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CAPSULE: BACURAU (2019)

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DIRECTED BY:  Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho

FEATURING: Bárbara Colen, , Sonia Braga, Thomas Aquino

PLOT: A group of killers isolate a small Brazilian village intending to massacre the residents for recreation, but find the peasants are more resourceful than they anticipated.

Still from Bacurau (2019)

COMMENTS: Seeing the word “weird” used to describe a movie like Bacurau reminds us just how jaded we here at 366 Weird Movies are. The only unusual features of this Brazilian export are its slightly unconventional blend of art-house drama with ballsy genre filmmaking, along with some mild psychotropic visions and one quirky flying-saucer shaped drone. It may be a weird brew for general American audiences—the ones who would never go see a foreign or independent film anyway—or to professional critics who prefer to stick to the realist side of the art-house scene… but this sociological-study-cum-shoot-em-up isn’t exactly Let the Corpses Tan.

With it’s magnificent landscapes, including some local cacti that could pass for Saguaro, Bacurau evokes the mythic West of Sergio Leone: it could be Once Upon a Time in Brazil. The opening scene includes a litter of coffins spilled onto the road leading into town, which sure reinforces that connection. By the end, when the resourceful tribe defends their eerily deserted town from the better-equipped invaders, the Bacurau takes on the shape of The Seven Samurai.

The first forty-five minutes paint a portrait of the hamlet of perhaps one hundred souls, planted in the middle of nowhere. A matriarch, the ancestor of a large percentage of the population, has just died, and nursing student Teresa returns, bearing a suitcase of vaccines, to attend her grandmother’s funeral. The town has a teacher, a doctor, a whore, a DJ who serves as the town crier and local news anchor when not pumping out the jams, and so forth; it also has a rather large library and a museum devoted to the town’s history. Things get strange when Bacurau suddenly disappears from Google Maps, a UFO is spotted, and bullet holes are found in the tanker truck that supplies them with fresh water. The nature of the trouble soon becomes apparent; a tour group of American thrill-killers have paid a small fortune to hunt these forgotten people for sport. The killing starts in the final act, but although squibs are not spared and plenty of red stuff splashes around, it’s not the action-packed bloodbath you might expect. Steering away from exploitative spectacle as much as possible (given the scenario), the killings are spread out, as the invaders are picked off one by one. You might guess that Udo Kier, the oldest, evilest, and most famous of the bad guys is the last one to go. I’ll never tell.

Many note that with the sympathetic portrayal of the villagers’ “degeneracy” (casual nudity and free love, acceptance of homosexuality, and liberal use of ethnobotonicals)—and the presence of crooked con-man mayor Tony Jr., representing provincial corruption—the film takes its shots at homophobic, right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Capitalism itself also comes in for quite a thrashing. On the other hand, Bolsonaro might be pleased with the film’s xenophobia aimed at the stereotyped Western interlopers (Kier is not a Nazi, he insists, shooting a companion to prove his point). He might also approve of the derision heaped on the invaders’ big city Brazilian allies, traitorous globalist collaborators shamelessly manipulated by shadowy outsiders. The line between anti-colonialism and populist nationalism is thin indeed.

Pulled from American theaters early due to the Covid-19 crisis, Bacurau is currently streaming via Kino Now. They have thoughtfully set up a system whereby the independent theaters that were supposed to screen the film can share the streaming revenue (check here for the list of participating venues). Kino probably could have kept all the revenue to themselves, as Disney did with the digital release of Onward, so they deserve massive respect for this move. Bacurau is not only a quality film, it’s a good way to support small (and big) businesses in a dry season.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“’Bacurau’ is definitely weird, a quasi-Western mashed up with psychedelic sci-fi and political satire.”–Jeffrey Anderson, San Francisco Examiner (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: THIS NIGHT I’LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1967)

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Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: José Mojica Marins, Nadia Freitas, Tina Wohlers, Antonio Fracari, José Lobo

PLOT: “Coffin Joe” returns to town in the hopes of nabbing himself a perfect bride to match his perfect self so that they might together create a perfect son; trouble ensues when he kidnaps six townswomen and then later seduces the daughter of a local bigwig.

