I'm a big fan of Ze do Caixão. One of his qualities was making movies with very little money. Most of the "actors" were not professionals, but just people. One of the ways of choosing the actresses was for them to get into a coffin with large spiders and whoever stayed the longest would get the part. Later in life he had a phone number people could call and hear him tell a short horror story which was changed daily. He was also famous for his extremely long finger nails that he purportedly never cut. Cheers
Fantastic review Terry. I'm definitely going to hunt down these films. I held DVD copies of the first 2 films in my hands many years ago in a boutique dvd store at the top end of Bourke St in Melbourne and considered buying them but my financial circumstances really wouldn't allow it at the time. I've regretted my decision since. Will pick up this one now. Thanks again. 😊
Got the boxset when it came out and concur heartily with everything you say. Considering how cheaply these films were made, the picture quality and color restoration is remarkable. Wish Arrow could have included Black Exorcism, a 1974 Coffin Joe movie with a meta narrative very similar to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, but the owner wouldn’t give them the rights. It is on RUclips, however.
There is a 05 episode miniseries biography about Marins, but doesn't really delve into his childhood. Much more focused on the impact of Coffin Joe in his live and the making of the films. Marins is played by actor Matheus Natchergale in it.
Ze lives eternal! My jiujitsu instructor from Brazil got me a T shirt of Ze and a patch for my gi a while ago. I cannot find the patch for the life of me. I remember only hearing about these wild movies as a kid in some indy monster movie zines at my comic shop (one was called Monster! International, and is still around today....even on facebok). I think Don Glut also wrote a little about him in his Classic Monsters tome from 1977. The name of Coffin Joe and the imagery in my head that i would conjure up while reading the plotlines were almost too dangerous for my 11 year old imagination hahahaa! I finally got the first one subbed from a horror vhs catalogue and tape trader that had the largest collection in the world called Video Screams! (also still around today). unfortunately the tape broke halfway through and i couldnt repair it....and i was good at reparing damaged vhs, dammit!! hahaha. Luckily....i got the Synapse boxed set of the first two films along with a third pseudo sequel the next year. Scared the living shite out of me and my college friends when we first watched it at our weekly horror movie viewing party!! Yet it was so damned intriguing. Super glad i discovered him early on and was able to find so much more of his movies, comics, and stories. I am also thankful for my brazilian friends (who think i am quite the nerd) for helping me track some of this stuff down beforehand. The new boxed set is upposed to be absolutely amazing, and I cant wait to buy it. totally workt the damn 220 bux or whatever in my opinion. I hope you enjoy the boxed set, too, Terry. HOWEVER, you might be offended by some of the concepts he puts in his films, whether it is a Coffin Joe film or not. He really pushed boundries, and at times he could be a little....chauvinistic, among other things. But there were also points made by him being so in the films. he wanted to shock and offend to make people think. and he certainly did that. He was one of a kind that will be missed the world over. Marins and Jodorowsky are...to me....the last of the filmmakers who actually had/have guts. We shall never see the likes of them again. Hope all is well with you, Terry. and again.....Ze Lives Eternal!!! Post Script..........The second film is my absolute favorite. all of them have something about them that make them unique, mind you. but the second one just had everything to make a cinephile of any age happy
I remember watching the Coffin Joe films in 2005 on the EPIX Drive-In channel. Coffin Joe was a horror villain unlike any I have seen before. He was unique in that he believes that he is a god. And when he is suspected of the disappearance or deaths of people, he simply says, “Prove it.” He has a soft spot for young boys, but it isn’t sexual. He believes that young boys are the future and they will rule the world. Coffin Joe wants to be the father of the future king. Jose Mojica Marins stated that Coffin Joe came to him in a dream in the late 50’s, hence, the top hat , long finger nails, unibrow and cape. I recommend watching all of these classic films. They were scary and they were thought-provoking. You can see that Jose Mojica Marins was very passionate about his works. He also made comedies and even made adult films( it was after the Coffin Joe movies lost their popularity) , basically to keep working. Jose Mojica Marins will always be Coffin Joe. His movies crossed boundaries in the horror genre. And though they were original and shocking, he did his job. He scared the viewer and, I guess that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Great video, Terry.
