By TESS HENSON

Welcome back fright fans, to the sadistic and cruel world of Coffin Joe. Yes, the compelling undertaker is still alive, and just as mean as ever. You would think that after having a close brush with death that Joe might have a change of heart like that other detestable and hate-filled character, Scrooge.

Alas, such is not the case as his survival only solidifies his belief that he is a superior being. In This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967) (a.k.a. This Night I'll Make Your Corpse Incarnate, Tonight I Will Eat Your Corpse, Tonight I Will Enter Your Corpse, Tonight I Will Make Your Corpse Turn Red, Tonight I Will Paint In Flesh Color and Esta Noite Encarnerei no Teu Cadaver), the follow-up to At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, we find that Ze' do Caixao (Coffin Joe) has indeed not had a change of heart at all, and continues to pursue his quest of finding the perfect woman to accept his perfect seed and bear his perfect child.

This film begins exactly where the previous one left off. After his confrontation with death--the only thing that seems to frighten Ze' as he is yet to propagate his superiority and make himself immortal through the blood--the townsfolk find him in the crypt of his best friend and his friend's fiancée--both of whom died as a direct result of Ze's fanaticism. Ze' is worse for the wear as his meet-up and subsequent escape from the invisible grim-reaper has left him severely beaten with some serious eye trauma. He is taken to the local hospital, where he recovers fully, laughing maniacally as the doctor removes the bandages from his eyes and he discovers he hasn't lost his eyesight as the medical experts claimed he might.

The criminal charges brought against him in the first film are quickly dropped, with no real evidence to pin the deaths on Ze'. Ze' returns to the quiet little town he terrorized in the first film, and as he saunters through the streets, the townsfolk rush indoors barring windows and locking doors, for they are still very frightened of the domineering mortician. Ze' scoffs at them, calling them superstitious and imperfect beings.

Ze' returns to the morgue, which also serves as his home, where it seems he has acquired a faithful, hideously disfigured and hunchbacked servant named Bruno. After settling back into his digs, Ze' decides to pay a visit to some of his old haunts in the town. As he strolls through the streets, he spies a group of children playing in the road. It seems the sight of children is the only thing, other than torturing the townspeople, that truly gives Ze' joy. You see, to Ze', children are perfect, unspoiled beings, who act instinctively rather than emotionally, and have not yet become jaded by the everyday worries and trivial matters of adulthood. It is interesting to note, that children are also often very cruel--even to the point of seemingly having no conscience in their actions--much like Ze'.

One begins to understand now why he cherishes children so much. Ze' sees a motorcyclist bearing down quickly on the children, and he jumps in front of the roaring bike just before it hits a child. Ze' would even sacrifice his own life to save that of a child. After he consoles the child, the mother comes to escort the little boy away--with nary so much as a thank you to Ze' for saving his life. The cyclist offers Ze' a hand up, thanking God that he was there to save the child as he had lost control of the bike. He exclaims that Ze' must be an angel sent from heaven. At this comment, Ze's eyebrows raise menacingly and he screams at the man "Why not the devil!" Indeed. The man leaves hastily, and Ze' continues his stroll through town.

At the local inn, an attractive young lady approaches him, telling him that she has heard that he has just saved a child, and that he must indeed be a hero. After she leaves, Ze' begins to reform the idea that he will find a perfect woman, and asks one of the guests who she is. He informs Ze' that her name is Marcia, a rich single lady who has just inherited an estate from a dead relative. And so begins Ze's second reign of terror as, with the help of his trusty manservant Bruno, he abducts Marcia along with five other young lovelies for his experiment in torture to find the one among them perfect enough to take his seed.

After gathering the young ladies at his home, Ze' begins to put them through a gauntlet trial of sorts to test their courage, telling them that they were selected because they are all Godless women with no faith or religious beliefs. As the women are sleeping, Ze' unleashes what looks to be about 100 huge tarantulas into their shared sleeping quarters. The hairy beasties creep and crawl their way up, on, around and over the sleeping lovelies. As they wake up one by one, they scream their fear and disgust at having such huge, nasty looking creatures violating their space. All save one--Marcia. As she wakes up, she calmly looks down and around at the creepy-crawlies with no fear at all, while the other women are screaming like banshees and slapping the eight-legged beasties away from and off of each other.

