The Awakening of the Beast (1970) User Reviews

Mondo Bizarro....

[EVOL666 · 6/10 · 11 May 2006]

I know that this film has a lot of "defenders" - I guess I just didn't get it. I really enjoyed AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL, and have yet to see THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE - but AWAKENING OF THE BEAST was just too strange and "psychedelic" for my taste.

Two-thirds of the film is in black-and-white, and this part is semi-amusing. A psychiatrist relates tales of drug-users that show that all those that use drugs are delinquents and perverts. We have a woman who defecates in a pot for the enjoyment of a room full of men, A woman who peeks from her doorway and does bumps of coke and strokes her donkey (no, this isn't a word-play - I'm talking' an actual donkey...)while the butler bones her daughter, a shady filmmaker who whacks-off while an associate rapes a naive wannabe actress, and so forth. Though none of this is portrayed very graphically - it's still amusing. Then we get into a color portion that has this psychiatrist dosing up four volunteers with LSD, and they have strange visions including Coffin Joe and a series of strange delusions...

That's pretty much it with this one, and although the beginning was kinda entertaining, it wasn't sleazy enough to really be any fun. The end "trip-out" segment is just weird and long, and didn't hold my attention. I guess I prefer the more "straight-narrative" Coffin Joe films, as I stated before that I quite liked I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL. The fans of this one can keep it. Mildly amusing, but dull overall...6/10

a radio horror play illustrated by slide images

[andrabem · 6/10 · 2 April 2007]

I really don't understand why so many people around the world rave about Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe). I've seen two of his films: "Esta Noite Encarnarei No Teu Cadáver" and now "Ritual Dos Sádicos" and I was disappointed.

His films run like this: long scenes filmed by a non-moving camera spiced up with long speeches by Zé do Caixão. The way he imagines Hell (Esta Noite Encarnarei No Teu Cadáver) or a psychedelic trip (O Ritual dos Sádicos) are somewhat funny but they are no visual wonder at all - people howling and squirming around, long dark corridors, lights blinking and suddenly we stumble on another of the lengthy speeches delivered by Zé do Caixão in which there will be reflections about life, death, the human vanity etc.. It may at fist seem funny, but as there are many of these speeches, as the time goes by the laughter will disappear and boredom take its place. Imagine a radio horror play illustrated by slide images and you won't be far from Zé do Caixãos films.

Zé do Caixão has good ideas and a very dramatic fantasy - his main problem it that he expresses his obsessions more by words than by images - his nightmare images are static. I think that in a film images and words should flow together - there should be something like a symphony.

All in all, I don't deny Zé do Caixãos imagination but (unlike, for instance, Dario Argento and Jean Rollin) he is not able to express fully the richness of his world visually and that is essential in a film.

Messy, Boring and Dated in 2011... but Daring and Disturbing for the Brazilian Dictatorship in 1970

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 25 June 2011]

During a debate of journalists with the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Sérgio and José Mojica Marins a.k.a. Zé do Caixão, Sr. Sérgio presents several cases of kinky sex and orgy associated to the use of drugs. The journalists defend that the cases are related to perverts and criminals, but Dr. Sérgio blames the influence of drugs for the violence. Then Dr. Sérgio invites four persons from different classes to use LSD and analyze the effect of Zé do Caixão's films in their twisted minds to prove his theory.

"O Ritual dos Sádicos" is a weird low-budget movie by José Mojica Marins that begins with disconnected sequences and many perversions, kinky sex and anti-drug apology. Considered cult by fans of hardcore, the film is messy, boring and dated in 2011.

Its greatest merit is that in 1970, the daring and disturbing "O Ritual dos Sádicos" displeased the military dictatorship and was forbidden by the censorship. Then José Mojica Marins introduced modifications, inclusive the title was changed to "O Despertar da Besta" but the film was released only in the middle 80's and never exhibited in movie theaters. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Ritual dos Sádicos / O Despertar da Besta" ("The Ritual of the Sadistic / The Awakening of the Beast")

Coffin Joe goes psychedelic!