When the notification about this set hit my email, I IMMEDIATELY preordered it... along with the Barbarella set. Good stuff. Thanks for covering this. I actually wrote Arrow, about a year ago, and asked if they were going to release the entire Coffin Joe catalog. I'm not naïve enough to believe I had an influence on this set coming to be but hopefully I gave it a nudge.
Hi Terry. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this set. I see so many creators talking about the set and it looks really good. Thanks for your thoughts and review of the set including the overview on the box itself and value for the money considering all of the extra features, art cards, etc.
Over 900 minutes of content is great value and I've always supported non-English language cinema as far back as the 1970s when I went to Chinatown to see Chinese Wuxia movies. Finding box sets like this is a delight for me.
Hey, Terry! Greetings from Brazil. It's always great to see appreciation for our own inventive master of horror. Mojica's films are quite discomforting, as he dwells in the darkest impulses of the human psyche and brings to surface some questions of Brazilian culture (we have a shameful high feminicide rate, because our version of sexism and intimate partner violence can go to some disturbing places). I hope you enjoy the features of this box, since it seems to have involved a lot of love from people such as Carlos Primati, who's a huge horror cinema researcher. I'm kinda jealous (in a not bad way), because if it's expensive for Australians, you have no idea how we, in Brazil, are practically barred from accessing this one, due to the monetary conversion. Hope there's a Brazilian edition for less expensive amounts soon. My last topic in this bizarrely long comment is about the biopic. There's a miniseries currently available on the "internet archive", as Zé do Caixão (2015). But there are no subtitles in the files and I doubt they're available anywhere. I wanted to try making them, but I know I'd probably give up during the process (I'm soon to be working two jobs). But the miniseries is amazing! While it's important to remember that all biopics are somewhat fictional (and Mojica was known for telling tall tales), it is a delightful reimagining of his trajectory. This was a filmmaker highly boycotted by our then-Military Government, who lost the investment on a lot of films because the censorship wouldn't let him release films such as "Awakening of The Beast", which deals with controversial topics such as mind altering substances. He ended up growing a bad reputation among production companies, since there would be no guarantee that his next project would see the light of day. It is important to have in mind how little money is available for any kind of art in Brazil, and the fact that we're lacking in a lot of industries which are crucial for cinema (especially at the time), so what the film crews and Mojica could come up with, in terms of creative ways to make his props, make-up and effects is REALLY legendary. Add to it the fact that, from "Awakening of the Beast" onward, his films started to delve further and further into the metafictional idea of Zé do Caixão being a creation who somehow became a supernatural force or an archetype in the collective unconscious, capable of showing people their own inner thoughts, fears and desires -- in the late 60s and early 70s no less... I believe this man and his co-writers to be mad geniuses. There are some films here on RUclips with English subtitles, and you should check "The Black Exorcism of Coffin Joe", especially if you liked "Awakening of the Beast". Preferably, you'd watch it before "Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind", since this one recycles a lot of footage from movies that came before. Sorry about posting a whole book in your comment section!
@@terrytalksmovies hey, Terry! Art can be both a response to politics as well as being affected by it. Hope you watch "The Black Exorcism" on RUclips. There's some Twin Peaks vibes in some parts. There's another meta later in the fact that, while José Mojica Marins plays both himself and Zé do Caixão in the film, his voice is different for each character. Voice actor João Paulo Ramalho dubbed the fictionalized Mojica, and Mojica himself dubs only Zé do Caixão. I find it fascinating that, in a film focused on the fact that Mojica and Zé are not the same, and on the duality of creator and creation, he chose to dub not the "real" Mojica
I read about a brutal Sydney police attack on gay protestors in a 1978 Mardi Gras parade. Marchers were beaten by police and held in Darlinghurst station. Are there any documentaries about this event? I know this is off the subject but thanks in advance for any info.
