Hellish Flesh (1977)

People are voting emotionally.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Brazilian director José Mojica Marins is renowned by cult movie fans for his surreal, gory, bizarre and frequently incomprehensible Coffin Joe movies in which he plays sadistic undertaker Zé do Caixão. Hellish Flesh doesn't feature Zé and is one of the film-maker's more conventional efforts, but I don't mind: it's nice to be able to understand what the hell is going on for a change!Marins plays Dr. Jorge Medeiros, a scientist so caught up in his experiments (or 'experience' if you have the poorly subtitled Anchor Bay DVD) that he neglects his beautiful wife Raquel. A little too trusting, he is happy for Raquel to go to dinner with his friend Oliver while he tends to his test tubes; unsurprisingly, the pair are at it like rabbits behind his back.Fed up with keeping their affair a secret, the deceitful couple plan to rid themselves of Jorge and claim his fortune. While working one night, Raquel goes into his laboratory and throws acid into her husband's face; Oliver goes one step further and starts a fire, leaving Jorge to burn to death. Miraculously, Jorge survives his ordeal and spends months in hospital receiving reconstructive surgery (cue some nauseating real-life eye surgery footage); meanwhile, Oliver and Raquel are quickly working their way through what cash they have, unable to lay their hands on Jorge's money.Strangely, when Jorge leaves hospital, he doesn't go to the police; on the contrary, he regularly gives Raquel money, most of which is squandered by Oliver on gambling and, unbeknown to Raquel, on numerous skanky hookers (fat women, women with bad teeth, women with five o'clock shadows: he's not fussy!). When Raquel learns of Oliver's dalliance's with these women, she rushes to confront him, but is hit by a car (she needn't have bothered: his last hooker had stabbed him to death).Once again, Jorge comes to his wife's rescue, paying for the surgery necessary to help her walk again. Indebted and wracked by guilt, Raquel returns to her husband, and, on seeing his scarred visage, declares her love and throws acid into her own face, wanting to be disfigured just like Jorge. After unsuccessful plastic surgery, Raquel returns home and once again declares her love for Jorge, at which point her husband… well, that would be telling, suffice to say that as acts of revenge go, this one is pretty sweet!6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

After watching the interesting,but heavy-going Strange Hostel Of Pleasures,I decided to pick out,what is meant to be the most "acsesable" entry in Anchor Bay's Coffin Joe Boxset.The plot:Feeling that her scientist husband (George/Jorge) never has any time for her,Rachel decides to start an affair with a co-worker of George/Jorge called Oliver.As the affair between the two really starts to heat up,Rachel and Oliver hatch a plan to murder her husband,so that Rachel can inherit all of his wealth.Catching George/Jorge alone in his lab,Rachel grabs a bottle of near by acid and pours it all over his face.After having almost killed her husband with the bottle of acid,Rachel gets Oliver to finish the job for her,by setting fire to the entire lab.Rushing off for their presumed life of pleasure,Oliver and Rachel make the terrible mistake of George/Jorge willpower.View on the film:Whilst I have found the subtitle work by Anchor Bay for the first two films that I viewed in the set to be very good,I have to say that for this one the quality of the subtitles took a noticeable drop,with the name of Rachel's husband (whose one of the lead characters!) constantly changing from Jorge to George,which I have to admit did pull me out of the film a little bit.From the opening scene of the film,I found it very easy to see that this is an entry in the Coffin Joe series which had some cash that could be splashed on the screen.For the look of the film,writer/director Jose Morjica Marins (who also gives a wonderful humbleness to his performance as Rachel's husband) gives the film a terrific style that got me to remember the Roald Dahl's Tale of The Unexpected TV series. (with the added bonus of the movies two lead actresses being naked in the film)One of the most interesting things that I found with this film was that although the characters are shown to wear stylish bright clothes for the whole film,Marnis makes sure that the brightness never stops him from delivering a weird take on Beauty and the Beast!.Although unlike the Disney version,this one contains a horrific eye scene,that caused my legs to twitch right away.

Hellish Flesh is a slightly more conventional horror tale from Brazilian madman José Mojica Marins. In it Marins plays a scientist who spends too much time in his lab. His wife conducts an affair with a mutual friend. The pair then concoct a plan to kill the hapless husband. The wife pours acid on his face and her lover sets fire to his lab. But the scientist survives albeit with a creepy burned face, while the wife suffers a bad life as her lover is a good-for-nothing gambler and womaniser. But things only get even more complicated.At its heart this is a simple revenge tale. Although given that it's a Marins movie it isn't a typical one. He still manages to incorporate some surreal elements such as the scenes with the mysterious young woman. Her lover is but a shadowy silhouette, á la Nosferatu. There are also a couple of shock moments; one being the acid attack scene which does look quite fake and another being the eye surgery scene which unfortunately is quite genuine, and very unpleasant indeed. Also, the parts with Marins facially deformed scientist were nice and creepy. But mostly Hellish Flesh is a fairly straightforward affair. The twist at the end is kind of good though and rounds off the film on a satisfyingly macabre note.

"Hellish Flesh" is not an Coffin Joe entry but an average horror tale of revenge. A scientist (Marins) gets his face destroyed with acid by his young cheating wife. She then spends his money on a playboy/lover, meanwhile Marins is lurking around them with a scarred face. The end has nice twist but like "Perversion" it's too straightforward compared to his unique surreal Coffin Joe epics. The print from Something Weird Video is pretty worn but it's properly the only way to get this rare film. Only for fans of this Brazilian genius.