[Infofreak · 14 February 2004]

The more Coffin Joe movies I see, the more I'm amazed that he isn't mentioned more in the English speaking world. Jose Mojica Marins (a.k.a. Coffin Joe) is a horror icon in his native Brazil, but has only a small (but very enthusiastic!) cult following elsewhere. 'Awakening Of The Beast' is probably not the best place to start with Marins work. It's one of his most striking and original, but also quite confusing for a fan, let alone someone unfamiliar with the whole Coffin Joe trip. Best to watch 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' first. In that movie Marins created his evil undertaker character Ze do Caixao (anglicized as "Coffin Joe"). In 'Awakening Of The Beast' Marins appears both as himself and as Coffin Joe. A group of intellectuals on a TV show debate the evils of drugs in contemporary Brazilian society. We are shown various vignettes of drug-fueled perversion, some of which are very surreal! This takes up three quarters of the movie, the rest concerns an experiment a psychiatrist makes on four volunteers dosing them with acid and subjecting them to Coffin Joe! This stuff is even wilder than what has come before, and in colour to boot. 'Awakening Of The Beast' is an extraordinary movie and quite unique. Hard core horror buffs may be perplexed, but fans of psychedelic exploitation like Roger Corman's 'The Trip' and Russ Meyer's immortal 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' will be in heaven! This is Coffin Joe's happening baby, and it freaks me out!

Awakening of the Beast

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 26 April 2008]

Well, I just finished watching this Coffin Joe entry on IFC and got a kick out of it. Crazy movie where talking heads converse over how "Brazilian" society is under a moral collapse due to drugs and how the use of such provokes depravity and sadism. A series of stories, or various ways taboos can be tap-danced on with relish, alternate how characters do immoral things to each other..such as these sweaty men paying for a prostitute's method of defecation over a pot, how a group of hipsters fondle a school girl before murdering her with a stick in an act of indecency, a movie producer giving an actress seeking work the "casting couch" treatment whacking off as his pal rapes her, an act of adultery where the cheating woman alternates between pleasure and guilt over what she's doing as the grinning male has his way with her, a wealthy wife looks on as her black butler gives her daughter oral sex, etc. While not explicit, these stories are still lurid enough, photographed in B&W, and used as examples at moral decay with drugs being labeled the culprit. We have a psychiatric doctor interested in what actually provokes such behavior and seeks four volunteers for taking LSD recording their reactions using the image of Coffin Joe as a catalyst in tapping into the subconscious. The first hour is that collection of stories, and the final thirty minutes is the madness that is Coffin Joe running rampant in the nightmarish realm of these four selected "victims". The "hallucinations" are filmed in experimental colors and feature some pretty bizarre visuals like women being subjected to embarrassing ordeals, Joe often appearing and disappearing blowing flame from his hands(!), with those "invaded" by Joe baring witness to the frenzy of deranged images which pop up. My favorite image was of the women being knocked silly by Joe, landing at the feet of one volunteer as they kiss his feet. Another bizarre image I found memorable was the one volunteer(..the girl who defecated in the opening of this film)who is "bombarded" with marks of blood, smidgens here and there until she is covered.

Oh, and there's this "game show" where Marins, as himself(..although the media and panel tend to refer to him as the evil character of Joe, perhaps a statement that some critics can not separate the creator from his creation), is subjected to a panel who question his art. This is witnessed by the psychiatrist who is inspired to run his "LSD test" using the character of Joe in his experiment.

The group discussing the effects of drugs on the people also includes Marins, which makes this rather odd. The climactic scene puts everything into perspective, and is a nice sense of irony. I think, also, that this was ahead of the curve in that one might look at how the media and public at large indict horror and music, in this day and age, as channels for evil which only encourage those to commit crimes and perversion. Perhaps Marins film will actually thwart that..we ourselves are behind the things committed in the movie, not some created character in a film or a comic book.

Coffin Joe is back for another confusing instalment...

[The_Void · 5/10 · 24 March 2008]

José Mojica Marins a.k.a. Coffin Joe unsurprisingly has only a small following, and that's not surprising because his films are so weird and therefore difficult to get on with. I did actually like his first two efforts; the amusingly titled At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul and This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse, but was less than impressed with the third entry in his series and am not impressed with this one either. The first two films were actually quite similar and to his credit, the director decided to change things a bit for his third movie and made it an omnibus, and here again he's decided to do things differently as this time we focus on an experiment involving LSD and, of course, Coffin Joe. I have no idea what the experiment is supposed to be investigating; probably fear or something, and the film basically follows a load of test subjects who take the drug and begin hallucinating. Unsurprisingly, all the hallucinations involve sex and general sleaze and Coffin Joe turns up too.

