At Midnight, I'll Take Your Soul

Director: Jose Mojica Marins Jose Mojica Marins

Overview

At Midnight, I'll Take Your Soul, is a low-budget, horror film directed by and starring Jose Mojica Marins, Brazil's best-known director of "splatter" films. This, the first in a series about strange character "Coffin Joe," features gravedigger Coffin Joe, or Zedo Caixao, (Jose Mijica Marins) seeking a mother for his child. Filmed in black-and-white, and on a miniscule budget, this bloody, murky film was followed by a sequel, O Estranho Mundo de Ze do Caixao, also released as The Strange World of Ze do Caixao. This series of gory, slasher films has some following among lovers of the genre, but little that will appeal to a general audience.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/31/2017
UPC:	0654930319192
Original Release:	1964
Rating:	NR
Source:	Synapse Films
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:22:00
Sales rank:	47,477

Special Features

35mm negative scan supervised by Director Jose Mojica Marins; The Making of Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (10 Mins); Jose Mojica Marins discusses his short film, Reino Sangrento (1952) (9 mins); Interview with Jose Mojica Marins (6 mins); New scene filmed in 2002; Introduction to the film by Coffin Joe; Original theatrical trailer and rare promotional trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jose Mojica Marins	Coffin Joe
Magda Mei	Terezinha
Nivaldo Lima	Antonio
Valeria Vasquez	Lenita
Ilidio Martins Simoes	Dr. Rodolfo

Technical Credits

Jose Mojica Marins	Director
Ilidio Martins Simoes	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Bearing all the defining characteristics of a traditional horror film, including the trademarked darkened cemeteries and ominously cloaked object of dread, Jose Mojica Marin's At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is more a character study in unabashed nihilism than your typical graveyard scare-fest. Scraping together funding through whatever means necessary (including generous loans from his mother and father, who appear in cameos), working against the odds of having a full crew or any notable locations in which to shot, and procuring a limited and ever-dwindling supply of film-stock, Marin's film remains a remarkable exercise in resourceful filmmaking even before considering that something of such audacity and with such blatant disregard for conventional morals had been attempted at the time it was made. Marin's blasphemous anti-hero Ze do Caixao (translated: Coffin Joe) disregards his fellow villager's religious convictions with hedonistic abandon, laughing in the face of deep-rooted virtues after returning numbed from the Godless horrors of WWII. Coffin Joe's Nietzsche-esque rants and threatening tirades alienate him from the other citizens of his small village who live in constant fear that they will be the next to fall victim to the man who has no beliefs. As much as the film revels in the sacrilegious exploits of its title character, it ultimately serves as a cautionary tale in the vein of a hybrid The Twilight Zone/Tales From the Crypt.