The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This refers to films that are made in Brazil. Not a wide output of Brazilian cinema seems to cross our desk here, although a number of genre entries have been made. One of the most notable of these was Jose Mojica Marins who emerged in the 1960s with a self-directed series of films in which he played the sadistic and demoniac undertaker Ze do Caixao (Coffin Joe).
A number of Brazilian directors have emerged onto the world stage in recent years with the likes of Fernando Meirelles, José Padilha and Walter Salles, all having had some occasional genre intersections.
Brazil’s Ze do Caixao or Coffin Joe is one of the most evil characters ever created on film, spearheaded by director/star Jose Mojica Marins’s contempt for the weak and catalogue of brutalities and blasphemies
An extraordinary film that offers a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, relocating it amid the Rio Carnival with striking and colourful results
A hugely underrated film that depicts the brutal collapse of society that occurs when the entire world is affected by a plague that causes blindness. Directed in strong and powerful images
Brazilian animated film that comes with a lovely simplicity – all jagged washes of colour, characters as simple lines, endless patterns and a minimalist plot – out of which it manages to weave an incredibly pretty eye candy
A hit Brazilian film with Sonia Braga as a widow who remarries only for her wayward late husband to reappear as a ghost after she finds she is missing his passion. Charming and whimsical
Cult Brazilian figure of Jose Mojica Marina returns to his signature role of the demoniac sorcerer Ze do Caixão/Coffin Joe after 40 years. Marins’ nihilist philosophising and catalogue of torture scenes proves madly entertaining
A documentary about Luigi Cozzi, director of Starcrash and Hercules, among others. Cozzi proves a highly enjoyable raconteur and often more entertaining than some of the films he has made
Brazilian film about a haunted supermarket, which becomes a metaphor for post-Recession economic stress. While the film sets up a host of haunted house elements, it fails to ever reach a resolution
Brazilian film that becomes an allegory for Covid lockdown as a toxic cloud forces people to remain indoors for years at a time
Brazilian-made variant on the alternate timelines film showing three very different outcomes of the lives of a man and a woman after a date
Adapted from a classic Brazilian novel, a man narrates his life story from beyond the grave
Brazilian film about a possessed skull that inhabits a man to lay a gore-drenched trail across the city
Jose Mojica Marins, the cult Brazilian director/actor best known as the demoniac undertaker Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe, presides over a hotel where the guests meet sinister fates
Brazil’s Jose Mojica Marins became a cult figure for his Coffin Joe films; this is an anthology sold under the Coffin Joe banner. Without the Coffin Joe presence, all we have is a series of not very well directed pieces that linger on perversity, although the final segment does stand out memorably
The second and more sophisticated of the Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe films with director Jose Mojica Marins as a diabolic undertaker who delights in inflicting a catalogue of tortures on the weak-minded
Full marks for an attention-grabbing exploitation title, this is a horror film that takes place on a horror film set where film being shot and sinister characters on the sideline blur in a rubber reality
This nominally tells three slice-of-life tales but in each the principal character is creating a book or film about one of the other characters. This becomes a meta-fiction of considerable cleverness as we see how the problems of one character end up reflected in the other character’s story