At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) February 14th, 2024

Somewhere under the dust and past the cobwebs in my mind exists the memory of when I discovered Coffin Joe. I was in high school working a summer job and staying up late playing video games or watching TV while drinking countless cans of Mountain Dew late into the night. Who knew being a sleep deprived teenager would negatively impact my longterm recall?

Somehow, somewhen, I caught a broadcast one of José Monica Marins films on TV. I remember his long fingernails, his top hat, his Portuguese-goth aesthetic and that he created strange and visually distinct movies. This fractured memory created a mystique distilling what little I did remember down to a two word name no one else understood: Coffin Joe.

Thanks to the good folks at Arrow we now have a wonderfully extensive Coffin Joe boxset to make our reacquaintance. This collection of José Monica Marins’ greatest films begins with 1964’s At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. José plays a godless thug who eats meat on Fridays and murders his barren girlfriend so he can pursue other breakable women guilt-free. This wouldn’t be so bad but he’s also a terror at the local bar! He spills so much blood in the bar it’s like he’s auditioning for Near Dark! Eventually his evil acts catch up to him after a fortuneteller predicts his death. He meets his gruesome end in a graphic Rami-esque special effects sequence set in a graveyard.

With more misogyny and heresy than I recall from my glimpse in high school, I must conclude At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is not the film from my memory. Yet somehow I get the feeling José is just getting started, I suspect before I’ve finished the Box Set he’ll be as closer to a Portuguese-Goth Russ Meyer than most people can stomach. Not me tho, I’ll be back with another Coffin Joe review in the future, just you wait.