Still from This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Marins has cleaned up his technique since At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964), the first movie in the Coffin Joe series, but trace amateurism still does This Night no favors. Admittedly it’s a close-run thing: the bridal spider-test, Nietzchian diatribes, and a colorful visit to Hell are among a number of memorable bits of weirdness. But this is avowedly a straight “horror” movie—that’s no bad thing, it just makes it, in this case, no weird thing.

COMMENTS: Coffin Joe is at it again. His eyesight restored after a bout in the hospital and his freedom granted after a hearing at the local courthouse, he returns to his home village to terrorize the dismayed locals as he continues his quest to father a son. José Marins neatly resurrects his signature character in This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse for another round of ominous behavior and philosophical ranting at no one in particular. Armed with the experience gained from making his first horror movie (At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul), Marins now offers his audience more of the same, with a finer polish. Not being saddled by any other precedents (he was the only Brazilian horror filmmaker in the market), the director continues fashioning the yardstick by which Brazilian horrors would be measured.

Coffin Joe starts his machinations immediately, without any fear of the law or God. With his signature chapeau, charismatic beard, grotesquely long fingernails, and his hunchback henchman, Bruno (José Lobo), Joe captures six women and holds them in his funeral parlor, testing their mettle by releasing a swarm of fuzzy tarantulas on them as they sleep. One woman, Marcia (Nadia Freitas) passes this test, but alas for the would-be lucky lady, she ultimately doesn’t cut the mustard. A second (pregnant) kidnappee curses Joe before her snake-y demise. Undaunted, he lays eyes on the daughter of a local grandee. She is immediately smitten by the long-clawed mortician. Once again, Joe goes too far, and the peasants get a hankering for a lynching.

This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse is a technically superior outing to the comparably long-titled At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. Smoother editing, marginally superior acting, and more memorable sets (whipped up in an abandoned synagogue); all come together for a more professional feel than that which plagued (blessed?) Marins’ first outing. However, this works against This Night‘s weird qualifications, as far as we’re concerned. The film has a number of things going for it, but now that the director has started walking the fine line between amateur and professional, he abandons his beginner’s luck. In short, This Night is just a smidge too well made to have the flash of weirdness that a novice’s efforts might have provided. Still, a popcorn-snow Hell, spider-eroticism, and Joe’s Übermensch stance all make it a close call.

Marins reinvented horror for his homeland of Brazil, and makes a decent start. As remarked in the At Midnight review, he’s got the best character in town, and one who can hold his own among the other greats of horror film history. There is an undeniable charm (of sorts) to a diminutive undertaker who obviously relished the Cliff Notes of “Beyond Good and Evil” in school. Marins doesn’t go full tilt enough, however, to make This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse so mind-blowing or unsettling to bring it into the weird canon. Further investigation of this anti-hero may come, though, so there’s a chance José Marins’ brain-child may at least achieve the immortality that 366 Weird Movies can furnish.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The movie itself has a real sense of surreal and jarring horror, but its main problem may be its lack of subtlety; the themes come across as blatantly obvious and a little too self-consciously articulated.”–Dave Sindelar, Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings (DVD)

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CAPSULE: BEYOND THE GRAVE (2010)

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Porto Dos Mortos

DIRECTED BY: Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro

FEATURING: Rafael Tombini, Álvaro Rosa Costa, Ricardo Seffner

PLOT: A solitary policeman travels the countryside looking for the Dark Rider, one of the prime agents of evil walking the earth after the Seven Gates of Hell have opened.

Still from Beyond the Grave (2010)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: While it works nicely as an imagining of a minor zombie classic from the 1970s, its various idiosyncrasies aren’t too dissimilar from what you might find in many other low budget horror pictures.

COMMENTS: Highways invariably become desolate when the undead start out-numbering the living. Our film opens on a lone black car traveling a deserted stretch of road, and inside is the film’s hero—a determined police officer on a quest. A radio DJ broadcasts from some indeterminate location, playing music and speaking to the few survivors: “…if you’re out there, have a nice day. I hope you survive it.” The officer makes a stop at an abandoned building, enters, and dispatches the killers who have set up camp there. He narrowly avoids decapitation, revealing a preternatural ability to survive. Now nearly out of ammunition, he returns to his car and flips through dossiers in the trunk. He obviously still has unfinished business.