This film is a complete mess; after five minutes the plot gets completely lost and we end up with a hodgepodge of images with barely any connection to each other. The plot involves drugs and it would seem that the director wanted this idea to carry over into the film itself as I can't imagine that José Mojica Marins was not on drugs when he wrote and filmed this. The film is less focused around the character of Coffin Joe this time and the action (seems to!) focus more on the mythology surrounding it. Despite the fact that none of it makes any sense, there are some good images on display; but to be honest, I prefer my films (generally) to make sense and this one just doesn't do that, which made me rather bored by the time it finished. Like the second film directed by José Mojica Marins, this one features a section in full colour in the final third and it's definitely the best part of the film - it still makes no sense, but this bit is really nice to look at and we get to see the strange character using his powers to undress a woman, which is exactly what I would use powers like that for. Anyway, this film really is a mess and unless you really enjoyed the previous three films in the series; I would not recommend tracking it down.

The Coffin Joe movie Brazil tried to hide.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 13 October 2012]

Finding the last two Coffin Joe movies to disappointingly not reach the level of the Joe's excellent debut (also reviewed),I felt that it would be a good time to take a look at the most controversial Coffin Joe film ever made.

View on the film:

Detailed on the back of the DVD case that the movie was banned in Brazil for 20 years due to the drug use featured, co- writer (along with Rubens F. Lucchetti) /director/actor Jose Mojica Marins unexpectedly stays somewhat away from sleaze,instead giving the film a strong nightmare, acid trip atmosphere.

With the film having hardly been seen for decades,the tremendously ,crisp black & white and screeching colour cinematography by Giorgio Attili allows Marins to completely focus on each section of this terrific movie. For the first half of the film,Marins smartly goes for an anthology approach,which has a number of well timed segments that get gradually odd and strange,from a woman causing the most unexpected performance of The Great Escape theme music,to another woman losing her innocents to fate.

Sharply contrasting the last 30 minutes of the film by switching from black & white to vivid colour,Marins does lose some of the wonderful Film Noir feel and fourth wall breaking moments as he displays the harsh "nightmare" that his four experiments each share.

Going for a strong,strange surrealist style with the nightmare,Marins just about keeps one of his feet on the ground to deliver a strong,witty sting to the tale,which helps to make the film a trip,as the beast awakens.

Too weird, even for my taste.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 2/10 · 5 July 2010]

I like the occasional weird, experimental, psychedelic movie. I like most of Luis Buñuel's movies, movies like "El topo", Jörg Buttgereit movies, I even liked a movie that had a camera going back and forth all of the time but man, I just did not liked "O Ritual dos Sádicos" very much at all.

Thing with this movie is that I just can't even look at it as a movie. For more than halve of it, this movie consists out of loose never used film stock sequences being thrown together. All of these sequences are like '60's soft-core porn black & white ones, that are badly edited and shot. Most moments are just plain weird, it's not hard to see how they ended up on a big pile of never used film-stock. It's a real bad and extremely cheap way of film-making. The movie just never feels as a whole, not even when the movie starts to throw in some own shot material, featuring José Mojica Marins, who also 'directed' this movie. He's known as Zé do Caixão, or under the English name Coffin Joe and has appeared in a lot of Brazilian horror productions as that very same character.

I like it when a movie goes all trippy and has some great visuals and dream look sequences but this just never made any sense. Apparently there is a story and point to all this, involving a drug experiment but no, the movie just never has any good moments or a good clear idea of its own what it is doing and trying to tell. The movie is not even that weird that it starts to became fascinating or interesting in any way. It's just plain weird, without any redeeming qualities to it.

Just say no to this movie.

2/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Bizarre, cultish ....but with a sense of humor...

[MarieGabrielle · 8/10 · 6 July 2009]

Having recently caught this strange film on Independent Film Channel,it certainly warrants a viewing, if only for the curiosity of Jose Mojica Marins.

Primarily,he uses two scenarios: a round-table of psychiatrists discussing drug addiction,and alternate scenes of the addicts in question, who are given LSD as part of the experiment.

The poverty and demoralization (particularly of women in Brazil) is explored, and the scenes are stark, turning gradually to crude, horrific and even at times humorous. There is one scene in particular where a young woman is interviewing for a job as a maid and she envisions her prospective employer, who is obese and wolfing a plate of pasta)as a hideous looking Pekingnese dog.

