Who is Coffin Joe?? the one in movies, not the drummer?

Coffin Joe is the English equivalent of Zé do Caixão (literal: "Joe of the Coffin"). Marins originated the character in 1963's "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" aka "À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma". This is considered Brazil's first horror film. Coffin Joe is an undertaker who is greatly feared by the locals. He wears a black suit, a cape and a top hat, and long fingernails. Coffin Joe is an evil, amoral character who considers himself superior to others and exploits them to suit his purposes. He greatly dislikes morality and religion, which he describes as "comfort for the weak." Coffin Joe's argument is that self-imposed religious limitations tend to prevent individual development and, as a consequence, inhibit social change.The common theme of the character is his single-minded obsession with the "continuity of the blood"; he wants to sire the "superior" child from the "perfect woman". His idea of a "perfect woman" is not exactly physical but someone he regards intellectually superior to the Brazilian average, and in this quest he is willing to kill anyone who crosses his path.

The film was followed by "This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse" (1967) and "Embodiment of Evil" (2008), in which Coffin Joe continues to exploit, terrorize, and kill in order to find the perfect woman. The three films are known as the "Coffin Joe trilogy". At the end of each of the films, his plans become undone when he is haunted by the ghosts of the women he murdered and, in the end, is seemingly killed by their supernatural forces.

José Mojica Marins~Brazilian filmmaker, director, screenwriter, film and television actor and media personality. ~plays Coffin Joe in several other films, often in the form of exploitation films and pseudo-documentaries, such as "Awakening of the Beast" and "The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe", in which the character has different intentions than in the trilogy. He even grew his fingernails several inches long, wearing them in public in the style of the character. Despite its title, "The Strange World of Coffin Joe" (1968) does not contain the Coffin Joe character.

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Independent Film Channel airs the trilogy from time to time, which greatly surprised me the first time I saw it show up on the cable guide. Before that, I had read about the movies but never seen them.

José Mojica Marins horror director/actor - aka "Coffin Joe".

He played Coffin Joe in "At Midnight" ... the undertaker of a small village who terrorizes the citizens.

See link below :)

Hope this helped!

Kerry