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Odds and ends of a grindhouse Pirandello, with a felicitous concurrence with Welles (Filming Othello). Zé do Caixão lives outside his maker, terrorizing the psyche of a man of science who's fascinated by the supernatural (Jorge Peres). "My vile superior essence" needs a womb, the doctor's wife (Magna Miller) fits the bill as the schmuck stares agog like Orpheus paralyzed. (The fiend knows how to woo the ladies: "Woman is, and shall always be across the barriers of time and the dimensions of the universe, the untouched being from the disgusting glory that emanates from man's bestiality.") Treatment at the clinic goes nowhere, José Mojica Marins himself is summoned to assure the husband that the demonic interloper character is just a character. "Zé do Caixão doesn't exist! He's a creation of mine!" Shoestring Bosch canvases in a pendant of Awakening of the Beast, recycled and previously censored bits from earlier releases comprise the infernal Möbius strip. Exultant torture shows, reptiles and skulls and quivering tangles of heads and limbs, all set to a cacophony of cackles and moans. Opposite the sensory onslaught is Mojica Marins the soft-spoken scholar in plaid suits, pouring over screenplays and treating flunkies to pool parties and perhaps contemplating his place in the pop landscape. "The tunnel of eternity" is a loop of atrocities or rather a fan's medley, either way Mr. Caixão is busy filibustering: "That unreachable dimension of the unexplored, the unknown and the fantastic forms the fabric of reality in the relentless pursuit of the awakening of perpetuity..." The foulest shock is the threat that the next film will be a parody, "you gave us quite a fright!" Fulci follows suit (A Cat in the Brain), so does Edwards (Trail of the Pink Panther).
--- Fernando F. Croce |