At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

1964
6.9| 1h23m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 09 November 1964 Released
Producted By: Indústria Cinematográfica Apolo
Country: Brazil
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Zé do Caixão is an undertaker in a small Brazilian town, searching for the perfect woman to bear him a superior child. Unable to conceive with his wife, he kills her and sets out to find someone else.

Genre

Horror, Thriller

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Director

José Mojica Marins

Production Companies

Indústria Cinematográfica Apolo

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At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul Audience Reviews

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
trashgang You just can't pass Coffin Joe if you are a horror geek. Even as this flick is outdated it's a must see and you will understand that this was a real horror back in those days. It came before the classic The Night Of The Living Dead (1968) and I liked this one more then the over-hyped Romero flick. Maybe NoTLD still stand the time but here we do see a better use of the camera and the overall look was much more creepier. It even clocks in under 90 minutes which makes it excellent. The effects used are also worth checking out. Just see the poking of the eyes or one being drowned. It's filmed in black and white and that may turn geeks away or the aging may be a difficulty but it shows again that not all classics were made in the US. Being one of the first flicks shot by Coffin Joe it's indeed low on some parts he get well known for later but it definitely is a must see.Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5
Lee Eisenberg José Mojica Marins had made a few movies before "À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma" ("At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" in English), but it was this first entry in the Coffin Joe trilogy that gave the director his most famous role. Zé do Caixão (as he's called in Portuguese) is the undertaker in an unnamed Brazilian town. Disdaining religion and morality, Zé cares only about "continuity of the blood", and so he wants to father a child with the "perfect woman".Without a doubt, Zé's actions show him to be an amoral individual. To be certain, he seeks to use women exclusively as a path to his own fulfillment. This individualistic attitude is actually antithetical to Latin American culture, as it is more common for everyone to look out for each other. Of course, Zé can't be seen as a representation of anyone or anything except his own malicious desires.At times the movie is a little confusing, but the last ten minutes easily make up for any shortcomings. Indeed, the low-budget special effect in one scene is one of the neatest things that I've ever seen (in an interview, Marins describes how they did it). All in all, this is truly one of the most unique movies that I've ever seen. Brazil has as much reason to be proud of it as they do of "The Girl from Ipanema" (which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month). Very neat.
Red-Barracuda This is the first film featuring the Brazilian horror icon Zé do Caixão (or Coffin Joe to most people). Its director and star José Mojica Marins brain-child and it is nothing if not a true original. In it, Marins evil character is a gravedigger who has the populace of a village in mortal fear of him. He seeks a woman to bear him a child and goes about this is a manner involving murder an mayhem.At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is a very strange film. To some degree the weirdness may be attributable to its Brazilian origins. Marins output aside, there simply has been extremely few horror movies from this country. This means that the strange preoccupations on show here are isolated examples of horror from a Brazilian perspective. Hence the strange notion of an atheist horror villain who laughs in the face of god fearing villagers seems quite bizarre to western audiences but most probably had a lot more relevance within the context of the much more religious culture of Brazil. The upshot is that this character and these films are very strange indeed, and therefore are perfect fodder as cult movies. Even taking this into account though it would still have to be said that the story is often highly illogical and senseless. It has the feel of a comic-book in this sense. The people in Coffin Joe's world don't really act in a very normal way to say the least.For my money the sequel This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse is a better film though. In that one Marins had a little more budget, several more ideas and a better understanding of pacing a film. As a result it is a better expression of the basic ideas first given voice here. Nevertheless, this remains a curious and bizarre item that's well worth checking out if you have a taste for the more idiosyncratic side of the movies.
Michael_Elliott At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964) *** (out of 4)First is the series has director/writer Jose Mojica Marins playing the famous Ze do Caixao (Coffin Joe), a foul-mouthed, evil gravedigger who is upset at his wife who can't give him children. He spots a beautiful young woman who he wants as his bride but first he has to get rid of the wife as well as his best friend who just happens to be with the new girl. This was the first official Coffin Joe film I've seen and while it's not as experimental as some of the director's later work, that really doesn't take anything away from this because it's still mighty impressive. Anyone half way familiar with the series knows that Brazil has no film industry so the director was working with a zero budget with non-actors but this actually pays off because it brings an atmosphere that you can't buy with money. The film is very moody due to the low budget and I'd go even further and say that at times it's very poetic and beautiful in its own way. What works the best is Marins himself in the main role. Everything from his look to his talk to his walk is perfect and really paints an evil man and brings him to life. There's no question it was a blessing when the original actor couldn't appear in the role. The supporting cast are all fair to decent but, again, this helps makes the film seem all the more real. The B&W cinematography is actually quite nice as are the locations and various nice edits that happen throughout. The entire film has a perfect feel of death to it and this is what's so unique about the film. This certainly deserves its label as a cult classic even though it does run on a tad bit too much but this doesn't take too much away from an other wise very impressive film.