Ze', peaking through eyeholes cut out in the wall, sees her apparent indifference to the fearsome creatures, and is impressed. He enters the room with Bruno, who helps remove the large spiders from the women, and crosses the room to Marcia's bed. As she sits there calmly, with the spiders crawling over her, he tells her to meet him later that night in his bedroom. She acknowledges, and then helps Bruno pick the spiders almost lovingly off herself and put them in a box.

Ze' takes the other five women to a dungeon-like room and explains to them that their fate is not an altogether bad one. He says he will keep them young and beautiful forever, and save them from having to live a life of mediocrity since none of them are worthy of his perfection. He, in other words, proclaims to be their savior from an otherwise bleak existence. When the woman ask what exactly he means by that, he informs them that he intends to kill them to preserve their beauty and to keep them safe from what he perceives is a horrible life without him. Remembering that he has not yet rewarded Bruno for his faithful service, Ze' tells him that he can claim one of the lovelies as his own. Bruno chooses one and drags her off, much to her chagrin, as Ze' prepares what is to be the death of the other four women.

Bruno returns to the dungeon carrying the women he has chosen in his arms. He lays her out on a slab and tells Ze' that she had begun screaming when he made advances towards her, and that he ever-so-gently put his hands around her neck to silence her. In doing so, he killed her in what was a not-so-gentle stranglehold. The other women weep over the corpse of the dead lovely, then Ze' tells them that through a door on the other side of the room lies a fantastic future for them. At first the women are reluctant to pass through the door, then Ze' reminds them of the other fate they can choose if they refuse--to become another of Bruno's playthings. The women immediately decide to try what's on the other side of the door. It is a pit of sorts, and as Ze' locks them in, he looses a horde of snakes into the pit with them and then goes off to meet Marcia in his bedchamber.

Marcia seems more than willing to become Ze's concubine as she does not hesitate to accept his advances. As Ze' becomes more excited at the prospect of perhaps finding the perfect woman, he opens a panel in the floor of his bedchamber which looks down into the pit where the women are being terrorized by the snakes. One of the ladies pronounces that she will lay a curse upon him, and that her ghost will come back to haunt him and possess his corpse. He scoffs at her, then proceeds to make love to Marcia to the cacophony of the women's death screams. At first it seems Marcia is not bothered by the painful screams of the women below her, then suddenly she rebukes Ze', telling him that she cannot endure the cruelty any longer.

He draws back quickly, disappointed that she is flawed after all. Marcia asks him how he will kill her, and in an astonishing turn, he tells her that she is free to go. She asks why, and he tells her that she was the only one to show courage, and that he also saw love for him in her eyes and that he knows that she will not tell any of the authorities about the deaths of the women because of this. He also informs her that it was sad to see love in her eyes, and if not for that flaw, she would have been the perfect women to bear his seed. Marcia leaves quickly before Ze' can change his mind.

The next day, after finding that five ladies have disappeared, the townsfolk accost and confront the undertaker. Even though we as viewers know he is responsible for the deaths of the women, we can't help but find logic in his argument. He asks the villagers why he is always the first target of guilt when things go wrong in the town. "Is it because I am different?", he asks. "Is it because my beliefs are different than yours?". Anyone who has been wrongly persecuted because they look, act or have differing beliefs than the perceived norm can rally behind Ze's statements.

One can't help but think of the children responsible for the Columbine shootings, who were singled out and ridiculed by their classmates for wearing black clothes, among other things that weren't perceived as the norm by their peers. There is also the case of the West Memphis Three, which involves three young men who were convicted of murder as teens in their small Arkansas town in the early 90's. These three young men are now sitting on death row for a crime which held no solid evidence that they even committed it. The evidence was circumstantial, and they were singled out as the probable perpetrators just because they wore black clothes, listened to heavy metal music, loved horror movies and practiced the religion of Wicca. But I digress--back to Ze'.

As usual there is no solid evidence to link Ze' to the disappearance of the women, and Marcia does not give Ze' up--much as he predicted--when questioned about the women as some of them were her acquaintances. Ze' goes to the local tavern, hoping to find someone to drink with him. When no one will, he saunters back towards home. As he walks the streets, he notices a carriage carrying a lovely young woman enter the town. Townsfolk are waiting to greet her, as she is the daughter of one of the town's dignitaries returning home from school. Ze' approaches the carriage to get a better look, but is blocked from further advances by Truncador--the town's strongman. As the man is much larger than Ze', there is no way he can win in a fistfight.

