"Over his nearly half-century-long career, Director Mojica Marins has created some of the most inspired, inflammatory and hallucinatory imagery in the history of fantastic cinema. His Coffin Joe character is equal parts the Marquis De Sade, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Salvador Dali and Friedrich Nietzsche, channeled through a love for confrontational horror films and the darkest of carnivalesque spook show iconography”
- Fantasia Film Festival -

Mojica Marins is widely regarded as an "auteur of horror" often identified with his alter ego, the evil unholy undertaker, an icon amongst horror and gore fans across the world.

Characterized by his sartorial style: black cape, top hat and extremely long curling nails, Zé do Caixão is the ultimate monster, a seemingly unstoppable incarnation of an evil ego run riot.

"Coffin Joe is a cinematic icon”
- The Los Angeles Times -

“Coffin Joe’s foreboding presence in the screen itself is a perfect testimony to the meaningfulness of horror film monsters everywhere.”
- Fernando Verissimo Twitch Film -

The Most Censored Filmmaker in history

Mojica's style is idiosyncratically primitive Latin American, low budget and highly ingenious, and his filmography counts over 60 films - amongst them several which were under censorship in Brazil for many years.

The Fangoria Magazine together and Fantasia Film Festival as well as the Cinematheque Francaise presented Mojica Marins with Lifetime Achievements Award.

To many, this is Mojica's masterpiece. It was certainly his most controversial film. Proof is, it was never allowed to be shown in Brazil and was kept in a shelf at the Censorship Board for over 20 years.

The film tells the story of a doctor who is conducting experiments with LSD. He injects the drug in four patients, only to analyze their reactions to "strong" subjects (the strongest of which, of course, is a Coffin Joe film).

This is one of the most radically innovative films ever shot in Brazil, not only in terms of substance but also style. A contemporary horror story, it deals with drugs, prostitution, police corruption, and the degradation of society as a whole.

91minutes
Black and White and Colour
1969

The ban to this film effectively ended Mojica's career as a horror director. Scared producers stopped hiring him, afraid that a new Coffin Joe film would also be prohibited by the Censorship Board. "The Awakening of the Beast" remains as an undiscovered gem of horror films.

'One of the most hallucinogenic experiences ever to wind up on celluloid!'
IMDB.com

Shot in only 13 days, on a shoestring budget with a cast of non-professional actors, it remains as an undisputed classic of Brazilian cinema and one of the biggest box-office successes in the country's history.

The film tells the story of Zé, an evil gravedigger who terrorizes a small town in his quest for the "perfect woman" that will bear him the "perfect child". Zé kills and tortures, only to be haunted by the spirits of his victims.

The film was banned in several states in Brazil, accused of violence and blasphemy.
Starring: Jose Mojica Marins as "Coffin Joe"

Black and white
81 mns
1964

At Midnight I will Take your Soul was the first film with the character of Coffin Joe and was also the first horror film produced in Brazil skyrocketing Mojica Marins to fame in Brazil and worldwide

Based on a TV show which Mojica hosted in the 60's, this film presents Jose Mojica Marins fantastic universe in three distinctstories.

The Dollmaker
In the first narrative gangs invade the house of a doll maker, who lives alone with his beautiful daughters. The gang soon realise that they can get a lot more from these women than just money, even if they need to kill the old man. But the women put up a fight….and the dolls get revenge with their special gift of life… or is it death?

Obsession
The taboo subject of necrophilia is confronted in a narrative of unexpected poetry. A poor street balloon seller falls in love with a beautiful young woman who does not return his affection. When the young woman unexpectedly dies - the impossible happens and her death bed becomes their conjugal bed…

Ideology
A professor attempts to explain his bizzare theories of evolution to non believers. Proving that instinct is more powerful than love, he experiments on a couple emerged in a brutal and bloody relationship. Madness and cannibalism are the ingredients of a real "banquet from hell'. Not for the faint of heart.

Black and White
80 Minutes
1968

“Live to die, or die to live? Is there a correct answer? NO! Only doubts... Only deductions... Only the certainty of the emptiness loneliness is desperately searching for... Everything or nothing, the wideness of the gloom. For the answer for this riddle would be the end of this mystery, the end of eternity’s secret, The apogee of happiness. Before an accomplished mission, because man would be face to face with his best conquest, the awakening of origin itself!”

(Coffin Joe)

Continuing his search for the "perfect woman", Zé kidnaps six women and submit them to all kinds of "tests", including tête-a-tête encounters with tarantulas and snakes (real ones, of course!).

