Wednesday, October 18, 2023

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse

Damn. Proper good sequel!



It is almost night and day the difference between all aspects of production from the first and second film. Far from trashing the values of I'll Take Your Soul, I very much liked the almost homebrew production and technicals but I'll Possess Your Corpse is practically overflowing with greater values. A wide and extra filled cast, a worthy and superior continuation of the story, and pretty clean film stock showing off the location and sets. The story goes somehow through a tenative stretch, Zé do Caixão survived his brush with otherworldly spirits and also is acquitted of any potential murder charges as well and settles back into his life still with the goal of becoming a father in his tunnelvision sights. He ups the ante too, instead of hopping from one woman to the next he abducts a group of women at the same time in the worst season of The Bachelor I've ever seen, to pick out the woman just right for him. And the weird thing is it works. Twice. Don't ask me how, I'm as alien on the subject of love as I am an alien on this planet! Seems women are more than happy to throw themselves at him this movie, and in an equal and opposite reaction the townsfolk are forming mobs at every turn to bring Zé to justice. It is far from simple and clean storytelling, I am profoundly eating my words of last review cause this is a kinda complex, scheming, machinating plot that is woven through several characters who all have their goals and personalities, and I gotta admit it worked very well! The film pushes closer to 2 hours and barely wastes a second of it, Marins is always progressing the story and even the identity of Coffin Joe. In less than the first 10 minutes of the film he saves a kid from being run over, his passion for childbirth reaches a fever pitch, he comes to terms with some of his actions and once again is visited by supernatural forces, still despises religion though, and makes a most unexpected character choice right at the end. In the most shocking moment of the film he has a nightmare about literally being dragged to Hell and comes face to face with the torments and landscape of it, and you know I'm not a profoundly religious person but that whole scared straight shit is true, like I promise to be as good of a person as I can be after seeing that damn scene! It's the most outrageous and yet disturbing version of Hell I've ever seen and shot in stark and vibrant color, the rest of the film is classic black & white, which adds even more to the experience of it. And the finale took me severely aback and apparently it wasn't even in the script, Brazil's censor board made Marins change the ending entirely and you'll know exactly what they changed when you see it. Sure you can absolutely show bewbs, the freaky world of Hell itself, and some pretty ruthless deaths, but further sacrilege to the name of Deus? No can do buster. It's the only truly bad thing I can say about the movie and it's no foul on Marin's part! But other than that this is a great sequel honestly! I love it, I have no problem saying it's superior to the first film, and if the first Coffin Joe movie didn't have your full attention and you wanted more from it this is the movie for you. I give it 4 stars, 8/10, and we're doing a biiiig time leap from 1967 to 2008 with the final part of the trilogy.

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