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Directed
by José Mojica Marins | |
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Coffin Joe is really South America's answer to France's Marquis de Sade or Italy's Caligula. A forceful male presence who dictates barbaric acts of sex and violence. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL is the third film in the "Coffin Joe" trilogy that goes along with AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964) and THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1967). It's kind of astonishing that it's been over forty years since the last installment. José Mojica Marins crawls out of the grave so to speak to bring back his creation of evil. The movie beings with Coffin Joe (CF) getting released from a long prison term. The fact that this wicked man could ever step foot out of confined enforcement is laughable. I mean from the dialogue that essays his violent acts to the group of weapon carrying prison guards that escort him out, makes me think they'd never let him free. Think about it, Coffin Joe killed numerous people, which would equal at least a life sentence if not multiple life sentences. Plus throw in the fact that it's said he killed 30 or more people in prison, come on. I would think that he'd be a candidate for some form of capital punishment. But then we wouldn't have a movie would we. I'm glad I finally got the chance to see one of the movies featuring this iconic horror character. Not having seen the previous films, I found EMBODIMENT OF EVIL to be a cross between H.G. Lewis, Monty Python and The BATMAN TV s from the 60s. It features the gore & nudity of H.G. Lewis to go with Monty Python's over the top approach and transitional whip pans from the BATMAN show. This combination made the movie definitely something different. There is a bunch of odd unusual people filling out the cast including; one-eyed cop, older Quasimodo-like assistant to CF, a single & double cataract woman, not to mention CF - a sixty plus year old man, with foot long fingernails, scruffy beard-moustache, wearing a top hot and flowing cape. The Blu-ray does feature vivid color and the cinematography provides some eerie moments in the film. I particularly liked the distorted silhouetted surreal shots of CF at the beginning that were MOTHMAN like and the visual effect of the moving, growing dark shadow of CF following behind the Monk at the end. The story revolves around CF trying to find a young lady to carry his offspring. It's surprising to see how many young ladies are drawn to the paunchy, vertically challenged old man. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL comes with English subtitles, which are essential since the movie is performed in what sounded like the Portuguese language. I have to admit the movie gave me some laughs (intentional or not I'm not sure) and I did wince a few times at some of the graphic onscreen atrocities. The disc comes with a 30-minute documentary Making of Embodiment of Evil featurette. It was interesting to see how the movie makers speak from this foreign country and how they do their film production down there. Footage from the Fantasia Film Festival Premiere was cool and fun to be able to view and you get the Original Theatrical Trailer. Synapse Films does a very good job with how the movie looks and sounds on Blu-ray and I did like the special features they included. Go check out this Master of Horror.
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