Sitges 2008: THE EMBODIMENT OF EVIL Review
What a difference context can make. Several months back I was given the chance to see an early, nearly finished cut of The Embodiment of Evil - the long awaited return of Brazilian cult icon Coffin Joe to the big screen after a decades-long absence - and I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. In retrospect this was a mistake. The pacing seemed slightly off, the dvd did no favors to the film's striking visuals and the carnival-barker approach writer-director-actor Jose Mojica Marins takes to his character is just so much larger than the confines of the television screen that it came off more silly than frightening. This version of the film, in this format just simply did not work. But the finished film on the big screen? That's an entirely different story.
Functioning both as a conclusion tot he Coffin Joe trilogy begun in 1964 and as an introduction to the character for new audiences - and remarkably successful on both counts - The Embodiment of Evil is a shocking, potent reminder that the creative blood still runs strong in Marins' veins. It is powerful, gut wrenching stuff laced through with dark humor and surreal, horrifying imagery. There is not now nor has there ever been anybody in the film world quite like Marins and at the age of 74 he has done precisely what Dario Argento could not with Mother Of Tears: he has created a film that not only concludes his early work but also expands his legacy.
Marins' Coffin Joe is one of the most unique creations in horror film, a top hat and cape wearing former undertaker with a strong aversion to manicures - Marins quite literally has not cut his fingernails in decades - Coffin Joe lives by a sort of Nietzschean code, espousing a belief that the only thing that matters in this world is life - that life trumps any notions of good or evil - and that the only possible road to immortality is through the continuation of your own blood through generations. And so, with the help of his hunch backed grave digging assistant Bruno, Coffin Joe has been on a quest - a brutal, bloody and violent quest - to find the perfect woman, a woman unencumbered by notions of ethics or morality in whom to plant his seed and secure his own immortality through procreation. The road to discovering this woman is a road of pain and degradation, horrible torture and humiliation, and woe to anyone who may stand in Coffin Joe's path.
Decades earlier, at the end of the previous entry in the Coffin Joe films, Joe was captured by police and imprisoned but now, having served out his full term, he is granted his freedom. And while Coffin Joe may be older, while his body may not be as strong, the force of his will and the desire to achieve immortality burns as fiercely as ever and with the help of his loyal companion Bruno, Coffin Joe soon has established his base of operations - an underground cellar decorated with coffins, a chair made of bones, and a wide variety of torture devices - recruited a core group of servants and helpers and resumed his continual quest for the perfect woman, a quest plagued by bizarre visions of vengeful dead from his past and dogged pursuit of a pair of vicious police officers nursing long standing grudges against him.
Prone to delivering quasi-philosophical, quasi mystical rants while striking poses in his cape and hat, Coffin Joe is a sort of throwback to the days of sideshow freaks and carnival barkers, the performance one of showmanship moreso than character. Coffin Joe delivers his philosophies proudly before driving the point home with bursts of graphic violence and terror. It is a curious stew of influences, blending the surreal experimental urges of a Bunuel or Jodorowsky with classic American horror influences - the design of the Coffin Joe character could have been lifted directly from a classic Universal horror film - and strands of Brazilian black magic, Catholic superstition and gore sequences that would make Eli Roth blush with shame at his own feeble attempts to shock. While an understanding of the character and his earlier outings would certainly not hurt when approaching this picture they are not at all required, Marins doing an exceptionally skillful job at weaving explanatory references to the earlier films throughout this project. Clearly he - along with co-writer and assistant director Dennison Ramalho - that a huge percentage of their audience will never have had access to the original works and they do a stellar job of ensuring that nobody is left behind.
While the hallucinatory nature of the Coffin Joe experience is ultimately what makes the work compelling and what will stick with you the longest it is the gore sequences and more extreme elements that will provide the immediate hook to cult audiences. Be warned that Marins frequently fuses sex with violence in a way sure to upset many. Even without the sexual element the level of violence and gore is potent and shocking - even to very jaded eyes - thanks to Marins' reliance on practical effects and creative imagery. There are things in this film - lots of them - that you have never seen before, things that could only have come from a truly fevered mind and they are presented incredibly convincingly because - more often than not - they really did them. The supporting cast is populated with real life fetishists and freaks all too happy to have their mouths sewn shut or be dipped into tanks full of entrails and blood and Marins pushes them all to the farthest possible extreme.
Coffin Joe is a true cult phenomenon, a figure whose cult has grown steadily over the years. Unlike most who trade in violence and gore to provoke their audience only to quickly fade away Marins' creation has a such a strength and uniqueness of vision that he remains vital all these many years later. This is a very long overdue and welcome return.