Absolutely fascinating. I was aware of the first two 'Coffin Joe' movies, but had no idea as to what an important figure in Brazil José Mojica Marins was. I adore falling down rabbit holes and finding something at the end, which you had no idea about, but quickly realise that you need in your life. I had a good friend, back in the 1980's, who was a cinephile, and introduced me to all kinds of wonderful stuff, from the 'El Santo' movies, to the weird and wonderful world of John Waters, and everything in between, and I've been eternally grateful for that. Coffin Joe seems to be right up my street, and if I can find that box set for a sensible price, I'll probably get one - I'm a real sucker for all those extra bits, and I do like a well produced box set. Nice one. 👍👍👍
@@terrytalksmovies - The El Santo movies - and I haven't seen one for many years, are fun. Simple, old fashioned, turn your mind off, fun. He's a wrestler/detective/superhero/psychic investigator - his modern equivalent would possibly be Hellboy - maybe that's what drew Guillermo Del Toro to the character. We had a brilliant fleapit type cinema in town, that showed pretty much everything, and they would show themed all-nighters, and 'grab bags', with three or four random movies. I saw an El Santo movie at one of these, and enjoyed it. I've never had any problems watching non-English cinema - there's always something in them that will be new, and interesting. The El Santo movies are highly entertaining, and that's all that matters.
Saw the first two films on SBS years ago, the first one is particularly good. Kind of a mixture of Hammer and Universal horror but with its own Brazilian POV.
This is a box set I need. I've seen the first two Coffin Joe films (the hell scene in the second one is mad) plus Finis Hominis via SBS, and I need to upgrade the copies I have. Some of his titles are amazing (one of his later movies with busty substances was called "48 Hours of Hallucinatory Sex"). I think it's hilarious that the Brazilian government funded the restorations, given the censorship troubles many of his films faced at the time. "zeDO caSHO" is the pronunciation I got from listening to Sepultura's "Ratamahatta", in which he's mentioned. They're Brazilian, so I presume they know how their language is spoken.
Never heard of these, looks good. I just watched Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain and those Indonesian super hero films, Gundala and Sri Asih. Holy Mountain hd some amazing imagery but not sure I got it. The super hero films were well done and follow that MCU each film builds to the next thing. Looks like the rich/poor gap in Indonesia is a big theme.
The rich/poor gap and political corruption are themes in these movies, and in the Raid movies with Iko Uwais. It makes for an interesting back drop for action cinema.
My pleasure, Robin. Coffin Joe is worth exploring. He's so locked into the fears of Catholic 1960s Brazilian cultural fears it's easy to understand why he became a viral phenomenon.
Terry: One of these days, a film (or film series) that you profile will literally blow my mind. So much so, that my wife will have to call in a "Crime Scene" clean-up crew to shovel-up all the exploded brain matter from my head. Does any of your cinema profiles, ever disturb Middle-Aged-Geek Girl?
@@terrytalksmovies my favorite is Frankenstein’s bloody terror .... werewolf versus the vampire woman. Frankenstein versus Dracula although in that one I think Paul Nasci stars in it but doesn’t produce it
I'm a big fan of Ze do Caixão. One of his qualities was making movies with very little money. Most of the "actors" were not professionals, but just people. One of the ways of choosing the actresses was for them to get into a coffin with large spiders and whoever stayed the longest would get the part. Later in life he had a phone number people could call and hear him tell a short horror story which was changed daily. He was also famous for his extremely long finger nails that he purportedly never cut. Cheers
Also, he did open casting calls with newspaper ads. Different times.
Fantastic review Terry. I'm definitely going to hunt down these films. I held DVD copies of the first 2 films in my hands many years ago in a boutique dvd store at the top end of Bourke St in Melbourne and considered buying them but my financial circumstances really wouldn't allow it at the time. I've regretted my decision since. Will pick up this one now. Thanks again. 😊
I have a link in the description of the video if that's any help. 😀
“Skippy? You’ve found a vessel for my seed? Now fetch the tarantulas!”
Skippy is iconic. A wallaby with a human level intelligence.
Got the boxset when it came out and concur heartily with everything you say. Considering how cheaply these films were made, the picture quality and color restoration is remarkable. Wish Arrow could have included Black Exorcism, a 1974 Coffin Joe movie with a meta narrative very similar to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, but the owner wouldn’t give them the rights. It is on RUclips, however.