Though made in 2010, Pinheiro’s zombie film has the feel of a much older movie. The picture quality is slightly washed out, and looks like a relic from a bygone era. The environs and fashions hail from thirty to forty years ago. And the gist of the story—lone man, undead, Gates of Hell— all smack of the golden age of zombie pictures.

Through the course of the officer’s travels (his character, like all but one in the movie, is never given a name), he encounters a young couple, a household of survivors who’ve set up shop in an abandoned school, and a clutch of supernatural assailants keen on thwarting his mission. Ostensibly his goal is to kill someone or something called the “Dark Rider,” who always has the undead following in his wake. Though society has by and large collapsed, the officer continues doing his job. He always has his lights spinning on his car during his many long drives, more as an act of defiance against the death of civilization than anything else.

As with most supernatural movies, there are elements of the strange. The cop stumbles across ceremonial designs drawn on dingy floors, sometimes in blood. The trio of killers that he is both following and is followed by are made up of a man armed with bow and arrow, a mixta woman wearing a gas mask and armed with a handgun with a pistol-grip of human bone, and a nebulous fellow whose weapon is an atonal harmonica that when played cripples enemies with its bleed-inducing drone. There is talk of the Seven Gates of Hell having been opened, and at one point a cultist gives the officer a book with which to summon the Dark Rider (Necronomicon, anyone?) Also, this is the only zombie movie I know of that takes something of a sympathetic stance towards the afflicted. A few scenes depict cruelty toward the walking dead negatively.

Beyond the Grave clocks in at a succinct 89 minutes. While not everything is made clear, there is a consistency to the narrative. Though certainly not weird by the standards set at this website, it still is a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half in an atmospheric, post-Apocalyptic detour.

Beyond the Grave is currently available for viewing free in the U.S. on Hulu.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a unique experience in the theater of the weird.”–Mark L. Miller, Ain’t It Cool News (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964)

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À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma

DIRECTED BY: José Mojica Marins

FEATURING: José Mojica Marins, Magda Mei

PLOT: Brazilian undertaker Zé do Caixão (“Coffin Joe”) eats meat on Friday, terrorizes peasants, and plots to steal his best friend’s fiancee; a gypsy witch is the only person in town who dares to defy him.

Still from At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Up until its nightmarish finale, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is only weird in the sense that it features a one-of-a-kind antihero: Zé do Caixão, a the stovepipe hat wearing undertaker and self-appointed ubermensch who eats lamb on Holy Friday, rails against God during a thunderstorm, and gleefully murders his friends and acquaintances. The vicious character was popular enough to spawn a series of films, and Zé became an iconic boogeyman in Brazil, along the lines of a Freddy Kreuger in the States. Although not all that strange, the original At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is arguably the best of the Coffin Joe movies; the character, however, would return in weirder guises…