Overall a creative and strange commentary on the drug cultures of the late 1960's and 70's.8/10.

One of a kind drug film proves to be a surreal horror roller-coaster ride

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 16 October 2015]

This one-of-a-kind production from Brazilian auteur Jose Mojica Marins (better known to English-speaking audiences as "Coffin Joe") is unlike anything he made before or since. A hugely controversial movie that was instantly banned in Brazil upon release, it is a study of many things. The battle of the sexes, the political state in Brazil at the time, drug use and sexual power are all explored in this delirious masterpiece that demands close attention. The movie is split into roughly two halves. The first is a black and white series of vignettes detailing the effects of drugs upon society, namely corrupting innocent people. Marins concentrates on a series of risqué sexual encounters that often feature topless female performers. Although the images are not explicit, they hint at depravity and sexual violence, such as the moment when the man dressed as Jesus uses his staff in a decidedly irreligious manner.

The movie shows a board of panellists discussing modern-day drug use and the harm it causes. Lots of talking heads permeate the action and raise some valid points, although there are so many viewpoints that at times the film is muddled and the message unclear. Marins basically plays himself and has to prove himself infront of a disbelieving jury suspicious of his films. Towards the end of the film, an experiment takes place in which LSD users are made to believe that they have entered the hellish world of Coffin Joe. The following fifteen minutes are a colourful, hallucinogenic tour through depravity and chaos, packed with memorably bizarre imagery and a lot of imagination. Women are stripped and beaten or assaulted by men with no faces whilst strange creatures appear and dance madly (some creatures are just people with their bottoms painted with faces - the effect is funny yet slightly disturbing, considering the soundtrack).

Sadly, the film is flawed by a final message which says that the drugs are not at fault but the people who use them. Up until then the message is strong and clear but this is a reversal that makes little sense. Throughout AWAKENING OF THE BEAST, Marins displays his skill as a film-maker. The black and white vignettes are excellently shot and produced and the film as a whole has a great soundtrack that mixes bizarre noises and sound effects with classic songs and music to startling effect. The sequence in Hell is superbly portrayed and the acting generally above average. Not a film for everyone's tastes, but obviously a personal triumph for Mr. Marins and unpredictable, sometimes shocking viewing.

Weird and Boring Drug Flick By José Mojica Marins

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 4/10 · 27 November 2010]

I am a fan of the iconic Brazilian Horror filmmaker José Mojica Marins and his most famous creation and alter ego Zé do Caixão aka. Coffin Joe. I liked the first two Coffin Joe films "À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma" ("At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul", 1964) and "Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver" ("This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse", 1964), in which the macabre gravedigger is looking for a woman to bear him an heir, and I absolutely loved the fantastic third film, the extremely morbid anthology "O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão" ("The Strange World of Coffin Joe", 1968). This fourth film, which isn't really a 'Coffin Joe' feature (neither is "The Strange World of Coffin Joe", in which the character just gives an introduction) isn't nearly as good as its predecessors, and neither is it a Horror film. "O Ritual Dos Sádicos" aka. "Awakening of the Beast" (1970) is a very bizarre, but nonetheless very tiresome film about drug orgies in which a doctor makes an experiment involving LSD... or something; the storyline really is too confused and too slooooow to pay attention. Granted: The film must have been rather controversial at the time, and some sequences involving drug excesses gone wrong are weird enough to watch the film. Still, I was disappointed, also due to the lack of anything creepy. As said, this isn't a Horror film. It seems like a curious mix of Mondo pseudo-documentary and bizarre Art-house cinema, all that in a way that is a lot less interesting than it sounds like. In some parts of the film, people proclaim things like "Zé do Caixão is a genius" and "Zé do Caixão is a great artist". Like "This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse" this film is in black and white but has an 'infernal' color sequence towards the end, only that the sequence isn't nearly as great as it was the case in the earlier film. This is only recommendable to hardcore Coffin Joe fanatics; while I consider myself a fan, this film bored the hell out of me.

Marins shooting off at the cinematic mouth again

[fertilecelluloid · 6/10 · 27 January 2007]

"A woman cannot be tainted by the foul stench of man's beastly desire," rants Ze do Caixão/Coffin Joe/Joseph The Grave (Jose Mojica Marins) in one of "Awakening of the Beast's" many insane sermons. Thankfully, Marins does his level best to taint as many women as possible in this psychedelic pastiche of drugs, sex and violence. Having more in common with the works of Herzog, Jodorowsky and Lynch, the film is a schizophrenic, not entirely captivating exercise. The first two-thirds are devoted to short episodes exploring the effects of drugs on the young and impressionable. We also see a man kicking several women up the butt, lots of panty shots, and typical Marins sequences detailing graphic abuse and exploitation of naive women. As expected, Marins is the star and uses his position to spout anti-establishment philosophy (not surprising considering the period and place the film was made in) and wax endlessly about the evils of drugs and his universal theme of evil begetting evil. Only the pic's last third visits familiar Marins territory. A corpse bursts from the ground and drags Marins, literally, down into the bowels of hell. The film switches to color at this point and assaults us with glorious, surreal, low budget visions of decadence and depravity. Dozens of barely clothed women occupy hell, so it can't be all bad down there. Marins walks down a staircase of corpses, uses his magic powers to disrobe a beauty, and supervises some random torture. The lurid colors liven up proceedings and the Dali-esquire scenarios are impressive for the filmmaker's shoestring budget. I am a big fan of Marins' horror-focused works more than his more esoteric adventures into 60's pop culture, so "Awakening of the Beast" is not one of my favorites. It must be said, though, that Marins always has something to say (or scream), and he says it with absolute conviction.

Coffin Joe's world might be multi-coloured, but it's also very confusing and rather boring.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 7 June 2015]

Up until Awakening Of The Beast, the films of José Mojica Marins had been weird, yet still vaguely accessible, but this one was completely baffling—a surreal, drug-fuelled experience full of bizarre imagery that rapidly outstayed its welcome.

The film opens with a panel of experts, led by Dr. Sérgio, discussing cases of drug use, the first of which involves a woman injecting drugs into her foot (a horrible scene for anyone with a phobia of needles), before stripping in front of a group of leering men and squatting over a chamber pot; it's a scene that sets the tone for the rest of the film by being totally incomprehensible. After this, things only get even more baffling.

The next case sees a young woman taken to a room full of hippy men who are playing musical instruments and smoking weed; the girl takes a puff from a joint, climbs through a window, stands on a table, and—one-by-one—lets each man put his head up her skirt. One of them removes her panties, and then they all laugh and begin to repeatedly chant 'babaloo-aye!', after which the girl exclaims 'my world is multi coloured'. The men all hold up their index finger, start whistling, and poke her in the nether regions. Then a man dressed as Moses appears and sticks his wooden staff between her legs, killing her in the process. Confused? You will be!

Several more cases of drug use are discussed, all of which are thoroughly bizarre and involve women getting nekkid, after which Dr. Sérgio describes an experiment he has carried out on four drug addicts in order to study the effects of LSD. While focusing on a poster of Brazilian horror icon Zé do Caixão (AKA Coffin Joe), the subjects slip into a gaudy, nightmarish hallucinatory world—the film's only colour sequence—where Zé conjures up some freakish imagery, including a spider with a woman's head, people in weird masks, a strange creature in a bush that breathes smoke, a human staircase, and buttocks with faces painted on them (I kid you not!). This psychedelic scene goes on and on and on and on, and proves surprisingly boring.

Finally, the film returns to the panel of experts, as Dr. Sérgio explains to his colleagues that he didn't give his human guinea pigs LSD: the injections were of distilled water, and the hallucinations were self-induced, thereby proving the theory that drugs are an excuse to release the instinct in a human being, and that if someone commits a crime whilst under the influence it is because their mind was already sick. In short, the drugs aren't bad… it's the people who are bad. It's an abstruse message befitting of a film that is completely bewildering all the way through.

Disturbing

[rd_kothe · 31 May 2000]

This isn't a Coffin Joe movie properly, but rather a film about drugs that makes stuff like Corman's "The Trip" pale by comparison. The plot isn't linear, and that is exactly the greatest strength of the movie, and what gives it the particular atmosphere it has. First we see several different little stories, all involving people behaving in the most bizarre ways due to drug use.We soon know that all those scenes are stories narrated on a tv talk show by a scientist who tries to prove his theories about drugs and the human mind with the help of Mojica and his creation, Coffin Joe. The utter absurdity of the scenes is what makes the whole experience worthwhile. Probably Mojica's best work as a proper film maker, not just a horror flick director.

