Embodiment of Evil (2008)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Admirable film.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Embodiment of Evil (2008) ** 1/2 (out of 4) After forty years in prison, Josefel Zanatas (Jose Mojica Marins), aka Coffin Joe, gets released and goes right back to his old ways of trying to find the perfect woman to give him a son. While Joe searches out the best woman, he's haunted by ghosts from his past while a vigilante police Captain is in hot pursuit. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL was a highly anticipated film as pretty much every trash fan in the world went nuts when they hear Marins was bringing back his cult character. Whereas the first few Coffin Joe movies went for surrealism and strangeness, this one here instead goes for non-stop violence and gore. There are a few scenes here that would make countless torture/porn movie turns their head in fear. I mean, how many movies can you think of where they torture a woman by pouring hot cheese on her and then letting a rat go to work? The violence here is often quite graphic and it even goes towards some sexual violence including a really brutal scene where there's pretty much a cannibal orgy going on where women are biting off a certain part of the male anatomy. It should go without saying but only the strongest of stomachs will be able to handle this movie so the majority of people should just stay away. Marins has no problem getting back into his Coffin Joe performance as he's certainly fun to watch here and looking a lot like Orson Welles. The rest of the cast fit their roles just fine as well. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL does lack in regards to its story as it seems to drag out in spots and there's no question we've seen this type of thing many times before. I wish a little more had been done with the character returning but fans of gore and violence should at least be entertained by that.

Pyschopathic grave digger coffin Joe is finally released (or is it unleashed?) after serving 40 years in prison, where he is greeted by his fawning hunchbacked minion Bruno. Now, you'd think that serving 40 years in a Brazilian prison would break a man's spirit. Not Coffin Joe. For as we all know, The Embodiment Of Evil that is Coffin Joe is no ordinary man. So, he's barely out of chokey, and he's securing himself a lair, yet more minions, and unleashing havoc on contemporary Brazil, as he continues his quest to secure for him a woman who will spawn his perfect son. However, there's other factors at play, such as haunting visions from his past not to mention the children of Joe's previous victims, as well as surviving ones, keen to exact revenge forty years later. Will they succeed? Or will Coffin Joe finally triumph in his hellish vision?Embodiment Of Evil is an awesome contemporary exploitation horror and a very welcome return to form for director Jose Marins. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink in terms of content, with some jaw dropping set piece torture sequences, some of them conducted for real, using body performance artists, it cheerfully pushes the exploitative envelope and delivers in spades for any fan. Marin, despite being in his 70s by now, could certainly teach these young whippersnapper directors such as Rob Zombie or Eli Roth a thing or two about real exploitation, and Embodiment of Evil is a contemporary Coffin Joe gem. It holds its sub plot elements together surprisingly well, and the viewer is still treated to Joe's iconic camp rants against God, the Church and The State in general. There's even some brief social commentary thrown in for good measure.8.5/10, rounded off to 8 by IMDb, it's well recommended for Coffin Joe fans, and fans of lurid exploitative horror in general.Welcome back Joe... You've been away far too long amigo.

I still don't know how come I went to the movies to watch this piece of crap. I read some of the reviews and they all said that was a "great horror movie", "a true masterpiece" and "amazing, thrilling and horrifying".I don't know what's wrong with those critics here in Brazil on saying that this is a "great horror movie". It wasn't great and either a "horror movie". All I did was laugh, laugh...and laugh like I never laugh in any other comedy I ever watched.Coffin Joe in probably the worst actor of all time. His monologues and alucinations were hilarious instead of being "horrifying". If this movie were a comedy I would give a better grade instead of 2/10. This movie was supposed to be scared and all I did was laugh.This movie has a lot of uncalled sex scenes, so if you are looking for a porno movie this is IT. If you are also looking for lots of blood spilling, human torture scenes that will make "Saw" a Disney film and performances that will make the "Disaster Movie" cast proud you will have lots of fun, but don't go with the expectations on being scared.SPOILERSThe worst scene? A hot young woman having sex with Coffin Joe's death body at the end.

I must confess to not having seen the first two installments of this Brazilian cult series (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul & This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse). I tried renting them in Brazil, but couldn't find them.Still, the movie is definitely fun to watch, even without prior knowledge of the story of Josefel Zanatas, the undertaker also known as Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe).Without giving much away, Zé do Caixão is obsessed with having a perfect son, born to a perfect woman, which he likes to refer to as "the continuation of the blood". He is also a hard-core atheist and sadist.I personally think that Zé's atheism is one of the most interesting facets of this movie. Instead of slipping through the easy path of satanism, Zanatas (almost an anagram of Satanás, Satan in Portuguese) remains a down-to-the-bone atheist, even when confronted with visions of hell and of past victims of his sadist rites. It is this that gives him his alleged superiority. He is free, as he puts it himself. Free of all belief in false (theist) morals.This if of course a trash movie, though with much larger budget than his previous work, so one should not expect to see Hollywoodesque special effects. Yet Mr. Marins creativity is still captivating, and delivers marvelous scenes, such as that of a naked woman leaving a dead pig carcass (no special effects here, it was a true pig). Humor is also very present, and at some scenes even very experienced actors have a hard time concealing a smile.All in all, 7 out of 10. But if you are only concerned with having fun, this movie is a 10 out of 10.