The Warriors (1979), directed by Walter Hill

not quite a full return, but I said I wouldn't just drop this thing didn't I?

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Stranded in the Jungle", by New York Dolls

     Do I tend to watch movies that fall under the ‘cult’ banner intentionally, in order to create a sort of reputation for myself? I don’t think so, or rather I choose movies to write entries based on whether they appear interesting or not, and the movies that most often catch my interest are those that tend to fall outside normal radar channels. Have I become that which is most feared in man’s world, the dreaded hipster? I don’t hate movies that are mainstream, whatever that may entail, but I know what I like and what I don’t like. I also don’t pretend to hold any great knowledge of much of anything, taking a few film classes doesn’t make you a film scholar after all, but I feel that by watching different styles and genres help to gain some sort of knowledge. Experience in the field, you know?

     Who am I defending myself against? I’m too insignificant to be hated, at least as far as I know.

     One of the biggest cult films that I had never seen (popular enough to get it’s video game at least, in the PS2 era), was The Warriors. Based on a novel by Sol Yurick, the name refers to our protagonists the Warriors, a gang of street toughs that dress like the nerdy end of the Hells Angels and operate in a distinctly empty Coney Island. The title is apparently also supposed to reference the infamous Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartan soldiers faced the Persian forces of King Xerxes, laid out for us in literal storybook form at the beginning of the film. Which is confusing, because the plot of The Warriors isn’t really that similar to that situation at all, which may potentially be spoilers, I don’t even know anymore. If anything, it much more closely resembles the Odyssey, but even that is somewhat of a stretch. Any time you start off your film by basically putting up a sign saying “THIS IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO, REMEMBER THIS?”, it seems a bit sketchy. If it is a B-movie, is it more appropriate for it not to make sense, or is it still stupid because all films are judged on particular guidelines? These are kind of questions that are raised while watching this movie, or maybe just me watching this movie, I’m not sure.

     The Warriors, known exclusively through the nine members Swan (Michael Beck), Ajax, Cleon, Snow, Cochise, Cowboy, Fox,Vermin, and Rembrandt, are invited to a gathering of all the street gangs in New York City. Said gathering has been organized by Cyrus, the prophet-like leader of the Riffs, the A-grade gang in town. In one of the two (that I know of) iconic scenes in the film, Cyrus addresses the assembled committee of various vagabonds, riffraff and scoundrels. His message is an interesting one: In terms of sheer numbers, the total population of all the major street gangs gathered there outnumber both the Mob and the NYPD combined. If, by chance, all of those aforementioned gangs were to join forces rather than engage in the petty territorial squabbles that they had been locked up in for so long, what could they accomplish? Perhaps they could take over the entire city, and no cop or mafia thug would be able to stop them. CAN YOU DIG IT?!

     Tragedy strikes, however, when Cyrus is shot and killed at the apex of his speech (the meeting was being conducted during an unarmed truce, you see), by Luther (a very Spicoli-esque David Patrick Kelly), leader of the leather-jacket clad Rogues. As you might have guessed, Luther claims that Cyrus was murdered by the Warriors, and in the aftermath there’s no way for the group to prove their innocence. The new leader of the Riffs puts out the order, he wants the Warriors brought to him dead or alive, and all the gangs of NYC have answered to his call. It’s now a mad dash back home to Coney Island for the Warriors, avoiding cops, thugs, jezebels and all sorts of city-based obstacles along the way. You’ll thrill at the intense chase scene, and be driven to the edge of your seat by the pulse-pounding other chase scene! If ever there ever a film there was that really pushed the limits of how many times you could see the main characters run around like Mystery Inc. in a particularly spooky haunted house, this would be it.

     Also they pick up a prostitute along the way, because you can’t have a movie without a romantic subplot, and New York is packed with whores. Packed.

     To be honest, this is not what I would call a good movie. For example:

•      The Gangs: It is appropriate that scene transitions in this film are marked by shifting into a comic book style (so it’s like you’re moving to the next panel, or the next page), given the fact that every single gang in The Warriors look like rejected henchmen from a Silver Age rogues gallery. Which is not a bad idea in and of itself, because seeing weirdos in facepaint dressed like the ‘29 Yankees get into street fights sounds stupid enough to be fun, but you hardly ever get to actually see these strange guys actually do anything. So what’s even the point of having them in the first place, or to have them seem so outlandish? Purely for visuals? Lame. 

• Acting: I don’t know what it is about putting some people in front of a camera that paralyzes their facial muscles while simultaneously removing all traces of inflection in their voice, but man is it ever present in this film. I know that due to budget constraints I shouldn’t really expect DeNiro levels of performance, but can anyone actually behave like a human being in this film without devolving into a cardboard cutout? Which sort of ties into my next point… 

• Characterization: As it turns out, trying to split the focus over nine ways tends to subvert attempts at character development. All of our titular Warriors are two-dimensional at best, if they even get the screen time to actually interact with each other, which makes me wonder why there needed to be so many in the first place. Swan is an untalkative stoic at the beginning of the film and doesn’t get a hint of an arc throughout the film, the same with Luther as the often seen and overdone ‘unrepentant psychopath’ archetype. These guys are all members of street gangs anyway, who am I supposed to sympathize with? The Warriors? Leaving aside the fact that one of their numbers is a bigot and an attempted rapist (he gets a large amount of dialogue as well, as if you couldn’t guess), none of the Warriors feel real. That goes for the rest of them as well. 

• Action: It’s the one thing you would expect to see in a film called “The Warriors” that’s filled with gangs, but you would be sorely disappointed, because this film is very much geared towards the ‘running the fuck away’ crowd rather than the ‘punching’ crowd. I understand what they were trying go for; the Warriors are but nine men, unarmed and under constant threat of attack, so it makes sense for them to want to avoid confrontations. That’s what they intended, but all I really felt was a profound sense of boredom. Running away in Doctor Who works because I know that it’s leading up to the Doctor pulling some pseudo-scientific thing out of his ass to win, but in The Warriors there’s no payoff. Besides, if I don’t feel anything for the characters, because the film failed in giving them engaging personalities or reasons to feel sympathy for them, why should I care? I don’t. 

• The last major point involves plot-holes, and since I try to avoid spoilers in these entries/musings, I don’t want to go much further than that. Trust me when I say that this is not the watertight script you might think it is. A subtle dig at the inherent ridiculousness of comic books? I doubt it. 

     Sometimes a movie is cult not because it’s a hidden gem, but that it is so bad that you can’t help but enjoy it. The Warriors would definitely fall into that category, but it’s the inaction that keeps it from making that leap. Check out the Cyrus speech and the Warriors chant, and you’ll get the two things about this movie that anyone remembers. Just trying to save you some time.

Result: Not Recommended

Coonskin (1975), directed by Ralph Bakshi

Moving away from hyper-violent kung-fu, movies, we're dipping into the crazy world of independent cartoons. Strap yourselves into your metaphorical chairs ladies and non-ladies.

Trailer
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Appropriate Tune: "Ghost Riders In The Sky", by Scatman Crothers

     Beginning an entry is always the hardest part of the whole thing. At first, I had hoped that over time the process of writing would become easier, words and ideas would flow much more readily, or at least smoothly. It hasn’t, I guess because in the end I’m never not going to think of myself as a useless fucking loser, so every time I see a completed entry all I’ll see is stunted, ugly horseshit. It was bad enough to chase away my few Russian readers, even though I was so happy to find out that citizens of a country I was so fascinated by were reading my puny, stupid blog. I’ve already been told that I’m expecting too much too quickly, and I admit that I am, but it’s little consolation to a man who needs to know someone gives a damn about whether he’s alive or dead. Yeah, it’s fucking stupid, who would have ever guessed?

     I have a great deal of respect for Ralph Bakshi taking animation and treating it as legitimate method of serious filmmaking, rather than the standard Disney spectacle. Despite that respect, I can’t say I’ve had a great track record with his films that I’ve seen. Fritz the Cat, the first animated movie to get an X-rating, looks great for an independent film and sounds it like it should be good but my interest in watching it always peters out around 25 minutes. American Pop is likewise an interesting premise, one that I actually got hyped for reading the little blurb that comes on internet videos nowadays, not to mention an impressive design, but overall I was disappointed in how the music was used and how it was presented in the movie (how Bob Seeger, a man whose creative peak was in the 1970s, the voice of the 1980s is beyond me). I also own The Lord of the Rings on VHS, Bakshi’s interpretation of the Tolkien fantasy epic, but I don’t really remember anything about it. I think there were dwarves and wizards in it, but don’t take my word for it.