Perversion, LSD and Coffin Joe

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 2 March 2021]

José Mojica Marins directed movies for six years before making At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, the first appearance of Brazil's national boogeyman, Zé do Caixão, or Coffin Joe.

Joe is a man with no morals but a devotion to Nietzschian philosophies and absolute hatred for religion with the goal of achieving immortality through the birth of a perfect son. And while he does not believe in the supernatural, he often finds himself walking through visions of the otherworld.

Coffin Joe came to Marins - the man who would often be referred to as the character interchangeably - in a very magic way. "In a dream saw a figure dragging me to a cemetery. Soon he left me in front of a headstone, there were two dates of my birth and my death. People at home were very frightened, called a priest because they thought I was possessed. I woke up screaming, and at that time decided to do a movie unlike anything I had done. He was born at that moment the character would become a legend: Coffin Joe. The character began to take shape in my mind and in my life. The cemetery gave me the name, completed the costume of Joe the cover of voodoo and black hat, which was the symbol of a classic brand of cigarettes. He would be a mortician."

Awakening of the Beast begins in black and white, as a series of vignettes of the ways that drug users debase themselves are shown in lurid, sweaty detail. A TV panel debates the idea that sexual perversion is caused by the use of illegal drugs, with more stories that illustrate this point. The TV show needs an expert on depravity, so they ask Marins to appear on the show.

Afterward, the doctor who conducted the experiment doses four volunteers and asks for them to stare at a poster of The Strange World of Coffin Joe. Supposedly Marins didn't know much about using drugs, but he intended this movie to speak against the fact that the uses of drugs are treated worse than the suppliers and that the Brazilian film industry saw him as no better than a long-nailed drug dealer.

The acid trip that follows is highlighted by Coffin Joe, ranting against anyone and everyone. Of course, this film was banned by the very establishment it rails against. So basically, Coffin Joe is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the maniac attacking belief structures created by an artist who only believes in the power of film.

"My world is strange, but it's worthy to all those who want to accept it, and never corrupt as some want to portray it. Because it's made up, my friend, of strange people, though none are stranger than you!"

Missed opportunity, becomes just decent

[slayrrr666 · 7/10 · 19 April 2007]

"Awakening of the Beast" is an uneven but brilliantly good film when it wants to be.

**SPOILERS**

A rampant drug problem is spreading throughout Brazil, forcing citizens to engage in dangerous, elicit behavior including, drug trafficking, prostitution and gang-rapes. The authorities are at a loss, as half blame popular film creation Ze do Caixao, (Jose Mojica Marins) while some don't see the threat. When Marins himself is brought in to defend his films he has made, he is unsuccessful in changing anyone's opinions of his art. With a larger audience than ever exposed to his films, Marins and Caixao are more popular than ever, and this makes the leaders even more nervous. In an effort to conduct an experiment, one manages to give several members of the population a drug and expose them to a Marins film, and while under the influence, they each begin to have crazy nightmares and insane visions of Ze do Caixao torturing them in a Hell-like underground.

The News: This is perhaps the most wildly uneven film of all time. The first half is series of small segments about perversion and drug abuse, while the second half is an LSD-fueled nightmare about the different tortures committed by the main villain, and the difference in tone is quite apparent. The first half, which recounts the drug problem, does have it's fair share of moments, including the abuse and eventual rape of the school-girl by a gang inside an apartment building that is, at times, pretty painful to watch mainly for the acts and ideas presented rather than the execution of them. Bringing in a Jesus Christ-dressed figure into proceedings is a pretty wild idea, and to show the perversion through shadows on the wall is a really chilling image, but in truth there really isn't much to it. Some talk in a darkened room by authority figures, then a short skit about drug abuse and delinquent acts and repeating itself is essentially what happens, and they don't really offer much. The idea behind them is what gives the film it's horror rather than the actual execution of everything, so unless the ideas of what's happening are frightening or reprehensible, then the first half just simply seems like an eternity of just simply boring acts over and over again and is in dire need of fast-forwarding. There's really no reason why the foursome, modeling agency and the teenagers' crime spree scenes even had to be here, they're just boring and don't even offer up scares of any kind. They're just there and don't really come to anything. That's the worst part, as the idea is there, and it's a really clever and unique one, and offers up limitless potential with creativity and originality. However, what really turns the film around and just about redeems it is the second half, most specifically the torture scene. It's so clever and unique that it's almost a crime. To not only switch the film over into full-color and ditch black-and-white like the rest of the film, but the segment is simply fantastic. From the weird images and ideas to the simply fantastic, it is nearly impossible to look away from the screen at the sheer genius provided. With flaming towers of rock, disappearing coffins, flashing skulls and rise of the undead are just a few examples of what occurs during this time, and the incredible length of it, being relegated to over twenty minutes and likely longer, this is undeniably fun and manages to keep the viewer's interest. Of course, most of this is likely due to this part being the only time Coffin Joe actually appears in the film, and that in itself is worthy of viewing. The hypnotic flashing colors don't hurt either, making it a real feast for the eyes as well with it's abundant blues, greens, reds, and blacks. It's also quite nice, and a little shocking, to see the amount of sleaze and nudity in it, as there's a lot more than might be expected. This here is really good when it wants to be.

