José Mojica Marins (Coffin Joe) stars as the undertaker of a small Brazilian village who pretty much revels in being the social misfit of his close-knit community. He looks down on the God-fearing lemmings that he cohabitates with - disregarding their beliefs as weak willed superstition and has no qualms against voicing it publicly. Resenting his wife, who is unable to provided him with a son to carry on his bloodline, he takes a liking to his buddy's chick and goes so far as to kill him in order to get with her. Only this doesn't go totally as planned and more people end up getting killed by him which leads to his soul being damned to Hell.
Not only does "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" have a good amount of anti-God ranting from CJ, but it's also got bloody finger removal, death-by-venomous-spider, rape, suicide, eye-gouging, crown-of-thorns facial disfigurement... This is a dark, angry, rebellious film that's 'statement' and content was extremely fucking ballsy, at least by U.S. standards of the time. I'm not too sure as to the 'climate' of Brazil in the mid-60s, though, based on some 'exploitation' and XXX-material I've seen come outta there a decade or so after this, they're clearly a little more 'out there' and 'kooky' to say the least when it comes to their cinema. Coffin Joe is a truly iconic, badass persona and "At Midnight..." is a fantastic and groundbreaking horror film that - like the early horror works of H.G. Lewis - are essential for fans of more 'extreme' types of films.
Glad to see Coffin Joe getting some love. Really strong stuff for the time. Still entertaining to this day. I love when he sits in his window eating meat on good Friday. Hilarious.
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