Frankly, I am STUNNED that Arrow Videos recent Coffin Joe bluray boxset, somehow misses off what is probably one of the best Coffin Joe films in the entire series!

‘The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe’ (Also known as ‘A Very Coffin Joe Christmas’…Okay, it isnt…but I wish it was…) was almost completely missed off my recent work through of the ‘Coffin Joe’ films, until I took a deeper look into José Mojica Marins filmography and realised I hadnt seen this one.

The plot, for the time is really actually quite inspired. Its set in the real world in the present day of 1974 and follows Author, dreamweaver, visionary…plus actor ‘José Mojica Marins’ as he decides to step away from the rat race that is the brazillian film market, and retreat to the woods to spend christmas with friends while also trying to get his groove back in order to write the next installment of the ‘Coffin Joe’ franchise.

However, things begin to take a dark and strange turn, when supernatural happenings begin to…happen. Including floating objects, disturbing voices and full blown possessions. Its revealed that one of the family has made a deal with a local devil worshipper in order to have a daughter. Only the deal that was made had the stipulation that, upon ‘maturity’ of the daughter, she would be married off to a man of the devil worshippers choosing…

Yes! as you can imagine Coffin Joe is back! but…how can he back if he’s a fictional character? well. it’ll fall down to José and the family to find the line between reality, fantasy and the dark arts. Rescue the devillish daughter and make it back home in time for a rousing rendition of ‘Jingle bells!’

Honestly, im still kind of in shock that this film was missed off the Arrow set. given some of the absolute tutt thats ON that arrow set, the fact this isnt deeply confuses me…Theres a couple of possible reasons. The film has 2-3 instances of on screen animal cruelty (a chicken gets its head ripped off and we have some time with…what appears to be a dog cadavar) but these are minimal…The other could be that this is one of the few Coffin Joe films not written by José (He only directs here)

In either case, Whats presented here is, for the most part a bloody enjoyable little film. I recently caught ‘Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind’ one of Josés last productions, and the comparisons to ‘Wes Cravens New Nightmare’ felt present…but underplayed. Here though? they ACTUALLY utilize the concept. and it pretty much works for most of the runtime!

There is a genuine unknowing for most of the runtime as to whether Coffin Joe has somehow broken out into the real world, or whether these are just strange happenstances. José seems genuinely baffled for most of the runtime as a character and the film really quite enjoys working through the idea of defining the line between fantasy and reality. Basically, this film manages to solve all the issues that I had with ‘Deranged’ while also making it a fun little movie with some genuinely interesting moments.

Tonally its got a slight campy edge, but is definitely in line with the previous ‘Coffin Joe’ films, The final act is a barnstormer with some really solid work going into it, the ending is satisfying and the setup and core presmise is sturdy.

In fact, my only grevience with with the script, is the pacing. Which is SO slow. Seriously, this films 94 minutes long and could EASILY have been an hour and felt slow. the first and third acts are fine enough, but the second act is pretty bloated and gets quite repetitious in places. While its not the end of the world, because, at least we have some half decent characters and conversations to be stuck with for that middle act. the bloat on this thing is fairly undenyable and I was clock watching from around the half hour mark, right up till the action flared up in the finale truthfully.

Also having a bit of a sacrifice, the cine and direction have taken a bit of a hit here compred to Josés other pieces. This one is less coherent stylistically, there isnt nearly as much creative light work or colour usage. Which is a bit of a shame, as I think it would have been nice to see a bit more of a transition between Josés world with his friends enjoying Christmas, and the hellish underworld that Coffin Joe and his followers reside in.

The cines a bit overly basic too, theres a clear compitency here, but not a great deal of experimentaiton, and a lot of the gorier elements seem to have been relegated to the final act. We have simplistic sequences that I feel really would have benefitted from another couple of passes just to make sure the optimum runtime was achieved. Non of its bad! it just feels closer to a workprint than an end product.

Direction of the casts fine enough, theres maybe a bit of a struggle with the child actors here. less in there performances, but more in the sense that they dont really feel all that fleshed out, they basically just turn up to act almost like some kind of moral football that has to be protected by the family from the clutches of evil…its fine…but had they been in this anymore than they already were, I think it really would have started to work against the production.

As for the broader performances? José Mojica Marins delights as himself (Im sure it was a stretch) This is probably my favourite on screen version of Coffin Joe, just playing full on aggressive evil here, rather than drenching himself in psudo philisophical querying. Here? he’s jsut a big scary man in a top hat…and thats kind of all I wanted…

The supporting cast are all pretty solid too hitting their marks and delivering their lines with a twinge of campiness by modern standards, that just kind of endeared me to them even more.

And, the soundtracks fine. Thats all I have to say about it, they dont use that god awful warbling choir music that José seemed to be obsessed with. its well utilized and helped to punctuate key moments in the film effectively…I really cant ask for much more than that.

One of my biggest issues with the Coffin Joe films over the years has been that, while I laud José Mojica Marins as a director. his written works, for me at least, were insufferable. And quite often totally derailed what could have been several promising stories.

With a group of writers in the hotseat on this outing? I feel like a wonderfully crystalized vision of ‘Joe’ has been realised here. While it does seem to have toned down Josés direction leading to an experience that isnt *quite* as engaging as ‘Midnight’ or ‘Corpse’. The end result is a quite ahead of its time picture that uses visual surrealism minimally but effectively and ultimately delivers a thoroghly enjoyable watch.

Again; I cant stress how dissapointed I am that this film didnt make it onto the Arrow boxset…as, had this been the ‘end chapter’ in the original Coffin Joe trilogy. I’d have said it was a pretty solid run of films…But no, instead we got ‘Hellish Flesh’….ah well…Hopefully this film willl get the bluray/4k treatment it deserves at some point…Definitely recommended, go watch it. It’s on youtube.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-bloody-exorcism-of-coffin-joe/