The Final Verdict: With one of the greatest sequences of all time in it, with the sequence at the end, this is a really good experience, it's just that it comes at the end of a really hard-to-swallow section of film. If you're a Coffin Joe fan, this might be entertaining, but he's not the main star, and this is really recommended for those who want a taste of something new and original.

Rated UN/R: Rampant drug use, Violence, Nudity and some Language

Coffin Joe not the best but close...

[Markmainwaring · 9/10 · 20 February 2006]

I have been along time fan of Coffin Joe. I kept hearing about this film and finally go to see it on Channel Four a few years ago. Many say it is the best Coffin Joe film but I think maybe they are wrong.

Sure, it is great and different. Going down a different road than the first two. The idea is great and the short story's are funny and often disturbing. I love the soundtrack and the colour segment at the end in the LSD trip into the world of Coffin Joe.

I can see why it was banned at the time and it is still shocking today.

Not Coffin Joe's best but it is probably close...

It may take some finding but you should definitely hunt it out.

A movie that reflects the life

[tzillo · 10/10 · 31 March 1999]

Awakening of the beast is a good black and white horror brazilian movie. The character of Zè do Caixao, created by Jose Mojica Marins, is in his third apparition (after media-nocte levrerei tua alma and o estranho mund de Zè do Caixao); anyway this is very very different from the others, in fact here he is simply an ironic character that try to explain his world theories, which are very interesting, to some directors, who ask him questions like "what's the life?" or "what do you want from the world?". I am sure that any people that see this movie and like dark irony will be happy to see it.

Confused drug movie

[bob the moo · 30 November 2001]

Dr Sergio leads a panel of doctors including writer and director Jose Mojica Martins in an episode of TV programme "Enlightening the Darkness". They discuss the effects of drug use on Brazilian society and discuss a set of experiments that Dr Sergio carried out with LSD and a group of users from different social classes.

What follows is a film in two parts. The first part follows Dr Sergio telling the panel stories of people using drugs and the effects they have. Essentially this is a series of short scenes where the drug takers turn to violent perverted acts after the drugs. Most of these include sexual violence directed towards women, others include sex scenes that have all the sensitivity and direction of soft core porn. Overall the lesson seems to be that drugs cause these perverted scenes and that drugs are bad. For this half of the film the "story" is disjointed and hard to follow - the discussion isn't set in any context and it just feels like an exploitation film - this is easy to believe as Mojica the director is famous for cheap horrors etc.

The second half sees the discussion become more structure as Dr Sergio describes his experiments on four LSD users. What follows a short set up is a 15 minute series of full colour (the rest is black & white) hallucinations featuring the director's alter ego - the evil Ze do Caixo. These hallucinations are quite disturbing and include a lot of violence toward women carried out by Caixo. Director Mojica comes up with very imaginative visions but they are all too gaudy and trashy horror. Again these feel overdone to shock his audience.

Following the experiments Dr Sergio reveals that instead of LSD he used distilled water and presents evidence to the same that is too easily believed ("it says distilled water!"). The conclusion of the experiments (and the film) is that these images came from the people themselves and not the drugs - therefore drugs are harmless and the people who do bad things as a result are sick anyway and you can't blame the drugs. This is a very weak conclusion given the evidence that has just gone before.