The film has one of the most incredible scenes in the history of Brazilian film: a 12-minute, surrealist descent into hell, shot entirely in coloUr (the rest of the film is in black and white), that remains the pinnacle of Mojica's artistic vision.
Starring: Jose Mojica Marins as "Coffin Joe"

Black and white and colour
107 mins
1967

This Night I will Enter your Corpse is the sequel of At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul an even bolder, more radical film taking more risks.

This film follows the life of a patient of a mental hospital who has horrible dreams about Coffin Joe. The doctors, unable to cure the patient, resort to the only man who can challenge Coffin Joe: his creator, José Mojica Marins.

This weird and creepy film sees creator and creature battling each other. The patient's nightmares are scenes from Mojica's most famous movies, making this a true "best of" film.

Crammed to the gills with some of the censored footage from Mojica Marins' previous films it is a shameless halucinogenic trip into the weird and wonderful and beyond.

Colour
83 minutes
1978

'Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind is a a truly unforgettable viewing experience in which the boundaries between genius and madness, primitive atavism and sophisticated avant-gardism are truly confounded. Fans of horror, cult and underground cinemas owe it to themselves to track it down and see it at all costs… '

Kinocite.co.uk

During a heavy storm one night, several people seek shelter in a roadside hostel. Amongst them a group of hippies, a couple of lovers, a suicidal man, a gigolo and dishonest crook. The mystical strange satanic owner of the hostel, observes his guests… By daylight we become aware of the heavy atmosphere of death which reigns at the hostel.

Colour
81 minutes
1976

The film features simple yet gruesome visual and audio effects. The audio track consists of bizarre stock sound clips, surreal noises, screams and vocal utterances.

"Live to die, or die to live? Is there a correct answer? NO! Only doubts… Only deductions… Only the certainty of the emptiness loneliness is desperately searching for… Everything or nothing, the wideness of the gloom. For the answer for this riddle would be the end of this mystery, the end of eternity’s secret, The apogee of happiness. Before an accomplished mission, because man would be face to face with his best conquest, the awakening of origin itself!"

(Coffin Joe opening speech)

Dr George Medeiros is a brilliant scientist who does not find the time even for his beautiful wife Raquel.

Raquel’s blind ambition leads her to arrange for her husband’s death to keep his inheritance. Aided by her lover, the dodgy crook Olivier, Raquel throws sulphuric acid on her husband’s face. However , the scientist survives the attempt to kill him, undergoes a plastic surgery and begins to plan his revenge on his wife.

Colour
80 minutes
1977

Made with only touches of the hallucinatory vibe Marins loves to employ, is kind of a telenovela version of an EC Comics horror story, narratives gruesome and lurid enough to blind more censorious types to the fact that what they were witnessing were morality plays. Not a perfect description of the brain-scrambling films that Marins makes, but damn close when it comes to Hellish Flesh.

This is the first feature-length documentary about the life and career of José Mojica Marins, Brazil's most famous horror film director and one of the Third World's most idiosyncratic and radical artists.

Mojica is the creator of the character Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), a true icon of horror movies.

In a career that covers half a century, Mojica directed over 40 features, as well as over 100 feature films. He also created comic books, plays, TV shows, radio programmes and even recorded a Samba record.

Mojica is the most censored filmmaker in Brazilian Cinema History. Several of his films were banned by the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985.

This documentary presents Mojica's version of his story, from his impoverished childhood in the suburbs of São Paulo, to the international recognition as one of the world's greatest horror directors, celebrated in countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Italy and United States.

The film features in-depth interviews with Mojica and his closest associates which reveal for the first time, the bizarre and sometimes tragic stories behind his movies, as well as Mojica's own problems with alcohol, the Military Censorship Board, and tarantulas.

There are dozens of clips from his striking movies, described by Billboard magazine as "cross between Russ Meyer and Luis Bunuel".

This documentary was directed by Andre Barcinski and Ivan Finotti, two Brazilian journalists who published in 1988, Mojica's biography "Maldito" ("The Damned") a best-seller in Brazil.

Year of Production 1999
Duration 66' (available as 52')

'Long-banned "Awakening," including a woman's nude defecation before several masked businessmen, and her fatal sexual penetration by a Moses impersonator's wooden staff. Even these surrealist outrages (which led some to dub Marins "the Brazilian Bunuel") are one-upped by graphic footage of his 1988 eye surgery.'

Variety