At Midnight Ill Take Your Soul (1964)

This is the one that made Coffin Joe famous, or would infamous be the better word? I believe this was the first horror movie ever to come out of Brazil and a pretty nasty one at that. The movie sutured up a lot of controversy being that Brazil is such a religious country and the film has a atheist message to it. For this reason Jose Mojica Marins a.k.a. Coffin Joe had a very hard time even getting this thing started. He wrote, directed and was pretty much forced to take the lead role on himself because nobody else would touch this content. I'm glad Joe took the lead for himself because the film just wouldn't be what it is today if some other half hearted sap played the lead. The movie became so infamous in Brazil that Coffin Joe himself became a real life boogieman. Joe kind of did mold the main character from himself. The real Coffin Joe had long finger nails and dressed all in black. He is also a atheist and apparently he slept in a casket. His name alone would scare Brazilian children and outrage many adults. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is a free-style piece of monologue from Coffin Joe where he goes on about a 5 minute rant about how gods and devils do not exist and were created by weak people. The movie is also very violent for a mid 60's flick. In one scene we get to see Coffin Joe brake a wine bottle and smash the jagged end into a mans hand, chopping off a few fingers. In another we see a man have a crown of thorns shoved into his face. We also have a head smashed with a fire poker, a head smashed repeatedly into the bathtub causing the bath water to change colors very quick, we also have some violence towards women and a simulated rape. Theres also a lot of creativity going on in this film with the special affects. Coffin Joe obviously didn't have much money to do this thing so he came up with new ideas. To enhance one scene Joe sprinkled glitter onto the actual film causing a zombie to look like he is glowing. Coffin Joe did a sequel to this the following year which in my opinion is just as good if not better then this one. Joe remained a cinematic rebel throughout his career and the censors didn't take it easy on him. Most of his movies would end up extremely cut or just out right banned in his home country. Coffin Joe is someone who must be stumbled upon by anyone who's into the cinema of the weird. So skip church and check out At Midnight Ill Take Your Soul.