The Saga of Coffin Joe: Part I

Most horror fans probably haven’t heard of Coffin Joe, a character created by Brazilian filmmaker & horror pioneer José Mojica Marins, largely because not a lot of films from South America tend to get distribution wide, and if they do materialize in territories such as Region 1 land, they have to struggle to get digital and physical shelf exposure.

It also doesn’t help that the original label (Fantoma) which carried two of the three proper Coffin Joe films, went under, and extant DVDs from Brazil and Europe use poor if not mediocre source materials.

The first film, for example, At Night I’ll Take Your Soul (1964), is available in what can best be described as Bullshit Stereo 2.0, and it’s a disaster. The only source for the original scratchy but intelligible mono mix are the out-of-print Fantoma and still-in-print Australian versions. It’s a classic case, not unlike Mario Bava’s Blood & Black Lace (1964), where there still isn’t a decent transfer made from the best elements available to the broadest spectrum of the home video market.

Note awesome artwork by Rue Morgue's Gary Pullin.

The second film, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967), sounds even worse in Bullshit 2.0, and it’s maddening that the most accessible and value-added set of Marins’ work from Anchor Bay U.K. features these terrible transfers.

Most likely the reason the 9 film, 5 disc box set is selling for under 10 Pounds Sterling on Amazon.uk is due to a rejection of the set by the franchise’s key fan base.

The blame lies in the hands of the owners who authorized bad transfers, not the labels who licensed them because they simply wanted to get the movies back in circulation.

There’s a reason to complain, because scenes from the first two Coffin Joe films were intercut in select montages in the third and final installment of the trilogy, Embodiment of Evil (2008), and the clips look gorgeous. If the success of Part III can happen over the Blu-ray platform, then perhaps it’ll poke the owners to do what’s right, and not only release new HD transfers of the films, but add the generous extras from the 2002 Brazilian box set, each featuring multi-lingual translations.

Make one set available for all markets so Marins’ body of work gets the recognition it deserves.

So who is Coffin Joe?

He’s an arrogant, sadistic undertaker who abuses townspeople with absolute impunity. He’s funny, rabidly anti-religious, and thumbs his nose at the spirits of the people he killed or maimed. He also wants to be a daddy, and when resuscitated for the second film, the character was reshaped into a hellion determined to father a son who will begin a reign of terror (when he’s all grown-up, of course).

Joe’s also a sexist pig, so you have to wonder what the sonofabitch would do if the doctors handed him a baby daughter. He tests the women snatches from streets as potential mothers using a mass of tarantulas, snakes, facial disfigurement, and atrocious bedside manners.

The reason the character is so fascinating lies in the glee with which he accomplishes outrageous cruelties, and Marins’ directing style, which harkens back to the Universal monster movies of the forties and fifties, but adds a visual flair reminiscent of Mario Bava, surreal episodes recalling Alejandro Jodorowsky, and graphic violence found in some of Fernando Arrabal’s most vicious work.

Coffin Joe isn’t for all tastes, but the first film remains the best because it’s a complete portrait of a monster who gets his comeuppance… and like a classic Universal Frankenstein sequel, comes back in spite of seriously physical trauma.

I’ve reviewed the first two films, At Night I’ll Take Your Soul [M] and This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse [M], and compare the 2007 Anchor Bay and 2001 Fantoma editions, including extras.

In Part II of this series, I’ll examine the subsequent films in which Marins’ malicious character appeared in lesser (and sometimes impressionistic) roles.

"For you, I think you need some snuggle time in my porcine sleepsack!'

Also uploaded is a review of Embodiment of Evil [M], in which the character is released from prison after 40 years, and falls straight into his old groove, using more modern methods of physical trauma.

It’s a mixed bag only because it will divide fans wanting the classical aspects from the original films, and those delighted that the gore – some real – is up to flesh-tearing contemporary standards.

Synapse’s Blu-ray + DVD combo edition looks and sounds great.


Coming soon: tales of the Greek immigration experience, as dramatized in Elia Kazan’s masterwork America America (1963), and William Kyriakis and Radley Metzger’s Dark Odyssey (1961).

Seriously. There’s a strong thematic connection between the two films, and I’ll prove it.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

John Huston’s Cold War Thrillers

Not your conventional old stogie.

Just uploaded are a pair of very good – no, I’d say excellent – Cold War espionage films directed by John Huston. Known for his affinity for losers and crazy dreamers who never manage to reach their ultimate goals (or at least must severely lose a pound of flesh to get past the first border crossing), Huston’s later films weren’t always box office blockbusters, but for the most part they were interesting artistic ventures made by a big, wiry man with a grand persona.

If you’ve seen Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) – and you really should if you haven’t – it sort of encapsulates the director’s odd blend of filmmaking and adventurism. Huston went to Africa to make movies and shoot big game. In White Hunter, he wanted an African elephant; and in Nevada for The Misfits (1961), there was the gambling, and commandeering an over-budget production with three of Hollywood’s biggest and most expensive stars.