Yep. I think it's as complete a set as you'll get but slightly incomplete. It's a fun rabbit hole to dive down.
There is a 05 episode miniseries biography about Marins, but doesn't really delve into his childhood. Much more focused on the impact of Coffin Joe in his live and the making of the films. Marins is played by actor Matheus Natchergale in it.
Cool. Thanks for the tip.
Thank you, Terry. for yet another cinematic discovery. I think a biopic along the lines of Tim Burton's Ed Wood would be fascinating
Probably. I don't know enough about Marins' personal life to guess, but I'd find it interesting.
My friend, Raymond Castile, plays young Coffin Joe, in a flashback, in the third (2008) film.
Nice! That one's in the pile to be watched over the next few days.
Ze lives eternal!
My jiujitsu instructor from Brazil got me a T shirt of Ze and a patch for my gi a while ago. I cannot find the patch for the life of me.
I remember only hearing about these wild movies as a kid in some indy monster movie zines at my comic shop (one was called Monster! International, and is still around today....even on facebok). I think Don Glut also wrote a little about him in his Classic Monsters tome from 1977. The name of Coffin Joe and the imagery in my head that i would conjure up while reading the plotlines were almost too dangerous for my 11 year old imagination hahahaa! I finally got the first one subbed from a horror vhs catalogue and tape trader that had the largest collection in the world called Video Screams! (also still around today). unfortunately the tape broke halfway through and i couldnt repair it....and i was good at reparing damaged vhs, dammit!! hahaha.
Luckily....i got the Synapse boxed set of the first two films along with a third pseudo sequel the next year. Scared the living shite out of me and my college friends when we first watched it at our weekly horror movie viewing party!! Yet it was so damned intriguing. Super glad i discovered him early on and was able to find so much more of his movies, comics, and stories. I am also thankful for my brazilian friends (who think i am quite the nerd) for helping me track some of this stuff down beforehand. The new boxed set is upposed to be absolutely amazing, and I cant wait to buy it. totally workt the damn 220 bux or whatever in my opinion.
I hope you enjoy the boxed set, too, Terry. HOWEVER, you might be offended by some of the concepts he puts in his films, whether it is a Coffin Joe film or not. He really pushed boundries, and at times he could be a little....chauvinistic, among other things. But there were also points made by him being so in the films. he wanted to shock and offend to make people think. and he certainly did that.
He was one of a kind that will be missed the world over. Marins and Jodorowsky are...to me....the last of the filmmakers who actually had/have guts. We shall never see the likes of them again.
Hope all is well with you, Terry. and again.....Ze Lives Eternal!!!
Post Script..........The second film is my absolute favorite. all of them have something about them that make them unique, mind you. but the second one just had everything to make a cinephile of any age happy
The second film was great with the spiders and snakes. Such silly fun.
I remember watching the Coffin Joe films in 2005 on the EPIX Drive-In channel. Coffin Joe was a horror villain unlike any I have seen before. He was unique in that he believes that he is a god. And when he is suspected of the disappearance or deaths of people, he simply says, “Prove it.”
He has a soft spot for young boys, but it isn’t sexual. He believes that young boys are the future and they will rule the world. Coffin Joe wants to be the father of the future king.
Jose Mojica Marins stated that Coffin Joe came to him in a dream in the late 50’s, hence, the top hat , long finger nails, unibrow and cape.
I recommend watching all of these classic films. They were scary and they were thought-provoking. You can see that Jose Mojica Marins was very passionate about his works. He also made comedies and even made adult films( it was after the Coffin Joe movies lost their popularity) , basically to keep working.
Jose Mojica Marins will always be Coffin Joe. His movies crossed boundaries in the horror genre. And though they were original and shocking, he did his job. He scared the viewer and, I guess that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Great video, Terry.
Thank you. Coffin Joe is a fascinating piece of cinematic history.
When the notification about this set hit my email, I IMMEDIATELY preordered it... along with the Barbarella set. Good stuff. Thanks for covering this.
