Dir. José Mojica Marins
1964 | 84 mins | Brazil
Portuguese, with English Subtitles
José Mojica Marins, Magda Mei, Nivaldo Lima, Valéria Vasquez, Ilídio Martins Simões

Fresh from it’s UK premiere at Cinema Rediscovered 2024, at Watershed Bristol, this Newly restored version of Brazil’s first horror film lands in Exeter for the first time, 40 yeas, TO THE DAY, since it was first released in Brazil in 1964. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is out of the crypt and has never looked better!

Zé do Caixão is the malevolent undertaker of a small Brazilian town, plaguing its superstitious townsfolk with existentialist lectures and violent mayhem! To prove his superiority to humankind, Zé searches for the perfect woman to bear him a perfect child. Nothing and no-one will get in the way of his quest to propagate this cursed bloodline and seal Zé’s only chance at immortality! Writer, director and star José Mojica Marins made such an indelible impression in this debut as Zé do Caixão (AKA Coffin Joe) that their names became synonymous, defying military dictatorship and religious censorship to be embraced as Brazil’s national Boogeyman. Newly restored from composite materials, ‘At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul’ is out of the crypt and has never looked better!

Presented by pre-recorded introduction from curator and writer Paul Farrell as part of Other Ways of Seeing, supported by BFI awarding funds from National Lottery