Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I Had a Dream, Joe

338) This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967) Dir: Jose Mojica Marins Date Released: ???? Date Seen: October 29, 2012 Rating: 4/5

"This night," was the night of Superstorm Sandy. I was nervously puttering around my Bay Ridge apartment, listening nervously to the wind howl, and trying not to let the constant, threatening noise bother me. My roommate Bill and I tried to overcome our cabin fever by running across the street and ordering from Domino's. For some reason, Domino's was still open, though they didn't take credit card (they did have electricity though, so it must have been a computer thing).

 I don't know if any of this is significant. I make a note of it now because I think the storm is part of my viewing experience. The mediocre pizza certainly tasted better because of it. Then again, I was also probably less receptive to Marins's second Coffin Joe film than I could have been. I could have sworn that our building was swaying a little...

Still, while I unreservedly love Corpse's famous Hell set piece--glitter, rainbow lighting, oatmeal sores make-up, copious bare flesh, and lotsa pained, pseudo-erotic groans really does it for me, I guess--the rest of the film struck me as a fine enough variation on At Midnight, I'll Take Your Soul, a movie whose sheer misanthropy is indelibly thrilling. Midnight was made by a sleaze artist on the verge of a major breakthrough while Corpse is a repeat performance of that same meltdown, albeit with some obvious improvements (there really is no beating that Hell sequence). Bound to rewatch it at some point...

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