Many Brazilians of a certain age are very familiar with José Mojica Marins and his character Coffin Joe (Zé do Caixão), who first appeared in the 1963 film At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. Marins was an unknown quantity to most of the world until the release of his films on VHS cassettes by Something Weird in the early 1990s. The release of these films was revelatory.

The Coffin Joe character, a grave digger by trade, is some sort of Nietzsche-like misanthrope who takes delight in causing misery everywhere he goes. The early black and white films are steeped in the familiar components of early United States and European horror, including the charismatic evil doer (Coffin Joe) with a hunchback assistant (Bruno) and an endless supply of diabolical schemes. Unlike horror films from the U.S. and Europe, the Coffin Joe films have an exotic vibe. The stories are overtly anti-religious, the sexual element is aggressive, the faces are ethnic, and the geek show antics (blood, guts, live snakes, spiders, frogs, rats, and roaches) go further than similar fare of the time. Marins’ later films are really off-the-map, and includes works like the ultra-bizarre full-length compendium of freak out sequences entitled Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind. The genuine “otherness” of these films puts Marins more in league with Luis Bunuel, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Fernando Arrabal than regular horror directors.

Some decades after the last Coffin Joe film, Jose Mojica Marins has created a new entry in the cycle: Embodiment of Evil (Encarnação do Demônio). The film played at Brazil’s RIOFAN Festival earlier in the year but is now set to screen at a most unexpected venue: the Venice Film Festival. What Venice audiences will see on August 29th and 31st, 2008 is a mix of blustery philosophizing and gory surrealism that will appeal to the Coffin Joe faithful but will probably leave everyone else confused. 

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One of the key aspects of Pascal Laguier’s film Martyrs is the soundtrack. The music ranges from creepy ambient to acoustic balladry, all of which adds an extra emotional depth to the film. The main theme is particularly effective as the soft melodies and contextual lyrics are a stark contrast to the film’s hard imagery.

The persons responsible for this great work are Alex and Willie Cortez, who operate under the moniker of Seppuku Paradigm. Many are probably not familiar with the work of this duo but that is likely to change soon. The pair also created the soundtrack for Eden Log, which is screening along with Martyrs as part of the Midnight Madness section at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Given the important role of music in Martyrs, it seemed appropriate to pose an inquiry to the Cortez Brothers about their experience working on the film. Their first person account is featured below. 

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Earlier this year, Todd Brown highlighted Ekachai Uekrongtham’s new supernatural horror film The Coffin. The film, which is inspired by a Thai ritual to ward off bad luck and prolong life, stars some people who should be familiar to Twitch readers, including Karen Mok, Ananda Everingham, and Andrew Lin. The anticipation over The Coffin is now over, at least for some audiences. The film opened this past weekend in Thailand and grabbed the top spot at the box office. Those outside of Thailand will have to wait to see The Coffin but a clearer picture is beginning to emerge about what has audiences headed to the theaters. An English-language trailer has surfaced, along with a swath of new, and rather stunning, still images. Special thanks goes to Anthony Timpson for the initial tip, and to TIFA Company Limited, who kindly provided the still images and permission to use the trailer.

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Fantastic Fest has finally announced its opening night film for 2008. Excited? Look beneath the fold to find out the name of the film and the guest.

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The recent crop of French genre films like Frontière(s) and À l’intérieur (Inside) has been both condemned and praised for embracing new levels of graphic content.  Whether one is a critic or supporter of this trend, one of the most obvious questions to arise after watching these films is how far can these filmmakers go with hard-edged realism? Pascal Laguier’s Martyrs answers this question in forceful fashion. In Martyrs, Laguier has created a film that is obviously rooted in genre conventions but transcends the boundaries of genre to achieve something unique and unforgettable. 

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Tak Sakaguchi has been a busy man in 2008. In addition to choreographing fights for Tokyo Gore Police and serving as action director for High School Girl Rika: Zombie Hunter, he directed two features this year: Be a Man! Samurai School and Samurai Zombie (Yoroi) . Twitch sat down with him in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 in order to gain some insight into his current and future projects.  The discussion, which was conducted with translation assistance by Chiho Mori, focused on his most recent output, including United Red Army, Samurai Zombie (Yoroi), and the rumored Versus sequel. He also provided some information about a new project he has in development. As usual, details are contained beneath the fold.

