O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão (1968)

Three episodes: A dollmaker whose dolls are eerily human, a tale of necrophilia, and a doctor proves love is dead.

Director:

José Mojica Marins

Writers:

José Mojica Marins (story), Rubens Francisco Luchetti (screenplay)

Stars:

Luiz Sérgio Person, Vany Miller, Mário Lima

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Luiz Sérgio Person	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas") (as L. S. Person)
Vany Miller	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Mário Lima	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Verônica Krimann	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Rosalvo Caçador	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Paula Ramos	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Tony Cardi	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Esmeralda Ruchel	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Messias de Melo	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Leila de Oliveira	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Jeff Ribeiro	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Abigail de Barros	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Carlos Campos	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas")
Nelita Aparecida	...	(segment "Ideologia")
Antônio Ravagnoli	...	(segment "O Fabricante de Bonecas") (as Antonio F. Ravagnolli)

Storyline

"O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão" is a collection of three creepy and bizarre horror tales. "O Fabricante de Bonecas" ("The Dollmaker"): In Pirituba, Master Bastos is a respectable doll maker that lives with his four daughters in a remote area manufacturing dolls with impressive eyes. When four criminals break in his house to rob his money and rape his daughters, they learn why the doll's eyes are so realistic. "Tara" ("Perversion"): A poor balloon seller has a crush on a young woman and stalks her. On her wedding day, the woman is stabbed in front of the church by another woman and dies. After her funeral, the man breaks in her crypt and spends the night with her to satisfy his obsession. "Ideologia" ("Ideology"): After a debate on a TV show with the journalist Alfredo about the nonexistence of love, Professor Oaxiac Odez invites Alfredo and his wife Wilma to visit him. Professor Odez offers to prove to Alfredo that the instinct prevails over reason, and brings the couple to the ...

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Plot Keywords:

dollmaker | doll | rape | torture | necrophilia | 

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Genres:

Horror

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Details

Country:

Brazil

Language:

Portuguese

Release Date:

25 November 1968 (Brazil)

Also Known As:

Strange World of Coffin Joe

Filming Locations:

Calçados Dima, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ibéria Filmes

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Dolby Digital (Dolby 5.1)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the segment "The Dollmaker", the book "Deixei o Hábito", by Vani Reis de Sousa, about a nun leaving her convent, is seen on top of the bedside table of one of the doll-maker's daughters.

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Connections

Referenced in Nekromantik (1987)

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Soundtracks

Zé do Caixão
(musical theme)
Written by José Mojica Marins
Played by Titulares do Ritmo, and
Sung by Edson Lopes

User Reviews

More Marins madness for cult movie fans.

Coffin Joe, the cult horror character created by Brazilian writer/director José Mojica Marins, hosts a trilogy of macabre tales.

First up is The Dollmaker, which sees a group of thugs breaking into the house of an elderly doll maker to look for an alleged stash of money. Unable to find any gold, the gang take a different kind of prize, raping the doll-maker's four beautiful daughters. The table are turned on the brutes, however, when the old man pulls a gun on the them, and the girls proceed to pluck out the mens' eyes for use in their new dolls. The plot for this one isn't anything special, with a predictable denouement, but it offers plenty of gratuitous T&A and the gory sight of the thugs' decapitated heads sans eyeballs.

The second story is Obsession, which seriously ups the weirdness ante. A balloon seller becomes obsessed with a beautiful woman, stalking her from a distance, carrying with him the box of new shoes dropped by woman during a shopping trip. On the woman's wedding day, she is stabbed and killed by a love rival. The balloon seller follows the woman's funeral procession to a crypt, which he breaks into after dark in order to fulfil his desires and return the lost shoes. A strangely lyrical tale told entirely without dialogue, Obsession tends to plod for much of its run-time, but ends in a satisfyingly twisted manner, the balloon seller breaking open the dead woman's coffin and stripping her corpse for a spot of necrophilia.

The last episode opens with the broadcast of a television debate show in which Professor Oaxiac Odez (Marins) expounds his theory that love doesn't exist. After the show, the professor invites a fellow panel member and his wife to his home, where he proceeds to shock and torture the couple in order to prove his ideology. As with his earlier Coffin Joe films, this one sees Marins' character waffling on incessantly about his lunatic philosophies, but also features plenty of exploitative content, including a man being spoon-fed molten metal, needles being pushed through flesh (for real), a sadistic acid attack, the wife drinking her husband's blood (fresh from the jugular) to quench her thirst, and a couple of gory scenes of cannibalism.

Probably not the kind of thing to appeal to casual horror fans, but those who dig weird cult world cinema should find this entertaining, especially if, like me, they also particularly enjoy the anthology format. One thing's for sure… Marins' world is very strange indeed.