#foreign horror

Disc 1: At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

Audio commentary by José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte, and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

Video essay by Lindsay Hallam (new)

Damned: The Strange World of José Mojica Marins - 2001 documentary

Bloody Kingdom - Marins’ first short film with director’s commentary

Excerpts from early works by Marins

Trailer

Disc 2: This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse / The Strange World of Coffin Joe

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse audio commentary by José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte, and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

The Strange World of Coffin Joe audio commentary by José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte, and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

Interview with film historian Stephen Thrower (new)

Video essay by Miranda Corcoran looking Coffin Joe as horror host (new)

The Strange World of Coffin Joe alternate ending with commentary by Marins

Trailers

Disc 3: Awakening of the Beast / The End of Man

Awakening of the Beast audio commentary by José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte, and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

The End of Man audio commentary by José Mojica Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte, and film scholar Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

Interview with Guy Adams on Marins’ esoteric aspects (new)

Video essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on the gender politics of Marins’ films (new)

The Awakening of the Beast alternate opening titles

Trailers

When the Gods Fall Asleep / The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures

Interview with Virginie Sélavy on surrealism in Marins’ work (new)

Interview with Jack Sargeant (new)

Interview with Embodiment of Evil co-writer Dennison Ramalho (new)

Footage of Marins at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival

A Blind Date for Coffin Joe short film

Trailer

Disc 5: Hellish Flesh / Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind commentary by José Mojica Marins, editor Nilcemar Leyart, Paulo Duarte, and Carlos Primati (Portuguese with English subtitles)

Interview with Andrew Leavold on Marins’ place in '60s & '70s Marginal Cinema (new)

Video essay by Kat Ellinger (new)

Trailers

Disc 6: Embodiment of Evil

Audio commentary by producer Paulo Sacramento and co-writer Dennison Ramalho (Portuguese with English subtitles)

Interview with Dennison Ramalho (new)

Interview in which Ramalho pays tribute to Marins

Footage of Marins at the film’s premiere

Making Of featurette

Experimental Making Of featurettes

Multiple featurettes with commentary by Marins

Trailer

Additional contents:

Collector’s book with new writing by Tim Lucas, Carlos Primati, Jerome Reuter, Amy Voorhees Searles, Kyle Anderson, and Paula Sacramento

Double-sided poster with artwork by Butcher Billy

12 double-sided art cards

Cultural icon, anti-establishment statement, sadistic lord of carnival horror! With his long fingernails, top hat and cape, Coffin Joe was the creation of Brazilian filmmaker José Mojica Marins, who wrote, directed and starred in a series of outrageous movies from 1964 to 2008.

This movie is based around a bunch of youtubers who are trying to get mad views so they do a spooky challenge by breaking the law and going to an old tuberculosis sanitarium (because nothing is more frightening than breaking the law). We have your classic annoying prankster brothers,  a beauty guru, and a young upstart who is looking for her place on the internet (wouldn’t know anything about that hahaha please follow my blog). Theo is our tour guide and he is very straight forward about not liking the pranksters content, it is ruining today's youth! Theo also wants to make sure everyone is very appreciative of the heavy history that comes with the Haunted Hospital for no reason in particular, don’t you mind one bit.

As the kids begin to set up for the evening creepy stuff starts to happen and the beauty guru gets a jump scare by another random guy who they tell to fuck off and he does but little do they know it’s to be the first death of the movie! Dun dun dun! Only after our beauty babe sees a full bodied (and full bloodied) apparition in the bathtub and literal writing on the wall do our first group of two (2) attempt to leave when they discover the real dead body of the guy and things become really real for all of them. Everyone starts trying to get out but of course they all split up to do it, and Theo is in the basement all alone so the daring duo go down to find him. He is in the basement alright, but so is something else, all three (3) kids in the basement get got. 

The final prank brother goes down and in a rather gruesome scene with an elevator cable we are down to just the young upstart, Marnie. She has actually been in Heilstätten before with her sister and Theo and when they were here Marnie saw an apparition which somehow led to an accident where her sister is now in a wheelchair. Marine claims she came back for Theo’s safety but he is certain she only came for youtube clout. This becomes clear when we find out that Theo isn’t dead after all, he was doing a “prank” this whole time. Turns out he has a weird goth girlfriend and they bugged the whole sanatorium just to haunt these kids and kidnap them. He starts to do surgery on them but the whole “Marnie being missing” thing was really bumming him out so he had to go chase her, but she gets away!

I guess we are to believe that Theo and his girlfriend killed the annoying pranksters and the beauty vlogger because no cops ever showed up? They kind of just left that part off like Marnie ran all the way home and never said a damn thing to anyone about anything, not even her sister (but she had to, right? She was covered in blood or blood like substance). I wish they would have just had a little more on the ending there to make the movie complete. Sure it was nice to see Theos end and that his girlfriend was kinda/maybe a spooky ghost the whole time though but still. Pretty crazy to think Theo would do that just for a video though. I suppose it just goes to show that some people will do anything for other people's attention (please comment, like, reblog, and follow for more reviews).