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The Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD) concludes on Thursday, August 21, 2008 with a screening of Tak Sakaguchi’s directorial debut Be A Man! Samurai School. Sakaguchi is the festival’s 2008 special guest, and has flown into Dallas, Texas exclusively for the screening. Tak kindly provided us with the latest demo reel for his Zero’s action team, which is to say the least, completely on fire.  Anyone even reasonably close to the Dallas area should seriously consider making the screening as Sakaguchi has brought Isao Karasawa, who is one of his lead stuntmen, and there will be a live demonstration before the event. The demo reel is contained beneath the fold. 

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Something strange is afoot in Joko Anwar’s supernatural noir Kala , which takes place in an unnamed city in an unnamed nation. Eros is a detective who investigates the murder of a group of men killed by a mob operating freely under a new morality law.  Janus, a narcoleptic journalist, is pursued by mysterious men after surreptitiously recording a conversation involving the wife of the murdered man. These two people’s lives are further entangled after one of Janus’s friends is killed, and Eros is put on the case. As time progresses, it is revealed that these separate threads are all linked through both supernatural and human mechanisms.

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Feng Xiaogang’s Assembly (Ji jie hao) is a war film with an epic sweep. Assembly , which tells the true story of an infantry commander during the Chinese Civil War, presents both the intensity of battle and the quest for peace and recognition by those who give their lives in times of war.

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Hideo Nakata’s L: Change the World has had a healthy life on the festival circuit, and has recently been released on Region 3 DVD. L is a sequel to the popular Death Note series, which explains why the film might be a popular programming choice. On an overall level, however, it is somewhat difficult to see the appeal of L: Change the World to anyone beyond young people, and hardcore fans of the original films and the manga upon which it is based.

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Given the amount of coverage that Tokyo Gore Police gets on Twitch, it is easy to forget that the film has not been released on DVD and has only screened a few times in the United States. The latest U.S. screening of Yoshihiro Nishimura’s film occurred on August 15, 2008 at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD). Tokyo Gore Police deserves the attention its been getting because it is a great riff on films such as Robo-Cop but with a unique Japanese flavor. 

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It is well-known that this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas will play host to retrospectives of both Australian exploitation and Japanese pinku films. The list of titles and guests was announced today, and the program is outstanding. Pinku titles include S&M Hunter, A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn, Blue Film Woman, and Gushing Prayer. Australian titles include Turkey Shoot and Man from Hong Kong with special guest Brian Trenchard-Smith. As previously mentioned, the Australian titles are in support of the new “Ozzploitation” documentary Not Quite Hollywood. The full list of films is beneath the fold. 

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Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film Johnny Mad Dog , which was produced by Mathieu Kassovitz and Benoit Jaubert, is based on Emmanuel Dongala’s novel of the same name. Dongala’s book presents the intertwining stories of two children from an unidentified West African country: Johnny Mad Dog, a guerrilla soldier and Laokole, a girl who goes on the run after town is raided by Johnny Mad Dog’s militia, the Death Dealers. 

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Gô Shibata’s controversial 2004 film The Late Bloomer (Osoi Hito) appeared on the festival circuit a few years ago to much acclaim but subsequently disappeared. Now, in 2008, the film is on its way back into the public conversation with recent screenings in New York and an imminent North American DVD release by Tidepoint Pictures. Similarly themed films have both preceded (Chang-dong Lee’s Oasis) and followed (Crispin Glover’s It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!) Shibata’s work but this does not really matter.  There is no adequate cinematic frame of reference for the way in which The Late Bloomer explores disability and the frailty of the human body.

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High School Girl Rika: Zombie Hunter (Saikyo Heiki Joshikousei Rika) is set for a Region 2 Japanese language DVD release from GP Museum on July 25, 2008. One can almost guess the story from the title: a surgically-enhanced high school girl fights off a plague of zombies. High School Girl Rika does not seem to offer much in the way of innovation but of course, that does not mean it will not be entertaining. The graphic trailer is cut for maximum effect and can be pursued beneath the fold (viewer discretion advised).

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