Ze' spots an old man with a cane, and quickly whisks the cane away from him. He then whips the cane around Truncador's neck, and with the extra strength from the torque of the cane, Ze' succeeds in dropping the big man to the ground. Again, Ze' proves his superiority over a much larger adversary. Ze' walks up to the carriage, makes eye contact with the young woman--whose name is Laura--and tips his hat to her smile as he walks away. Laura then asks her companions who the man is, and they respond that they don't know, but that her father doesn't like him. As Ze' walks away he overhears the townsfolk talking about a party that's to be thrown in her honor later that night.

Ze' shows up unannounced and uninvited to Laura's party and spies her in the middle of the crowd playing the piano. He slips up behind her and whispers in her ear to meet him at midnight at the path of the red flowers. She agrees, and later that night slips away for the rendezvous. At midnight, she finds Ze' waiting for her, and he immediately sets out to find what her beliefs are. She tells him that she only believes in him, and that he is a perfect being. He is amazed at her answers and believes that he has truly found the perfect woman. She moves in with Ze', and he begins attempting to propagate his bloodline with her.

Laura's family hear of that fact that she has moved in with Ze', and rebel against the idea. They offer Ze' a large amount of money to leave her alone. Ze' deceitfully accepts the money, and sets up a time for Laura's brother to deliver it. When Laura's brother shows up at Ze's place, he and Bruno accost him, take the money, and tie him to a slab. Hanging above him is another large stone which Ze' instructs Bruno to let loose, crushing his head. But before Ze' kills Laura's brother, he exclaims: "If you go to heaven, tell the angels hello. But if you end up in hell--give the Devil my address!".

Marcia, still under the spell of Ze', becomes a foil in his plan to assure his innocence in the abduction and murder of the women. She lures strongman Truncador to her bedchamber and teases him by telling him that she wants him. He reciprocates, but before things can go far, Marcia tells him that she is used to fine things--money, jewelry, clothing--and Truncador swears to her that he'll get the money they need to live the big life. Marcia decides to pour them a drink to celebrate their union, but the bottle is empty, so she asks him to go to the inn to fetch another. While he is there, Bruno shuffles through the bar, announcing that Ze' is wanting to play poker and anyone is invited. Truncador, thinking that this is a way to get some quick cash, takes him up on the offer and agrees to meet Ze' in an hour at the inn.

As in the first film, luck is on the side of Ze', and he quickly wins all Truncador's money. At the end of the game he tells Truncador that he hopes he will get his money soon, and Truncador stomps out calling him "demon" and saying that indeed he will get the money. Suddenly, a scream is heard, and when the townsfolk run out into the night to investigate, they find Truncador lying next to the dead body of Laura's brother, and the briefcase full of money offered to Ze' close by. Ze' and Bruno have made it look like Truncador has murdered Laura's brother for the money, and he is arrested and jailed. Marcia also tells the authorities that she believes Truncador may be the perpetrator in the disappearance of the other women, as he was making unwanted advances toward her. However, Laura's father does not believe Truncador committed the crimes and springs him from jail, asking him to round up the best gunfighters in the town as he wants Ze' dead for messing about with his daughter.

In his joy of finding a scapegoat for the murders he has committed, Ze' frequents the local inn hoping to find someone to drink with him. He finds the husband of one of the women he abducted, and as the man becomes more and more inebriated he reveals to Ze' that she was pregnant. A look of shock and horror spreads across Ze's face as he realizes that not only did he kill women, but a child as well. He rushes home to Laura to confess his transgression, but she is more than a match for him, assuring him that the fetus was imperfect because it did not spring from his seed. Ze' wrestles with the fact that he killed what he perceives as a pure and perfect being, and in an unaccustomed turn actually shows regret for his actions.

Later that night, Ze' has a bizarre dream in which he has gone to hell for his transgressions where he witnesses all sorts of tortures perpetrated upon the unfortunate denizens. As he approaches the Devil's throne--he sees that it is actually himself seated there and he is jarred awake as he screams his disbelief.

A week or so later, Laura announces that she is pregnant, and in a joyous moment one can see a rare kindness in Ze' as he embraces Laura lovingly. Alas, all will not go well for Laura, as a few days later she is experiencing some complications. The doctor informs Ze' that only one can be saved--Laura or the baby. As expected, Ze' chooses the baby's life over Laura's, as does she. However, Laura and the baby die before it can be delivered--much to Ze's chagrin.

