At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

(1963) *****

The thing about Catfreeek is that for every 15 zombie slut vomit films she reviews, she invariably unearths one diamond in the rough like Santa Sangre, Antichrist, Martyrs or the Brazilian At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. I’ll let you (or Crystal or Trevor) do the math but seeing how Cat averages roughly 11 movies per day, her chances of striking gold are reasonably high.

Coffin Joe is a special kind of rotten bastard. I knew from the opening seconds of the movie that this man deserved some prime real estate up on the Horrorthon banner. (Can you locate him?) His first two lines “What is life? It’s just the beginning of death” set the tone flawlessly. And if there’s one thing Coffin Joe knows about, it’s death. So just how cruel is this guy? Well, he kills his wife with a horrific venomous spider after learning of her infertility. The last words he utters to her are rather insensitive: “I’ll have the honor of seeing you die before my eyes”. He then murders his trusting “friend” so that he can move in on his fiancée Terezinha, leaving the poor woman with two simple options - submission or suicide. Take a guess as to which one she chooses? The rest of the movie follows his unyielding quest to find a woman worthy (he doesn’t care if she’s willing) to carry his child.

Did I mention that he’s an evil prick? He is the kind of atheist that gives atheists a bad name, looking down upon religious people with complete and utter contempt. He bullies, threatens and insults virtually every man, woman and child he comes into contact with. Hell, he bullies an entire bar full of people on numerous occasions. Most of the townsfolk know better than to stand up to a bearded undertaker sporting a cape, top hat and crazy eyes but those who dare to suffer swift and severe punishment. This generally includes but is not limited to a humiliating beatdown, disfigurement and death.

Frankly I cannot remember life before Coffin Joe. If there is more accurate embodiment of pure evil then I have yet to see it. While watching At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, I felt that same soul tingle that I get when I stumble into an awesome old band with a back catalog that I can't wait to explore.