     So with that sterling run of “interesting premise, interesting animation, poor execution”, the next logical step would obviously be to watch yet another Bakshi movie? I’ve heard good things about the post-Fritz movies he put out in the mid 70s, so I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. This time around, it’s Coonskin, released in 1975 and Bakshi’s third ever feature-length film. And we ain’t talking about raccoons or Daniel Boone this time around kiddies.

     How do I fucking write this entry? The story begins as all stories do I guess, which is vaguely. Randy (Philip Thomas), a young black man, has been imprisoned for a charge we never learn, but presumably has something to do with the melanin content of his skin. Randy, along with fellow inmate/escapee Pappy (Scat Man Crothers), manage to sneak out to the outside wall of the prison, just close enough that the guards are unable to see them as they make their rounds. The plan is to wait until night as the guards are asleep, when Randy’s friends Samson (motherfucking Barry White y’all) and the Preacher (Charles Gordone) drive up to the prison at top speed in a bad ass car, Randy and Pappy climb in, and they’re home free. When Samson and the Preacher get held up by a roadblock and take much longer than the plan called for, Randy begins to get anxious, he’s focused on getting out of prison so much that he’s ready to just run for it, which would surely mean his death to the high-powered weaponry of the guards. To distract the agitated youth from the absence of his friends, Pappy decides to tell a story of three friends, much like Randy, Samson, and the Preacher. Their names: Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox.

     In terms of framing devices, Coonskin’s is passable if a bit vague, but the main selling point of the film is the animated portion. The story of Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox, a rags-to-riches style tale in the organized crime racket of hrlem, is done in traditional hand-drawn animation overlaid over live footage and still photography. A weird effect, probably one of the only times I’ll ever connect a movie to Pete’s Dragon, but it’s done in a way that actually gives a sense of reality to a story about anthropomorphic animals killing cops. Which seems to be a regular theme in Bakshi movies, utilizing the relative freedom of animation to show and create bizarre situations, while still keeping a sense of realism when it comes to characters and character interactions. It does get weird at times, as his films tend to do, but all the breaks seem to be either as perhaps a literal example of Pappy’s aggrandized storytelling or to illustrate Bakshi’s grander message for this film. Even when it gets weird or ‘cartoony’ though, they feel as if they have lives and goals outside of what we see in the film. Which is usual the sign of well-written characters, or at least it is to some dumb asshole like me.

     I mentioned that when referring to the title Coonskin that I wasn’t referring to raccoons or Daniel Boone, and I meant it. This might be the most openly provocative movie that I have seen in a while, and I have a fondness for Troma films, which strives to place naked breasts in every movie they make or distribute. The film hits you with it right at the start, with Scat Man Crothers, voice of the lovable characters such as Hong Kong Phooey and the Autobot Jazz, singing a song called “Ah’m a Nigger Man”. A song written by Ralph Bakshi himself, who is very much not black or African at all. Perhaps it’s because I am product of the tail-end of the 20th century, and so for me such direct racial imagery has been relegated to the horrible jokes of the distinctly southern minded people I have known in my life and the comments of any and all youtube video comments, that I was more affected by it than the audience in 1975 might have been. Scat Man puts on a fine performance though, so it’s all good.

     Coonskin is also the source for some of the most offensive visual caricatures of african-americans since the days of the minstrel show. Even though most of the of film’s characters are pretty offensive to look at, some downright gruesome (homosexuals and transvestites get it bad), none of those others tend to be as grossly stereotypical as those portraying black people. And in this case they really are black people, pitch black spindly fuckers with giant red lips, looking like someone decided to dip the Slenderman in tar or some shit. Occasionally they’re represented by animals, in the case of our protagonists, and the women look like someone glued a megaphone to their face. In general, utterly alien to what we think a human should look like, which is actually what I think Bakshi’s intention might have been all along. That there was still a great divide in the perceptions of black culture around that time, those past remnants of minstrel shows and lynchings and monkey jokes, that blacks and whites had to view themselves as wholly different and foreign to each other. I wouldn’t say that this is a film that celebrates the ‘black experience’ either, as it doesn’t try to glorify the crippling despair, poverty and racism that was/is present in Harlem and the South at the time, instead showing folks just surviving, through their wits or friendship or what have you. Which makes it more representative of the ‘black experience’ then whoever the fuck does that in their films, I suppose. Tyler Perry, maybe.