Filmmaking for Huston always seemed to be about the challenge, and having fun with a good cigar stuck between his grandiose, mischievous smile, or having an awesome drinking buddy like Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen) or Errol Flynn (The Roots of Heaven). One reason Huston didn’t get sick during filming in exotic locales is the booze: if you increase the alcohol percentage to borderline toxic, you make it impossible for bugs to survive long enough to infect you. (At least that’s the theory which worked with Flynn during the shooting of Roots.)

From Twilight Time comes The Kremlin Letter [M] (1970), a forgotten but really well-aged espionage thriller whose tone and meanness I swear were borrowed by John Frankenheimer and David Mamet for Ronin (1999). There’s some striking tonal similarities, but Kremlin is a much meaner film about desperate characters sharing pretty dismal futures – hardly elements that would’ve made the kind of box office hit Huston was hoping for.

The film’s been announced for a Region 2 DVD July 25 via Eureka Entertainment, but TT’s Region 1 disc (limited to 3000 copies) includes an isolated music track of Robert Drasnin’s bleak little score, and is available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment.

Those curious about TT’s upcoming Blu-ray and DVD editions of The Egyptian (1954) can read a detailed interview with Nick Redman at Blu-ray.com. Apparently the company’s licensed 100 films from Fox, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed some of those anamorphic CinemaScope productions out in Spain will finally get their due in North America. There’s no reason why The Roots of Heaven (1958) or Inferno (1953) can’t be released here. None.

Also reviewed is Huston’s second seventies espionage thriller, The MacKintosh Man [M] (1976), starring Paul Newman in a perfectly tailored role of a no-nonsense thief / spy. It as easy for the studio to package a trailer with plenty of money shots and quick quips, but selling the film was clearly tough for Warner Bros., because it moves from one genre to another within its first hour. It’s also a gem that deserves a peek, and Warner Home Video released it a few years ago as a standalone edition and in a Paul Newman-themed boxed set.

While we’re on the subject of Huston, I should also point out the late August screenings of The Misfits at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Montgomery Clift, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Eli Wallach, Kevin McCarthy, Thelma Ritter, Arthur Miller, and Alex North. Not a happy film, considering three of the leads were dead within a few years after the film’s release, but it’s a striking production that’ll look & sound great on the big screen.

Also announced in the TBL’s programme book is an upcoming salute to Grace Kelly, featuring Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), and Dial M for Murder (1954). I’m so there, but it would be amazing if the TBL could get their hands on a restored 3D print of Dial M. I’ve seen a worn print at the old Festival Cinemas’ summer 3D series, and even in WobblyVision & browning film stock, it still looked good.

Coming shortly: the saga of Coffin Joe.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Soundtrack Reviews + News

Just uploaded are a quartet of fun action & sci-fi scores for video games. La-La Land Recorss have released a pair of beautifully mastered 2-disc sets for hans Zimmer's Crysis II [M] and Bear McCreary's SOCOM 4: Navy SEALs [M], and Bioware's released Inon Zur's music from Dragon Age II [M]. I've also added a review of Zur's score for the first Crysis [M] (Sumthing Else Music) to rounf things out.

In a recent interview in May, Winifred Philips spoke to the Sound Byte Blog regarding life as a working film and video game composer. The Q&A runs a meaty 20 mins., and it's a genial piece where Phillips discusses her career, including recent releases such as Sim Animals (2008), Spore Hero (2009), and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010).

Lastly, Universal recently released Ridley Scott's Legend (1986) on Blu-ray, and the Digital Bits noted a few extras from the DVD weren't ported over. Missing are "the 3 animated storyboard sequences, the production notes (that help to provide context for some of the extras), the standard cast & crew bios and - most importantly - the DVD-ROM features which included a script-to-screen viewer." I reviewed the DVD when it emerged in 2002, and I keep having to clarify the following: the Tangerine Dream score is NOT isolated on the DVD; it's the album tracks dumped into a separate audio track *in mono*. It's a useless feature on the DVD and BR, and Universal most likely was told by The Dream's management not to isolated the score in stereo, rather than the studio being cheap.

Those interested in the BR edition can read a Q&A between Film Score Monthly's Andy Dursin and Special Features producer Charles de Lauzirika.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

"Pilot Error"

Long before the Airport franchise entrenched the clichés of the air disaster genre from the late sixties to the late seventies, Hollywood had offered up dramas that happened to involve pilots, and in the three releases covered this weekend, we have a differing views on the value of a commercial airline pilot.

Based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s best-selling novel, Night Flight / Vol de nuit,  MGM’s Night Flight [M] (Warner Home Video) is erroneously billed as a Grand Hotel-type drama with a stellar cast enacting the struggles of air mail delivery in South America.

Operations manager John Barrymore seems to regard his handful of pilots as children – noble in skill, foolish in vices and human weaknesses – and he’s determined to push them to the limit to launch the continent's first overnight air mail service.

Unlike a similar aviation drama, Frank Capra’s Dirigible [M[ (1931), MGM’s 1933 film is steeped in melodrama and hasn’t aged too well, but it’s a significant production that weighed some of the controversies surrounding commercial aviation after audiences had become accustomed to seeing pilots on the silver screen fighting forking &  country in WWI dramas, comedic action sequences, and musicals with half-naked women and chirpy singers strapped to biplane wings.

