Monday

In last night's October-Fest movie, José Mojica Marins plays Zé du Caixão (Coffin Joe) in the character's harrowing debut feature At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964).* In a modern (sixties) Brazilian town the local caretaker is a monstrous boogeyman who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal of producing a son. The movie begins with Zé directly confronting the viewer with his evil philosophy: immortality through a continuing bloodline is life's only goal. After spooky credits lit by lightening and punctuated by the cackles of the insane, a skull-bearing witch tells the audience to go home, merely watching Zé will leave the viewer damned. Wearing a top hat, black suit, and little half-cape, Zé stalks the streets by day and night, delighting in his sadistic rampage and keeping the frightened populace cowering in his black shadow. Fearing his barren wife is an obstacle between him and his best friend's fertile fiancé, Zé ties her up and kills her with spiders. But what if the friend and fiancé are obstacles, too? Nothing will stand in his way. In this skin-crawling switcheroo, Zé is an evil atheist, cackling over his Good Friday feast of forbidden meat and laughing in the pious faces of those who pray for his moral comeuppance. Through the rest of the film, Zé pursues a pitched course to harm nearly everyone. But the local Day of he Dead approaches! Mojica Marins wrote, directed and starred in this wicked little classic that propelled the Undertaker Zé into Brazilian consciousness in much the way Dracula inhabits ours. In the movie, he is wearing his own clothes, hat, and long, curly thumbnails. He has since played Coffin Joe in numerous movies, television and radio shows, and the character has been featured in books, comic books, and advertising. [Cavin]