Encarnação do Demônio

Embodiment of Evil

2008

94 minutes

The evil one is back. After 40 years locked in a prison, Coffin Joe returns to continue his quest. Will he be successful? More after the jump.

This film is the 3rd movie in a trilogy of which I have not seen the first 2. First, lets look at some horror features:

• Blood
• Guts
• Nudity
• Sadism
• Masochism
• Blasphemy
• Violence
• Ghosts

Not bad!

Nice beard.

Whats the plot?

So! This character Coffin Joe has been locked away for some 40 years in a prison and someone has finally got his release granted. Everyone knows he will re-offend and he wastes no time going about murdering and raping hoping to have his blood line continued - ensuring that anyone who gets in his way will be stopped in the most gruesome way possible.

What did I like?

The main thing I liked is that I didn't know that a man of this directors age, Jose Mojica Marins, could have something like this in him. This is an extremely brutal movie at times. I would definitely put this in league with your Hostel type movies. 

I also liked that this is a plot line I haven't really seen before (understanding it was in the previous movies) Coffin Joe wants a son born onto him and it needs to be perfect. He subjects women to all kinds of things to ensure he gets what he wants - and most of the time it's disgusting.

The fact that the main character also comes out of prison after 40 years and we don't spend half the movie watching him come to terms with the modern world is also much appreciated. He never questions the stretched ears or the tattoo's on people - he just goes with it. Which seems to be in line with what his character should be doing - a wise choice on the directors part.

Finally, I really liked the way this was shot. The movie looks good and the edits and cuts are swift. The movie goes at a quick pace and keeps your interest by showing a consistent barrage of visceral and brutal images.

"Eat my ass" is an applicable line here.

What didn't I like? 

I feel as if this may be because I haven't seen the other movies (which I now intend to) but this movie confused the hell out of me. It was easy to follow at times but I feel like at least half the time I didn't really understand what was going on. Part of this may be that it takes place in Brazil, and i'm pretty sure some of the things on screen half to do with the customs of that particular place.

I also didn't get the sense that Coffin Joe was evil. Sadistic, yes. Evil... Eh, I don't really see it.

That is not as many complaints as I thought I would have.

Viewer Beware

Potential viewers should be aware of the following:

• This movie is in Portuguese, so if you want to understand whats going on, you'll be doing some reading.
• This movie is extremely gory at times! They really went for the throat here - DEFINITELY not for the weak of stomach
• This movie also features plenty of torture, don't watch if you don't like.

A taste of one of the gruesome scenes.

Final Thoughts

I'm a little torn with this movie, I like it... But I'm not completely sure why. There was one scene with some tarantulas that I thought was amazing and another scene with some raining blood that I also thought was very well done. 

It was the images that really did it for me - the story... While the plot was cool, I didn't follow what was going on as well as I would have liked.

That being said this film is getting 3.25 top hats out of 5

Here is the trailer: