FORMAT: BLU-RAY
Jose Mojica Marins directs and stars in the first Coffin Joe flick. If you’ve never seen one of his movies, what the hell are you waiting for? Viva, Coffin Joe!
Coffin Joe is the undertaker of a small town, and everyone lives in constant fear of him. And for good reason, too. If you don’t pay up at the poker table, he’ll cut your fingers off. If you look at him sideways, he’ll horsewhip you in front of your friends. It goes without saying being his girlfriend is a bum trip. If you can’t produce an heir to extend his cursed bloodline, he’ll kill you and his best friend just so he can shack up with his new lady. He also puts spiders on women, pokes people’s eyes out like a cross between Freddy Krueger and Moe from the Three Stooges and smashes a crown of thorns into a dude’s face.
Needless to say, Joe has been building up a lot of bad karma. Naturally, when an old gypsy woman puts a curse on him, he pays it no mind. It doesn’t take long though for him to suffer the tortures of the damned.
Wearing a top hat, cape, beard, and brandishing long nails, Coffin Joe cuts a memorable figure. Marins portrays him to the hilt as he’s brimming with evil and boiling over with cruelty. In short, Coffin Joe is a guy you love to hate. It’s almost a shame he’s got to get his comeuppance. Almost.
As a director, Marins is one of the best in the business. He gives us some memorable imagery that evokes the best of the old school Universal, Mexican monster, and Italian horror films. The freakout scenes late in the picture are also a lot of fun and the scenes of Coffin Joe being a total bastard have a real kick to them.
Incredibly enough, the sequels are even crazier, but this is the one that started it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment