 and 'This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse' in 1967), Embodiment of Evil sees the director once again growing his fingernails and donning top hat and black cloak to reprise his role as amoral gravedigger Josefel Zanatas (AKA Coffin Joe) who is released from prison after 40 years to continue his ambition to sire a perfect child. To achieve this goal, Joe enlists the help of a hunchback named Bruno and several other sadistic minions, who help him to abduct a series of potential mates, who he 'tests' for suitability by subjecting them to horrific acts of torture.

Marins, a man who clearly hasn't mellowed in his old age, directs and acts with gusto, relishing every nasty moment with sadistic glee, presenting every act in lurid gruesome detail, and throwing in some mind-bending surrealism for good measure. Shocking hellish visions; an endless parade of scared, naked women, broken, humiliated and ravished by Marins' perverse madman; whipping, flaying, branding, gouging, and scalping: the violence on display is depraved and extremely graphic, made all the more unsettling by the very probable use of performers for whom body modification and pain are no strangers; when hooks are inserted into a man's back before he is hoisted into the air, it looks all too real, as does a later scene in which a woman's lips are sewn shut!

To be honest, I still can't believe I bought this film on DVD from my local car-boot sale (they looked like such ordinary, decent folk as well...).