This sets off another of Ze's rants against God and the Devil as he wanders the streets and outskirts of the tiny village one night. He shouts up at the heavens that he is the savior of all mankind, and that religion is just a falsity made up by men to deal with their fear of death. He proclaims that man is the only true leader on earth, and that he is the most perfect of all men and will therefore bring about the downfall of the belief in anything religious and spiritual.

A priest finds Ze' raving in a swamp and begs him to embrace God as his savior before the mob that Laura's father has hired to hunt and kill him finds him. Again, Ze' scoffs at the priests beliefs, and as the mob gathers round him, they witness the decomposed bodies of the women he has murdered surfacing in the water. Ze' suddenly sees the ghost of the pregnant women he murdered--which was also the one who placed the curse on him--and she admonishes him that she will surely possess his corpse at midnight. He flails about in the corpse-ridden water and shouts more blasphemy until he finally succumbs and dies in the cold swamp, surrounded by the dead bodies of his victims. And so it goes for Coffin Joe.

One can rarely, in this day and age, find a horror film that is as intelligent and compelling as this one. Yes, there are movies that deal with religious horror, but not many that feature the bad guy as hero. Is Coffin Joe a hero? Some would definitely agree that his arguments are logical, and his rare moments of kindness divine. In short, one can't help but like him despite his cruelty and sadism. He represents the character who acts out like we desire to in some instances, but are restrained by civility, guilt or fear of imprisonment. Maybe anti-hero would be a better description, or indeed anti-Christ, as his beliefs in man as a supreme being border on Satanism. At any rate, people who are fans of Coffin Joe embrace him unconditionally. His character is multi-layered, dense and paradoxical, and one cannot find a more compelling figure in world cinema than Ze' do Caixao.

Again, this film was made on a shoestring budget, and in an ironic turn given the subject matter, most of it was filmed in an old synagogue. Jose' Mojica Marins, director and creator of Coffin Joe, pulled together a follow-up that was much more polished and sported a more coherent plot than his first offering. In "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul", it is not apparent until about midway thought the film what Ze's mission is. In This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse we know right from the start that Ze's main concern is the continuation of his blood. Although the budget was tight, Marins succeeded once again in giving us phantasmagorical imagery in stark black and white, and in psychotronic, nearly day-glow colors.

The monochrome scenes in the film are minimally beautiful and atmospheric, and the color Hell sequence may be among the most bizarre frames ever put to celluloid. Marins has stated that his image of hell is very different than anyone else’s. How true. In his hell, it snows and is freezing all of the time. When Hell Freezes Over it would seem, and it does in Marin's version.

It's also colorful, and I couldn't help but think of Mario Bava's great work when spying the eerie green, blue and red hues of hell. The actors in the scenes were in various states of undress--both men and women, and even though there were separate shower and bathroom facilities on set, they were all so used to being naked together that they just eventually started showering together and using the same bathroom. Also, in an interesting note, Marin's stated that they used popcorn for the snow. It works beautifully!

Marins was also not above employing some rather unconventional means of getting the performances he wanted out of his actors. This was touched upon in my previous article. In This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, he would set bombs off on the set, and shoot guns to get the startled reactions he wanted. When an actress was not screaming to his liking, he would twist her fingers painfully with a pair of pincers to induce real pain. One of the actresses nearly succumbed when one of the snakes wrapped itself around her throat and began choking her. The crew just thought she was acting, and didn't realize until it was almost too late that she was in real danger. However, all this snafu makes for a landmark in world cinema, and it's hard to believe there aren't bazillion South American directors out there claiming Marins as inspiration. In short, there should be.

My source for this article is the second disc in the exceptional Coffin Joe Trilogy box set, which also includes his previous film At Midnight I'll Take You Soul and Awakening Of The Beast. The print has been cleaned up and the black and white sequences are sharp and lush with the color segments resplendent. The sound has been remastered, but there are still some pops and squeaks. I think this only lends to the character of the film tough, rather than detracting from it.

It is significant to mention that Marins also made use of ambient sounds, and there really isn't any soundtrack music per say--with the exception of the little music box Ze' whips out on occasion--but the film is filled with cacophonous sounds of screams, moans and other surreal and atmospheric noises, so much so that a soundtrack is hardly missed. This DVD sports a new digital widescreen transfer in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio, and was struck from the original 35mm negative. It also features trailers for the Coffin Joe Trilogy, a short but informative interview with director Jose Mojica Marins and a very cool reproduction of an original Coffin Joe comic book.