By the early fifties, commercial aviation for passengers on an international scale was dramatized in Twentieth Century-Fox’s No Highway in the Sky [M] (1950), a British production about the need to put safety up front instead of money, time schedules, and corporate greed. It’s an unusually non-cynical film about one crusading aeronautical engineer (eccentrically played by James Stewart) who’s convinced the tail on the plane he’s travelling in will break off over the Pacific Ocean, killing everyone.

Not available on DVD, this docu-styled drama junks most of the melodrama larded into Night Flight, and eerily presaged the 1954 disaster of the de Havilland Comet planes which broke up mid-flight due to design flaws.

Lastly, we have Fate is the Hunter [M] (Twilight Time), Fox’s 1964 drama that begins after a deadly plane crash has killed all but one. Based on the novel by Ernest K. Gann, Fate feels remarkably contemporary because a good chunk of its narrative is devoted to the procedural details of gathering crash evidence and trying to determine whether the disaster was caused by mechanical malfunction or pilot error.

Seeing the wrecked craft reconstructed on a metal skeleton in a sterile hangar recalls news footage of the Air India bombing; and the heroism of the pilot’s wartime flights – cheating death and landing a plane using experience, balls, and professionalism – more immediately recalls the case of Chesley Sullenberg, who ditched his plane in the Hudson River without a single loss of life.

In all three films, the skills of the pilots come into question when a signal is lost, a plane crashes, or a corporation decides to wrap up a disaster by blaming the pilot.

As an airman quips in No Highway in the Sky, “Pilots and desks; dogs and Cats. Natural enemies. They’ve got one theme song… Pilot’s error. Whenever anything goes wrong with their calculations and there’s a smash-up: ‘pilot’s error.’”

Seems  cynicism towards pilots is a good 80 years old.

Coming next: reviews of four video game soundtracks.

Coming soon: a review of John Huston's nasty little Cold War thriller, The Kremlin Letter, also from Twilight Time. The new label just announced pre-order details of their debut Blu-ray release - The Egyptian, the 1954 sunburn saga Marlon Brando managed to weasel out of, but had to make amends to CEO Darryl Zanuck by playing Napoleon in Desiree. The latter film is currently available on DVD (where else?) in Spain, and if timing works out and Canada Post's current strike mess is resolved, I should have reviews of both films, so we can all learn if Marlon made the right choice, selecting a new accent and hairstyle.

Lastly, those who've received their TIFF catalogue for the summer series may have noticed a special section devoted to Montgomery Clift. Between July and August, the TIFF Bell Lightbox will screen prints of Elia Kazan's Wild River (1960), Edward Dmytryk's Raintree County (1957), John Huston's The Misfits (1961), and perhaps my favourite WWII drama, Dmytryk's The Young Lions (1958), featuring a superb Hugo Friedhofer score... and Marlon Brando playing a 'good' Nazi.

The complete list is posted at the TBL website (which still needs more design tweaking. Just saying).






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

August is Human Tomato Season

Back in late May, I did my first Doors Open Toronto (How long have I been living here, and never made the effort?) and from the observation deck of City Hall I took a few snapshots of the CN Tower.

The day was a classically grey and ugly (seemingly the norm for the city of late), but there was something alluring about heavy fog enshrouding the tower’s upper pole, where all the radio and TV gear is house.

A friend used to manage the restaurant a few levels below, and he once described going up into the main broadcast box as fascinating and creepy: all copper lined, filled with gear, and you could feel the damn tower tip swaying with the wind.

Inside the box, you ain’t gonna die; maybe just feel a bit ‘air sick’ from the motions, if you happen to have one of those inner ear issues.

From a broader view of the tower, one can see the scaffolding that was firmly implanted into the circular superstructure, which looks a bit hairy.

Closer inspection (well, not much, given the images were taken through windows splattered with pigeon poop) reveals where participants of the new EdgeWalk amusement will walk. Note how wispy the whole thing looks from afar.

Well, as reported by Torontoist, Mark Laroche, CEO of the Canada Lands Company (owners of our priapic symbol of progress), not only took a walk, but wore a helmetcam to capture the bare essence of striding at the border of one’s doom.

I’ve no doubt the amusement is safe, but there is that extreme fear of a sudden gust of wind knocking one off, the wire snapping, and getting blown over the safety netting  -netting – after which one gets to experience the same freefall ride stuntman Dar Robinson enjoyed for the Canuxploitation classique Highpoint (1982) before you become a human tomato (or pancake, depending on the type of surface your body will marry, hard and fast).

Watch the video, and note the metal brackets on the walkway that no one manages to trip over; note the edge, still unblemished by ‘the netting,’ which is supposed to save you / stop you from attempting an immediate extraction from our global gene pool.

It’s all fascinating, but seriously: there’s gonna be a human tomato / C’est fantastique, mais vraiment: quelqu’un deviendra une tomate humaine.

Tickets are now on sale for $175, and the terror begins in August.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com