INSIDE THE MIND OF COFFIN JOE

Top hat and overgrown nails

- Ian Berriman

BLU-RAY DEBUT Brazilian director José Mojica Marins is a saint of psychotronic cinema, but his output is more known of than it is seen. This eye-opening set of immaculate 4K transfers should help to change that.

His most famous creation was Zé do Caixão, aka Coffin Joe: an undertaker who features in five of these 10 films. An iconic figure, with his stovepipe hat, cloak and talon-like fingernails, he considers himself a Nietszchean superman, and spurns morality, happy to drown his best friend in the bath (At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul), or pour acid on a woman’s face (This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse). He’s a monster – but one whose anti-authoritarianism and total liberation hold some appeal.