COMMENTS: When José Mojica Marins made At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul in 1964, there were no previous Brazilian horror films for him to model his movie after. That explain why Midnight, while cheap, sleazy, and cheesy in design, feels fresh and unique. Marins begins Midnight with not one, but two prologues. In the first Coffin Joe explains the concepts of life, death, existence and blood; in the second, an old gypsy hag waves a Universal Studios surplus skull in front of the camera and warns audiences there’s still time to turn around and go home. In between the introduction and the foreword, the sadistic highlights are previewed over the credits. A leather gloved hand bloodies a woman’s face, the same hands strangle a man in a bathtub, and a tarantula crawls over a bound victim, all while the wind howls and screams, moans and cackles echo in the background like a soundtrack for a Halloween haunted house. The opening impression is of a cross between a Universal horror and a grindhouse roughie; throw in a bit of Anton LaVey posturing, and that’s a fairly accurate description. The violence, which includes severed fingers and gouged eyeballs, is astounding for the early 1960s (there’s no nudity, of course—modesty must prevail). There’s a brutal rape scene, but Zé’s casual blasphemies probably shocked the original audience even more. The plot is simple but unusual: it’s mostly a series of scenes of Coffin Joe scandalizing pious villagers with his sacrilegious antics, then beating and whipping them while daring them to gather the courage to confront him. Meanwhile, he obsesses about fathering a son to carry on his bloodline, and decides to get rid of his barren girlfriend in favor of his only friend’s fiancée. A gypsy woman hangs around the edges of the picture predicting doom for the blackguard. Coffin Joe finally goes too far in his iniquities and one night, at midnight, the spirits of those he’s wronged come to take his soul. It’s not the plot (and certainly not the production values) that impresses, however, but the character of Coffin Joe. Clad head to toe in black, with a stovepipe hat, cape, pipe, bristly beard, and three-inch long fingernails sharpened like knife points, Zé is an instant nightmare icon from the moment he arrogantly strides onscreen. But what makes him terrifying is that he freely chooses evil: there is no backstory to humanize him or explain how he became embittered and corrupted. He’s simply a sociopath who delights in causing pain to his fellow human beings, and who is smart enough to justify his lusts and strong enough to seize them. His philosophy of evil is summed up by his assessment of the villagers he terrorizes: “They’re weak because they fear what they don’t know. I am free. Therefore, I am stronger.” Because Zé, an atheist in a superstitious Catholic society, has no fear of eternal punishment, he can take whatever he wants. A woman he rapes tells him she will kill herself: Zé’s chilling response is to wipe her blood from his lips and inform her that all the women say that—at first. Coffin Joe is repulsive, but he’s also charismatic; the cinematic figure he resembles most is Alex from A Clockwork Orange. We can’t actively root for him, but we can’t help but secretly envy him; he is what we fear in ourselves. That makes for a great character, even if the technical qualities of the movie surrounding Coffin Joe can’t quite live up to Marins’ ghoulish persona. Zé’s downfall satisfies the censors; evil is punished. But at the end, when the forces of superstition and the vengeful spirits of the dead swamp the undertaker, Coffin Joe’s comeuppance has all the sincerity of a fallen preacher’s tearful apology to his parishioners. It’s there for show, to convince the audience that wickedness has been buried once and for all. As Coffin Joe’s words echo in our ears, we remain unconvinced.

Director José Mojica Marins says he took the role of Coffin Joe because he could not find a professional Brazilian actor willing to play the part. He portrayed Zé do Caixão for 45 years, through three canonical Coffin Joe films and a host of guest appearances, including cameos in Marins’ more surreal offerings, including the LSD horror Awakening of the Beast and the cut-and-paste highlight reel Hallucinations in a Deranged Mind.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Morality is annihilated, transgression is exalted — a confrontational close-up makes Mei’s mauled mouth as bizarrely erotic as Barbara Steele’s punctured face in Black Sunday…”–Fernando Croce, Cinepassion (DVD)

(This movie was nominated for review by EricSG, who praised the “eerie atmosphere” and “surrealistic touches that hint upon Bunuel (albeit more evil)” and added “the ending catapults it into the weird netherworld with psychedelic camera tricks…” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Miscellanea

PLEASE HELP, NON-AMERICAN FRIENDS: A LIST OF OBSURE, FOREIGN (TO US) FILMS

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The Internet Movie Database is a wonderful and a terrible thing.  Wonderful, because it allows you to create impressively thorough lists of potentially weird movies.  Terrible, because it may tease you with the names of intriguing movies you may never be able to see.

Below is a list of dozens of highly-rated movies that have been tagged with “surrealism” or similar keywords, broken down by country.  To my knowledge, none of these movies is currently available on DVD, and I suspect that several of them may never have been translated into English.  Any information on these titles by people who are familiar with them would be of enormous value to us in deciding whether or not we should invest time in trying to track them down.  So, my non-American friends, please have at it!  If you leave a comment with some information on any of these titles, I’ll update the body of the text to reflect it.  (Information supplied by readers is added in bold).

Argentinian

  • Razón de mi vida, La (20??) [The Reason for My Life].  This showed up on the IMDB as a highly rated 2008 release a while back.  Now, the link goes to a movie of the same name, but it has no rating and is listed as a 2010 release.  OFFICIAL UPDATE: Per Kino Red: “completed in this month. Release soon (Buenos Aires, Paris and Tokyo). Trailer and teaser (in Spanish) in youtube: NOTE: The film is not based on the Eva Perón autobiography. The title of the film is ironic or parodic about the Eva Perón’s book.” I will add that the trailer looks very promising!
  • Rosaura a las 10 (1958) [Rosaura at 10 o’clock].  Alon thinks it’s only borderline weird at best.