I actually wrote Arrow, about a year ago, and asked if they were going to release the entire Coffin Joe catalog. I'm not naïve enough to believe I had an influence on this set coming to be but hopefully I gave it a nudge.
At least they knew there was an audience for it. That's good feedback for any distributor.
"Fantastically bad -- in the best possible way" -- sounds like my second marriage....
So many jokes I could make to this comment... 😉😀
Yikes,🙀!
Hi Terry. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this set. I see so many creators talking about the set and it looks really good. Thanks for your thoughts and review of the set including the overview on the box itself and value for the money considering all of the extra features, art cards, etc.
Over 900 minutes of content is great value and I've always supported non-English language cinema as far back as the 1970s when I went to Chinatown to see Chinese Wuxia movies. Finding box sets like this is a delight for me.
Hey, Terry! Greetings from Brazil. It's always great to see appreciation for our own inventive master of horror. Mojica's films are quite discomforting, as he dwells in the darkest impulses of the human psyche and brings to surface some questions of Brazilian culture (we have a shameful high feminicide rate, because our version of sexism and intimate partner violence can go to some disturbing places).
I hope you enjoy the features of this box, since it seems to have involved a lot of love from people such as Carlos Primati, who's a huge horror cinema researcher. I'm kinda jealous (in a not bad way), because if it's expensive for Australians, you have no idea how we, in Brazil, are practically barred from accessing this one, due to the monetary conversion. Hope there's a Brazilian edition for less expensive amounts soon.
My last topic in this bizarrely long comment is about the biopic. There's a miniseries currently available on the "internet archive", as Zé do Caixão (2015). But there are no subtitles in the files and I doubt they're available anywhere. I wanted to try making them, but I know I'd probably give up during the process (I'm soon to be working two jobs). But the miniseries is amazing! While it's important to remember that all biopics are somewhat fictional (and Mojica was known for telling tall tales), it is a delightful reimagining of his trajectory. This was a filmmaker highly boycotted by our then-Military Government, who lost the investment on a lot of films because the censorship wouldn't let him release films such as "Awakening of The Beast", which deals with controversial topics such as mind altering substances. He ended up growing a bad reputation among production companies, since there would be no guarantee that his next project would see the light of day.
It is important to have in mind how little money is available for any kind of art in Brazil, and the fact that we're lacking in a lot of industries which are crucial for cinema (especially at the time), so what the film crews and Mojica could come up with, in terms of creative ways to make his props, make-up and effects is REALLY legendary. Add to it the fact that, from "Awakening of the Beast" onward, his films started to delve further and further into the metafictional idea of Zé do Caixão being a creation who somehow became a supernatural force or an archetype in the collective unconscious, capable of showing people their own inner thoughts, fears and desires -- in the late 60s and early 70s no less... I believe this man and his co-writers to be mad geniuses. There are some films here on RUclips with English subtitles, and you should check "The Black Exorcism of Coffin Joe", especially if you liked "Awakening of the Beast". Preferably, you'd watch it before "Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind", since this one recycles a lot of footage from movies that came before.
Sorry about posting a whole book in your comment section!
Thanks for all that extra information. Each country's cinema history is full of the interlacing of politics with creating movies. Strange that.
@@terrytalksmovies hey, Terry! Art can be both a response to politics as well as being affected by it.
Hope you watch "The Black Exorcism" on RUclips. There's some Twin Peaks vibes in some parts. There's another meta later in the fact that, while José Mojica Marins plays both himself and Zé do Caixão in the film, his voice is different for each character. Voice actor João Paulo Ramalho dubbed the fictionalized Mojica, and Mojica himself dubs only Zé do Caixão. I find it fascinating that, in a film focused on the fact that Mojica and Zé are not the same, and on the duality of creator and creation, he chose to dub not the "real" Mojica
I read about a brutal Sydney police attack on gay protestors in a 1978 Mardi Gras parade. Marchers were beaten by police and held in Darlinghurst station. Are there any documentaries about this event? I know this is off the subject but thanks in advance for any info.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_(2018_film) A friend of mine was a 78er at the March. In 1989 I was a crowd marshall at the Mardi Gras Parade.