     There’s a sort of running gag in the movie where a disheveled, tiny black man is attempting to get with Miss America, a blond-haired, big breasted white woman dressed completely in red, white and blue, only to be tricked and brutally rebuffed every time. The intent of the scene is pretty on the nose, but I think the power of it lies in the fact that you see it happen, and it you get that visceral physical reaction to it happening. I think it’s the power of animation that allows us convey these messages in ways that can be be more direct, and yet because of the inherent expressionism of the genre doesn’t lose any of its artistic merit. It works for me, essentially, and if a film works for you then it has succeeded as a film.

     If you ever wanted to see the sleek, 70’s response to Song of the South, then you’ve stopped at the right place. If you’re interested in non-Disney Western animation, Ralph Bakshi is going to be the second name you’re likely going to hear after Don Bluth, this is going to be one of his works that you’re going to directed towards. It’s more than something colorful to look at, and it lends itself to analysis and introspection, so give it a watch if you like to do that sort of stuff. Then watch Mighty Mouse, because who doesn’t love Mighty Mouse?

     Nobody. I just answered my own question there. Nobody.

Result: Recommended

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), directed by Lam Nai Choi

I watched this movie instead of Crocodile Dundee 2. Don't ask.

Trailer

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Appropriate Tune: "Prison Song #1", by System Of A Down

     “By 2001 A.D., capitalistic countries have privatized all government organizations. Prisons, like car parks, have become franchised businesses.”

     Quite a dystopian way to begin a movie, wouldn't you say?

     Ricky Ho Lik Wong (Fan Siu-Wong), 21 years old, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for manslaughter. We know little about him at first (because that’s how movies work) except that he is an orphan, a former music student, and mysteriously disappeared for two years prior to his arrest. A x-ray scan indicates that he he has six bullets lodged within his chest that he has refused to remove for some reason. Ricky is clearly an (androgynous) man of many mysteries, and also what looks like a slight uni-brow. We don’t judge.

     The prison, as can be gathered from the intro, is a horrible place, more a encampment for slaves than an institution for rehabilitation. It’s run by the equally-as-mysterious-as-Ricky-if-not-more-so Warden and his vice-warden Dan, a sadistic, snobbish, one-eyed, hook-handed bastard with a fondness for general dickery. Their rule is maintained by the Gang of Four, prisoners who are leaders of the four wings of the prison. There’s Oscar, the tattooed leader of the North Wing, Brandon the blond, needle throwing leader of the South, Tarzan, the burly leader of the East, and Rogan (Yukari Oshima), the leader of the West, overall leader of the Go4, and the most androgynous man in the film. For the (relatively) innocent prisoners, horrible death is commonplace, and misery is omnipresent. If only, they surely think, there were some kind of super badass martial artist around who wasn't a total dick. They could totally take out those 4 assholes and two superior assholes, and prison could be fun and exciting again! Except for the shower rape, of course.

     As it turns out, Ricky is a super badass martial artist, and he’s not a dick at all. With a mastery of the secret/ancient art of Qidong and a hatred for injustice so intense that the average superhero feels inadequate by comparison, Ricky is one man against an army of truncheons and guns and fists. The army better start writing up their wills, if you know what I'm sayin'...

     So ‘the lone martial artist fighting against injustice’ is not what you may call a unique plotline, seeing as it and ‘lone martial artist seeks revenge for the death of master/loved one’ comprise 90% of all martial arts film plots, so what is it that sets Riki-Oh apart from its peers? Gore. Riki-Oh is easily the most over-the-top violent martial arts movie that I have ever seen, and the extent to which these special effects are utilized remind me more of The Evil Dead or Re-Animator than Return of the Dragon or The Drunken Master. People don’t just get punched in the head, skulls are pounded in from the sheer impact of the fist, blades don’t just cut, they rip through flesh like a hot katana through butter, etc. Almost every single fight, hell, even physical interactions between characters is a explosion of blood and viscera just waiting to happen, and often does. Which sounds like it would get old, but Riki-Oh springs it on you in such unexpected ways, at the same building and building up the excess that you end up looking forward to how exactly folks are gonna get jacked up every time.

