The Brazilian film "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" (1963) features a character who is a strong contender for the most hateful, obnoxious, despicable, slimy and loathsome creature in horror movie history. He is Ze do Caixao, a name that, loosely translated from the Portuguese, means Coffin Joe, and he would go on to become a wildly popular figure in Brazilian culture over the years; kind of like an amalgam of Baron Samedi and Freddy Krueger. As played by the film's director, Jose Mojica Marins, Ze is quite unforgettable. Bearded, caped and top hatted, he bullies and browbeats the inhabitants of his small village, and does away with those closest to him, all in his sick pursuit to father a son and continue his bloodline. Perhaps most shocking, in the largely Catholic country of Brazil, he is a taunting atheist, who eats meat on Good Friday and even forces others to do the same! No living person seems able to stand up to Ze. But the unliving...ah, perhaps that's another story.... Filmed on the cheap, this picture still works marvelously, featuring as it does many scenes of casual and brutal violence (wait'll you see what Ze does to his barren mistress), some interesting FX (I love that glittery ghost!), fairly intense acting (especially by Marins and that gypsy witch), and a very freaky score (wails, screams, echo effects, etc.). One scene in particular is very fine; the one in which Ze rails against heaven and hell during a thunderstorm and drunkenly demands that God and all spirits do him harm. Pretty intense stuff. Anyway, that gypsy woman, at the film's beginning, warns us NOT to watch this picture, as it will make us suffer, but I'm glad that I stayed with it. And oh...a modern-day interview with Marins is included on this DVD. If you want to see something REALLY scary, take a look at his fingernails!

I love the idea of Coffin Joe ("Joseph The Grave"). I love his output. I love that he has channeled his obsessions into movies about deranged, obsessive characters. I can only admire and respect him.

I don't care that his movies are cheap. I don't care that they are slightly inept at times. Ed Wood's movies were cheap and inept, but they were also filled with passion and a neatly formed world view.

They are also rich in texture, designed with love and passion, self-contained and mostly set-bound like early Universal and PRC horror films (STRANGLER IN THE SWAMP, for example).

Jose Majica Marens is a true original and his movies are like nothing else you have ever seen. He enjoys hurling blasphemy at the Catholic church, he likes beating up hypocrites and his Coffin Joe indulges in random violence, rape, scaring women with spiders and general debauchery.

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL has a single-mindedness about it that makes it lovable. Joe wants only one thing -- to find a woman who will bear him a son. Since he's a brutal, loud, angry man, women aren't returning his calls, so he's frustrated. This frustration fuels virtually all of his movies.

Meeting Coffin Joe for the first time can be either a confusing, bewildering experience or the start of a beautiful relationship. It was the latter for me.