Thanks!@@terrytalksmovies
Absolutely fascinating. I was aware of the first two 'Coffin Joe' movies, but had no idea as to what an important figure in Brazil José Mojica Marins was.
I adore falling down rabbit holes and finding something at the end, which you had no idea about, but quickly realise that you need in your life. I had a good friend, back in the 1980's, who was a cinephile, and introduced me to all kinds of wonderful stuff, from the 'El Santo' movies, to the weird and wonderful world of John Waters, and everything in between, and I've been eternally grateful for that. Coffin Joe seems to be right up my street, and if I can find that box set for a sensible price, I'll probably get one - I'm a real sucker for all those extra bits, and I do like a well produced box set.
Nice one. 👍👍👍
I never got into El Santo. Is it worth it? Keep your eyes open for the Coffin Joe set. It's extremely well curated, too.
@@terrytalksmovies - The El Santo movies - and I haven't seen one for many years, are fun. Simple, old fashioned, turn your mind off, fun. He's a wrestler/detective/superhero/psychic investigator - his modern equivalent would possibly be Hellboy - maybe that's what drew Guillermo Del Toro to the character. We had a brilliant fleapit type cinema in town, that showed pretty much everything, and they would show themed all-nighters, and 'grab bags', with three or four random movies. I saw an El Santo movie at one of these, and enjoyed it. I've never had any problems watching non-English cinema - there's always something in them that will be new, and interesting.
The El Santo movies are highly entertaining, and that's all that matters.
What a great episode! A totally fascinating subject I'd never heard of before.
Coffin Joe is definitely an obscure horror one but it was fun discovering and sharing about it.
Check if your Awakening the Beast disc has missing subtitles from 34ish minutes in. Arrow have started a replacement service if so
Will do.
Saw the first two films on SBS years ago, the first one is particularly good. Kind of a mixture of Hammer and Universal horror but with its own Brazilian POV.
It's theatrical and over the top. I really enjoyed them both.
Looks like Arrow are streaming the films too, but I don't see any extras on their site.
That's why Physical Media rox. 😀
This is a box set I need. I've seen the first two Coffin Joe films (the hell scene in the second one is mad) plus Finis Hominis via SBS, and I need to upgrade the copies I have. Some of his titles are amazing (one of his later movies with busty substances was called "48 Hours of Hallucinatory Sex"). I think it's hilarious that the Brazilian government funded the restorations, given the censorship troubles many of his films faced at the time.
"zeDO caSHO" is the pronunciation I got from listening to Sepultura's "Ratamahatta", in which he's mentioned. They're Brazilian, so I presume they know how their language is spoken.
There's a link in the video description to get the boxset if you want.😀
Never heard of these, looks good. I just watched Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain and those Indonesian super hero films, Gundala and Sri Asih. Holy Mountain hd some amazing imagery but not sure I got it. The super hero films were well done and follow that MCU each film builds to the next thing. Looks like the rich/poor gap in Indonesia is a big theme.
The rich/poor gap and political corruption are themes in these movies, and in the Raid movies with Iko Uwais. It makes for an interesting back drop for action cinema.
🎩🎩
😉👽👻
That was an education. Thank you.
My pleasure, Robin. Coffin Joe is worth exploring. He's so locked into the fears of Catholic 1960s Brazilian cultural fears it's easy to understand why he became a viral phenomenon.
Terry: One of these days, a film (or film series) that you profile will literally blow my mind.
So much so, that my wife will have to call in a "Crime Scene" clean-up crew to shovel-up all the exploded brain matter from my head.
Does any of your cinema profiles, ever disturb Middle-Aged-Geek Girl?
She just tells me if she wouldn't watch a certain film. Things like Martyrs comes to mind.
1200 quid on Amazon UK.. el gulpo....
Buy it from Arrow directly.
Dafuq, dude! 😡
LOL Love you, chickie. Mwah!❤
He’s the Paul Nasci of Brazil
One day I'll have to dive into Paul Naschy's movies.
@@terrytalksmovies my favorite is Frankenstein’s bloody terror .... werewolf versus the vampire woman.
Frankenstein versus Dracula although in that one I think Paul Nasci stars in it but doesn’t produce it