The film is an interesting bit of exploitation from Brazil - worth watching once for the film-student style of direction. However the presentation of perverted images and violence linked so closely to drug use makes the film's pro-drug message totally unbelievable and very hard to shallow (even if you agree with legalising drugs).

Amazing underground movie

[rawpower_5 · 10/10 · 8 December 2005]

Truly and amazing film, however is one of those sad cases when its a million dollar idea but a 1 dollar budget,actually it was filmed with less than $5000 bucks and it shows, but the idea is very good completely different to "At midnight i will take your soul" and "This night i will take your body". This movie deals with the social perversion of society, with the sex deprivations and drug abuse as the cause more than the result of this, so a Dr. makes an experiment in which he gives drug addicts LSD and shows them a picture of Coffin Joe to induct the evil behavior that its linked to him, and each one of the subjects haves a different hallucination with a different message given by coffin Joe but....

Layered exploitation as you will probably do not find elsewhere

[guisreis · 8/10 · 9 June 2021]

In the first half of the film, after an interesting opening lettering simulating comic books, a beautiful cinematography and a cunning edition (often with dark humor) depict a wide range of sexual depravation situations (sometimes combined with mysoginy, violence, and work harassment). Those bizarre cases are interwined with a debate between psychiatrists, in a noir footage, about the possible causal connection between those dire social events and the usage of illegal drugs. One of those experts is José Mojica Marins, the director himself, who is also known as his character Coffin Joe, then merging reality, the story of the present movie and also his previous films (besides a horror comic book character who also appears in a newsstand). It is mentioned that another scentist, Sérgio, made experiments with LSD with four patients to investigate that issue. Then, Coffin Joe appears in a TV show being interviewed by intelectuals about his role as filmmaker in Brazilian cinema, being judged as in a court. After that, the movie continues showing Sérgio's experiment to find out if there is a relation between LSD and perversion. After going with the four patients to watch Coffin Joe's films in a theater, he shows them images of that character and uses syringes to inject the solution on them. That last quarter of the film is partially coloured, what does not happen in rhe whole rest of the film. Situations even worse and weirder than in the beginning of the film take place inside their thoughts and minds. In those scenes, Coffin Joe shows his sadism and mysoginy, and have magic powers that did not appear in his three first movies portraying the character. The four human guinea pigs have macabre hallucinations, and the young woman suffers lots of violence, just like undistinguishable unknown people who are present in that hellish nightmare. Off course the whole film is an excuse to exploitation, and there is very little story between the weird real or oneiric situations. However, José Mojica Marins does try innovative cinema aestethics throughout the film. In the end, researcher Sérgio explains his experience (no spoilers here), when they are also shown in the mentioned TV show. Coffin Joe has the elements to keep making his films.

Awakening of the Beast

[Michael_Elliott · 23 July 2009]

Awakening of the Beast (1970)

** (out of 4)

Bizarre film from Marins using his Coffin Joe character as a fake thing to try and create a social commentary on society. In the film we see a television show where various doctors are debating the effects drugs have on society. The controversial actor/director Jose Mojica Marins is involved in the debate because people are wondering if his character Coffin Joe might influence people to do drugs. The final twenty-minutes has four people given LSD to see how they react. This is a complete mess of a film but I guess that adds to the surreal nature of the movie and series for that matter. I've read that Marins couldn't get a third Coffin Joe film off the ground so he had other filmmakers send him left over film stock just so he could throw something together and this is the result. The film is extremely well made as I'd be lying if I said Marins directing style wasn't something completely original. The visual look of the film is quite amazing as the director paints a very ugly picture of the underground drug community and its easy to see why the government had the movie banned in Brazil. Marins paints a cruel and ugly world full of abuse, both sexual and physical and the images brought to the screen are certainly unlike any other. There's one sequence where men line up to put their face up the skirt of a woman. Another scene where an overweight pervert tries to seduce a young woman. We get various acts of perversion and then the LSD sequences turn to full color and really give the eyes a treat. The performances are all about what you'd expect, although Marins puts himself above the rest. The movie is all over the place and I'm really not sure how strong the message on society is but those whose who enjoy strange and bizarre movies are bound to eat this one up.

A movie that seems good

[tzillo · 10/10 · 3 April 1999]

This movie has three good reasons to be seen: the first is that a black and white horror Brazilian movie is interesting, the second is the great character Zè do Caixao, who is an interesting person; the third reason is that the irony reached by Josè Mojica Marins is incredibly high!