Rex’s Film Reviews … Coffin Joe “At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul”

I’d like to think that if Rob Zombie were a filmmaker back when this series of Brazilian horror films were made (1963), he would have made them exactly like these. The title character, Coffin Joe, who is a church’s coffin maker, but there isn’t a holy bone in his body. In fact, he is downright sadistic. Activities include rape, torture by tarantula, gouging the eyes out of a doctor, then pouring booze on him and setting him on fire, whipping a man in his face at a bar, chopping of another guy’s fingers at the same bar, among other twisted activities. What’s his problem? Coffin Joe just wants a child to carry on his lineage, and when it is discovered that his current wife can’t bear a child, he kills her, and then tries again with another girl. You know something bad is going to happen, when Ze’ de Cai’xo (Coffin Joe) has a closeup of his eyes, and they suddenly go bloodshot. An old gypsy/witch, who is seen at the start of the film telling the audience that they should go home beforethe show starts, or “at midnight I’ll take your soul” is seen , or heard laughing this horrible cackle, warns Ze’ that he will die at midnight. Of course he doesn’t believe the old witch. Even though this film was in another language with English subtitles, and in black and white, it kept my interest the entire way through the film, with it’s use of ahead of it’s time special effects, it was kind of like watching an old William Castle film (13 ghosts). For the age of this movie, I can’t believe some of the subject matter in the film that was taboo, in America at least. Even the voice effects add to the fun spookiness of the film. Kind of rare, and hard to find, but if you see it for rent or sale anywhere, I highly suggest this film or Coffin Joe “Awakening of the Beast”. There is a whole series of the Coffin Joe films, but I only have these two, as they are rare.