     It’s fun for the whole family.

     The excessive violence is obviously a part of what makes this film popular, but the part that drives it home is how stupid it is. Not bad stupid, of course, but pure undiluted camp, that lovely feeling that comes with people doing ridiculous things without a trace of self-awareness or irony. It’s what helps the violence turn from unsettling to hilariously cartoonish, because it’s being done by people who don’t see the question of physics that arise with a small Asian man that can karate chop human limbs off. Character development either doesn't exist or come out of nowhere, which doesn't really matter because the characters are so bizarre and exaggerated that it wouldn't really help things at all. Ricky’s backstory, which are presented in flashbacks, are such a model example of stupid things done seriously that it boggles the mind. The origin of the bullets in Ricky’s chest, which is given in the later half of the film, literally left me speechless in how ludicrously it was shown to us in the film. Eraserhead gave me a similar feeling of being unable to wrap my head around what I was seeing, but in that case it is intentionally being presented in a surrealist manner. Whereas here it was more like walking down the street and passing a woman who was walking a poodle, and that poodle was wearing trousers. No context, no warning, just a dog wearing pants for a split second and then it’s gone. That’s the easiest explanation I can come up with, which explains why I don’t explain things that often. Explain explain explain.

     Perhaps all this campy violence can be justified by mentioning that this is in fact a comic book movie, or a manga movie for all you Japanophiles out there. Yes, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky is based on a manga by the name of Riki-Oh, created by Saruwatari Tetsuya and Masahiko Takajo and published by Shueisha in the late 80s. Although perhaps excessive by modern standards, comics about ridiculously overpowered fighters killing random bastards by the truckload in a hyper-violent fashion was actually a market in that time. Buronson’s Fist of the North Star, Hagiwara’s Bastard!!, everything about the actual story could be bonkers, as long as you had some badass fight scenes and graphic death scenes. Which I guess makes Riki-Oh accurate to the tone of the original manga, but it means that you have human beings playing crazy characters that were likely even more crazy on paper, with storylines that were likely built up for months being condensed within a 90 minute film. Which is not an uncommon thing for comic book movies, most notably previous Thunderbird entry The Crow, but is the very same reason why it’s very hard to see a good comic book movie. The Crow is, like Riki-Oh, a comic book movie that tries serious and ends up camp, but as well as from the flaws I mentioned in that entry, the direction is skewed far too much in the boring lost love subplot, and less on the crazy atmosphere and action, that it ends up evening out to a C-grade at best. Riki-Oh is an almost nonsensical train wreck that wraps right around to success, and the eventual romantic doesn't distract from the fact that you’re seeing guys getting their eyeballs knocked out of their sockets. It’s a schizophrenic gumbo that you can’t help yourself from eating, even though your brain can’t make sense of it at all.

     Yeah, I enjoyed it. If you love gore hound effects, cheesy action, grab some beer and a couple friends and spend a Friday evening with this film, and you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t have any friends, for whatever reason, you still might like this movie, but it sounds like you are probably more suited towards The Crow and leather pants. Also the music of the Smiths.

     Morrissey knows your pain, middle-class white people. Morrissey knows your pain.

Result: Recommended

Branded to Kill/Koroshi No Rakuin (1967), directed by Seijun Suzuki

This entry was inspired by me playing the game Killer7, a game made by Suda51 for the Nintendo Gamecube. Check it out if you feel like it.

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Fashion Killa", by A$AP ROCKY

     At Haneda Airport, Goro Hanada (Joe Shishido) and his wife Mami are picked up in a cab. The driver of the cab is Kasuga, formerly one of the top 10 killers in Japan, now a disgrace and a drunk. Kasuga implores Hanada (the No. 3 killer) to help him on a particularly important job in order to restore his shattered reputation: for five million yen, ensure the safe transportation of a prominent member of the yakuza from Nagano to Sagami Beach. Out of money at the time, Hanada accepts. A simple job, and one that should be easy for one of the best assassins in the game.

     As simple as things begin, they quickly take a turn for the bizarre when Hanada meets the strange yet alluring Misako (Annu Mari). A killer must not indulge in alcohol or women, he must have no weaknesses, know neither love nor loneliness...But what happens if he does fall in love? What will it drive him to do? What happens when the No. 3 killer in Japan has to go up against No. 1, the assassin so good that no one even knows what he looks like? Nothing good for Hanada, but certainly interesting for an audience. Japanese or otherwise.

     What does it take to be a pro killer? Often we hear stories about people who return from combat who are unable to cope with the trauma, how they end up in therapy, or the streets, or dead by their own hand. What about those who didn’t? What does a person do to themselves in order to kill another person? At that moment, do they cease to think of themselves as human? We humans kill animals and plants with ease because we consider them not on our level, perhaps that we are superior. In that fashion, does a killer disconnect from his humanity in order to kill, or does he in fact place himself above humans as we do deer and cows? If certain people have the ability to kill, what is about the No.1 killer that makes him No. 1? This struggle between humanity and inhumanity, particularly in the case of Goro Hanada, seems to be one of the central themes of the film. Perhaps even the main theme.

     Wikipedia states that this is considered by some to be an ‘absurdist masterpiece’, and that it influenced John Woo and Jim Jarmusch. Absurd in this case doesn’t mean silly, but is rather a philosophy similar to that of Friedrich Nietzsche's nihilism. Unlike nihilism, which emphasizes the lack of any inherent meaning in life (nihilists don’t believe in anything, as Walter Sobchak so eloquently stated in The Big Lebowski), absurdism emphasizes the inability of man to find said meaning whether it actually exists or not, so there’s no point in trying to do so. The works of Albert Camus are considered absurdist fiction, for example.

     So is Branded to Kill absurdist? I believe so. That’s not to say that the film is illogical, that characters do things for no reason, because you can see the basic cause-and-effect. But in a way, all we really see is the cause and effect. Why people behave the way they do, for what reason do killers kill, what those victims did that warranted killing, is never touched upon. It’s frustrating perhaps, because as an audience we naturally place ourselves within Hanada’s shoes, but Hanada quickly becomes as lost and confused as we ourselves feel. Beyond his basic carnal desire however, I don’t believe we understand Hanada either. Was Seijun’s intent in this film to make this world of yakuza and hitmen familiar yet ultimately foreign to our own, assumedly normal, perceptions? Quite possibly. It was criticized by Japanese film studios that it ‘made no money and made no sense’ after all, so that doesn’t seem to far off the mark.

     Knowing that this film inspired Jim Jarmusch makes me understand him a bit better, but I still don’t care for Coffee & Cigarettes. Not enough gunfights, I guess. Check out Branded to Kill though: it’s part drama, part action, part thriller, with a soundtrack that sounds like it comes from Thelonious Monk scoring a silent movie and a place in Japanese cinema history. Plus it’s a movie that really puts you in a thinking sort of mood, if my reaction is anything to go by. And thinking about how things are and how you feel about it is good, isn’t it?

     Don’t answer that, O’Brien.

Result: Recommended

At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul (1964), directed by Jose Mojica Marins

With this continue my spiral.

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Ave, Lucifer", by Os Mutantes

     You know how movies used to tell you not to watch them. It’s something they used to do way back in the day, at the beginning of the movie the director or maybe one the stars would appear on screen and tell you that because this movie is so horrifyingly chilling that those with weak hearts better leave or they might just fucking DIE from sheer fright (William Castle, mastermind behind such films as The Tingler did that quite often, to the point that it became a regular feature in his films). It’s cheesy, and a relic from what we consider a simpler time, but for some reason I can’t help but enjoy it. It’s hype for the movie that’s been built into the movie itself, getting you in the proper frame of mind. It’s like if at the beginning of every album there was like 3 minutes where the band told you just how awesome the music you are about to listen yo is. And wouldn’t you know it, this entry’s film is exactly one of those movies! Almost like I planned it that way... 

     In At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul, director José Mojica Marins stars as the mysterious Zé Do Caixáo, who would later become known as ‘Coffin Joe’ in subsequent entries in the series, the only gravedigger in the unnamed Brazilian town where this film takes place. Coffin Joe is a sociopath of the highest order, an the only thing that Joe hates more than religion (which he shows by publicly breaking any sort of religious practice, and publicly denouncing God, spirits, whatever) seems to be every single person around him, who he derides for living as ‘fools’ and ‘cowards, afraid of life’. Coffin Joe, by contrast, is not afraid of life or supernatural hoodoo, and he exercises it by being the biggest piece of shit within a hundred mile radius. If you could imagine Snidely Whiplash but a bit more rapey, you have an approximate image of Coffin Joe in your mind. The Joker wearing a top hat and beard would also work, with the added benefit of that picture probably already existing. Batman falls prey to a death trap in the Hall of Presidents or, because he didn’t notice the Lincoln model had a pale white face and was holding an oversized mallet, and the Penguin is dressed like Herbert Hoover or something like that.

