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Awakening of the Beast

 
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Awakenings of the Beast

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  • Director: José Mojica Marins
  • AMG Rating: star
  • Genre: Horror
  • Movie Type: Addiction Drama
  • Themes: Drug Addiction
  • Main Cast: José Mojica Marins
  • Release Year: 1969
  • Country: BR
  • Run Time: 100 minutes

Plot

Brazilian horror icon Jose Mojica Marins explores the drug culture as only he can in this distinctive blend of terror and surrealistic images. A group of leading Brazilian psychiatrists have come together to debate the effects of recreational drugs (particularly LSD, marijuana, and cocaine) on their patients, with noted filmmaker Marins in attendance. As the doctors exchange increasingly bizarre stories -- running from a female college student led into a fatal sexual encounter with a group of pot-smoking bohemians to an older cocaine-addled woman obsessed with miscegenation and bestiality -- one proposes an unusual experiment. Gathering four volunteers with long histories of drug abuse, the doctor doses them with LSD and presents them with the fearsome image of Marins' alter-ego, Ze do Caixao (aka Coffin Joe), and under the influence of the hallucinogen they are taken on a bizarre voyage through the frightening world of Coffin Joe's psyche. O Ritual dos Sádicos was completed in 1969, but after it was rejected by government censors, the film went unreleased in Brazil for 20 years; while most of the film is in black-and-white, the concluding hallucination sequences are in vivid color. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Review

One of the most reviled figures of Brazilian cinema, Coffin Joe's (Jose Mojica Marins) hallucinatory LSD film hits U.S. shores thanks to Fantoma DVD. Presented in 1.66:1 widescreen (black-and-white with color sequences), the transfer of the film is flawless even if the source material leaves much to be desired. Often boasting of the primitive means he used to assemble his films, the quality here is slightly better than that of At Midnight, I'll Take Your Soul and This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse (again due in no part to Fantoma's commendable presentations), and the color "trip out" scenes are remarkably vivid and effective. Though the Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack lacks such modern complexities as directional effects, it is perfectly appropriate given the film's origins and likely couldn't sound better. As with Fantoma's other Coffin Joe releases, this DVD offers an intriguing, albeit brief interview with the director in which he reminisces about the production, and original theatrical trailers round the extra features out nicely. Buyers of this disc will also find an extra treat awaiting them in the form of a miniature Coffin Joe comic book reproduction, translated into English and presented in all of its original macabre glory. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Cast

José Mojica Marins - Coffin Joe

Credit

José Mojica Marins - Director

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The Acid Eaters; The Trip; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
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Wikipedia: Awakening of the Beast
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Awakening of the Beast

Brazilian theatrical poster
Directed by José Mojica Marins
Produced by Giorgio Attili
José Mojica Marins
George Michel Serkeis
Written by Rubens F. Lucchetti
Starring José Mojica Marins
Cinematography Giorgio Attili
Editing by Luiz Elias
Running time 93 min
Country  Brazil
Language Portuguese
Preceded by The Strange World of Coffin Joe
Followed by When the Gods Fall Asleep

Awakening of the Beast (original titles: O Ritual dos Sádicos, and O Despertar da Besta) is a 1970 Brazilian horror/exploitation film by Brazilian filmmaker and actor José Mojica Marins. Marins is also known by his alter ego Coffin Joe (Zé do Caixão). Marins appears as himself and as the Coffin Joe character in the fictional film which is in the form of a pseudodocumentary.[1][2]

Contents

Synopsis

In the film's first portion, filmed in B&W, Dr. Sergio, a psychiatrist, appears on a television program on a panel with three other contemporary psychiatrists after he claims to have conducted experiments on four volunteer drug addicts with LSD in order to investigate his claim that sexual perversion is always caused by use of illegal drugs. As evidence, he presents a series documented accounts of drug use leading to lewd and bizarre sexual acts. Marins appears (as himself) on the panel with the psychiatrists as some type of expert on the subject of depravity. During the program, Dr. Sergio recounts the experiment to his colleagues on the panel, who argue with his claims.

Dr. Sergio gathers the four volunteers, and after receiving an injection, the volunteers (four drug users seen in the previous segments) are instructed to stare at a movie poster of Marins' The Strange World of Coffin Joe. The film changes to color and each patient's experience is vividly portrayed in a series of surreal scenes.

Cast

A schoolgirl experiments with drugs
  • Andréa Bryan
  • Annik Malvil
  • Graveto
  • Ítala Nandi
  • José Mojica Marins as Coffin Joe
  • Lurdes Vanucchi Ribas
  • Mário Lima as Volunteer
  • Ozualdo Candeias as Volunteer
  • Roney Wanderney
The television panel

References

  1. ^ "O Despertar da Besta - O Ritual dos Sádicos" (in Portuguese). UOL.com (official website). 2006. http://www2.uol.com.br/zedocaixao/cinema/10_odespertar_dabesta.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-08. 
  2. ^ "O Ritual dos Sádicos". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062690/. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 

External links

v • d • e
Films by José Mojica Marins

Adventurer's Fate (1958) • Éramos Irmãos (1960) • My Destiny In Your Hands (1963) • At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963) • The Devil of Old Town (1966) • This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967) • The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968) • Awakening of the Beast (1970) • The End of Man (1971) • Sex and Blood in the Trail of the Treasure (1972) • D'Gajão Mata para Vingar (1972) • When the Gods Fall Asleep (1972) • The Virgin and the Macho Man (1974) • The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe (1974) • The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures (1974) • Women of the Violent Sex (1976) • How to Console Widows‎ (1976) • Hellish Flesh (1977) • Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978) • Perversion (1979) • World Market of Sex (1979) • A Praga (1980) • Fifth Dimension of Sex (1984) • 24 Hours of Explicit Sex (1985) • A Hora do Medo (1986) • 48 Hours of Hallucinatory Sex (1987) • Demons and Wonders (1987) • Embodiment of Evil (2008) •
v • d • e
Cinema of Brazil
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