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 was at the Canadian Premiere of Embodiment of Evil during Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. The introduction alone was worth the price of admission as the co-screenwriter Dennison Ramalho, dressed in a leather straight-jacket, introduced the director and star, Coffin Joe himself, José Mojica Marins, who was wheeled onstage by three gorgeous, fetish-wearing goths in a shroud covered container that was unveiled to be an open coffin.Embodiment of Evil is the third in the Coffin Joe trilogy, the first two films being À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma (1964)... aka At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul and Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (1967)... aka This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse.Zé do Caixão, the Coffin Joe character is a combination of showy horror host, comic-book magician (specifically Mandrake the Magician) and depraved, sadistic serial torturer and murderer. A gravedigger, he wears a top hat, black cloak and has supernaturally long fingernails. A fierce atheist who denies the existence of both Heaven and Hell, Coffin Joe is obsessed by his search of the perfect woman with whom he can mate and continue his bloodline, preserving his eternal blood in a son. Joe's definition of a perfect woman is one that, like him, has no fear. To identify her, Joe uses the most diabolical tortures possible and those who fail his tests die in the most hideous and painful manner possible.Fantasia programmed the two previous Coffin Joe films back in 1999 and brought José Mojica Marins from Brazil to present them. While by no means the only people who can take credit, the Fantasia team must share the blame for reintroducing the world to Zé do Caixão.I am not a fan of torture in horror films. What makes the Coffin Joe films palatable to me is the barely veiled metaphor of Coffin Joe trying to free Brazil from its imprisonment - chained by fear of violence from the military dictatorship and superstitious fear of the Roman Catholic Church. Nothing that Coffin Joe did or could do could ever be as evil or perverse as the way that the Junta and the church conspired to enslave Brazil and Brazilians. Coffin Joe is like a Pied Piper for freedom, offering a path filled with pain and for many, death, but promising at the end of the road a freedom that neither government nor church can take away.Embodiment of Evil begins with Coffin Joe being released from an insane asylum where he has been confined for the last 40 years after his crimes in the first two films. (Amusingly, his hunchback assistant Bruno has been waiting for him for all these years.) Coffin Joe exits to a world both completely different from the one that he left and eternally the same. There is very much a sense that Coffin Joe is a man from a time that has past while simultaneously a prophet whose time has come.Coffin Joe's quest is both easier and more difficult than it was in the past. Easier because he now has disciples, the children and grand-children of those who heard his message in the sixties. And a new generation of women unshackled by fear gives Coffin Joe an embarrassment of choice to be his perfect woman.His quest is more difficult because the barriers of fear and superstition still exist. The metaphor still works: fear of a violent military has been replaced by the fear of a corrupt and violent police. The superstitious fear of the church remains although its grip has weakened. The biggest change is that everyone is haunted by the sins of the past. The new Brazil is built on the bones and blood of the old Brazil and everyone (including Coffin Joe) is haunted by the ghosts of that past.For Joe, this is a revolting development. As a man whose entire life is built on a denial of the existence of a life after death, ghosts are an abomination. Coffin Joe works even better as a metaphor for the new Brazil, futilely denying its' bloody past, like Lady Macbeth trying desperately to wash away the bloody spot.Embodiment of Evil, like all the films in the Coffin Joe trilogy, is not a film for the squeamish. The images of pain and torture are all the more horrific since many of them are real. (Apparently for many in the Brazilian fetish community, being tortured by Coffin Joe is a badge of honour.) What can't be denied is that his vision is a unique vision of horror that speaks to those who will listen as clearly today as it did in the sixties.

I expect to watch a good terror movie. But all I saw was a good Zé do Caixão movie. After all this years, its the last and third movie, the final end.It seems it was just made for fans who love to say "hey, I'm a Coffin Joe's fan!!" Also, was a body piercing studio the main sponsor? Because piercing is not that scary, dear "modified-people"...The dialogs don't make much sense and after all them you'll probably forget about the plot. Well... they make sense... enough for you laugh of the poetry attempt.Much blood, scars, a cool opening video and insects. I didn't get scared, I get bored.

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.