     Back when comics were good.

     So what does a man who despises people and the world they have built most desire in said world? Why a son of course, a continuation of his genetic line, that he can teach all the ways that you can be a huge dick and get away with it. Unfortunately for him, his girlfriend Lenita is barren, and therefore the most horrible garbage in the world (his implication, not mine). Unfortunately for everyone else, his ‘friend’ Antonio’s bride-to-be Terezinha (Magda Mei) is totes fertile (which makes her the most beautiful woman in the world, obviously). Coffin Joe has no problem with killing anyone or anything to get what he wants, but how low will he able to sink before his sins become too heavy to float? And perhaps, despite his claims to the contrary, life after death does exist after all...

     The biggest selling point for this film (unless you really love Brazilian cinema) is the violence. At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul is a violent, even gruesome movie, mutilations and grisly murders abound within. While hyper-violence is no big shakes in modern-day horror, to the point that ‘torture porn’ very rarely means porn that happens to have torture anymore, but the fact that this was made in the 1960s (not even late 60s) is fascinating. Tom make Coffin Joe a truly unsympathetic character you need see the end results of his actions towards others, and Mojica does so with some impressively horrific special effects. It’s those striking visuals that set this movie apart from others at the time, that tried to frighten audiences with off-screen stranglings, bullet wounds with no blood or entry points, and papier mache monsters. The closest comparison I can think of at the moment is Night of the Living Dead which would come out about 4 years later, but where NotLD works because it builds tension over characters trying to avoid horrible fates, At Midnight shoves terrible human suffering in your face and laughs about it. Tension is instead built over how and when Coffin Joe is punished for all this shit that he’s done, and he does a decent amount of shit to be sure. It’s the classic ‘man destroyed by hubris’ story that you tend to see in tons of movies, but far more in the case of the villain/antagonist rather than the focus of the movie. Totally MacBeth style, know what I’m saying?

     Aside from Coffin Joe, the rest of the cast is tolerable but not all that memorable. In all honesty, they seem to be extraordinarily stupid: Antonio is somehow Coffin Joe’s best friend despite the fact that Joe tells him he’s a fucking idiot to his face, Terezinha doesn’t tell Antonio or anyone that Joe basically attempts to rape her within the first 30 minutes of the movie, Joe somehow avoids jailtime for assaulting people due to ‘lack of evidence’ even though there are like 20 witnesses, etc. You could say that it’s to show that Coffin Joe is correct in believing that people are cowards, but it tests the suspension of disbelief just that not once does anyone think to just pull out a gun and blast the fucker between the eyes. Of course the rules of movies state that a big enough douchebag has to remain unmolested until the huge karmic payoff, but the characters here are so basic that they could have been replaced by puppies and the tone and message of the movie would have barely changed at all. Coffin Joe: Puppy Murderer would be much harder to sell to an audience though, I will admit.

     Coffin Joe: Puppy Rapist could be the next Serbian Film. Think about it, Mojica. Make sure you put my name in the credits though.

     Like my first entry, Bride of Frankenstein, At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul is a relatively obscure but ultimately worthwhile addition to the horror genre. If you’re a fan of the old-school scary, or perhaps a burgeoning gore hound, it’s a fun way to pass the time. Pick up the sequels too while you’re at it: I haven’t got to them myself yet, but I hear they get crazier every movie. Be forewarned that there is a strong anti-religion/anti-Christianity theme, most of which is embodied by the character with the most screentime, which is not an issue with me but could potentially be distressing for others (I don’t make no assumptions, ya dig). Either way, hope you all have pleasant evenings and good frights.

     You see, I replaced the word ‘nights’ with ‘frights’, in a prime example of a literary device known as wordplay. Shakespeare ain’t the only guy in town now, bitches.

Result: Recommended