Brazilian

  • Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) [God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun]  Per Alon: “interesting, beautifully filmed and edited, movie about the drama of the Brazilian dispossessed… but I wouldn’t consider it weird by any measure.”
  • O Anjo Nasceu (1969) [The Angel Was Born]

    • Per Alon: “…seems to be famous for its unconventional camerawork and editing. The film tells the story of two murderers, one of whom has mystic visions, and was regarded as quite gory for its time.”

  • Terra em Transe.  No English translation of the title.  Per Alon, Entranced Land or Land in Anguish. Has read it’s more “daring” than Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol by the same director.

Czech/Czechoslovakian

  • Adéla jeste nevecerela (1978).  Per LRobHubbard: translates to Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet. From the director of Lemonade Joe (which we do plan to review).  “Spoofs the ‘Nick Carter’ detective stories, featuring Carter investigating strange disappearances, which involve a carnivorous plant, the ‘Adele’ of the title.”  No Region 1 release.  Worth seeing, but not necessarily weird.
  • Akumulátor 1 (1994).
  • Jak utopit doktora Mrácka aneb Konec vodniku v Cechách (1974) [How to Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer]
  • Kytice (2000) [Wild Flowers]
  • Lepsie byt bohaty a zdravy ako chudobny a chory (1993) [It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill]
  • Nejasná zpráva o konci sveta (1997) [An Ambiguous Report About the End of the World]
  • Nevesta (1970).
  • Pane, vy jste vdova! (1970) [You Are a Widow, Sir]
  • Postav dom, zasad strom (1980) [Build a House, Plant a Tree]
  • Sedím na konári a je mi dobre (1989). No English translation of the title. Probably never translated into English.
  • Tajemství hradu v Karpatech (1981) [The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians].  Per LRobHubbard: from the director of and similar to Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet (above) but a pastiche/parody. The idea may be from a story by Jules Verne.
  • Tisícrocná vcela (1983) [The Millennial Bee]
  • Zítra vstanu a oparím se cajem (1977).  No English translation of the title.

French

  • La Cicatrice intérieure (1972).  Written by and featuring glacial chanteuse Nico (best known here for her work with The Velvet Underground).
  • La Dernière femme (1976) [The Last Woman].  Despite the presence of a young Gerard Depardieu, I am not sure this was ever translated into English for home video.  Controversial on release due to its sexual content.  Per Irene, not a weird film.

Greek

  • Souvliste tous! Etsi tha paroume to kouradokastro (1981) [Barbecue them!].  A Greek correspondent tells me this is basically unknown even in Greece and no DVDs are available.  It is on Google video, with no English subtitles.

Italian

  • Capricci (1969).  By Carmelo Bene.
  • Don Giovanni (1970).  Also by Carmelo Bene.
  • Fantozzi (1975) and Il Secondo tragico Fantozzi (1976).  These popular Italian comedies seem to have never been released in America.  I gather Fantozzi is something like the Italian Monsieur Hulot?
  • La Rabbia (2008).  With Faye Dunaway and Franco Nero in the cast, I would assume this might see the light of day soon.

Indian

  • Poi (2006).

Japanese

  • Den-en ni shisu (1974) [Pastoral Hide and Seek]
  • Tokyo senso sengo hiwa (1970) [He Died After the War]

Mexican

  • Pafnucio Santo (1977).  Per Alon: “…seems promising… directed by Jodorowsky’s cinematographer… the trailer on YouTube is rather terse.”

Polish

  • Ewa chce spac (1958).  No English translation of the title.  Per Irene Goncharova, “a mere comedy… I didn’t find it weird.”
  • Jak daleko stad, jak blisko (1972) [How Far, How Near]
  • Walkower (1965) [Walkover]. Per Irene Goncharova, “A Polish movie, just drama, nothing weird.”

Russian/Soviet

  • Den vyborov (2007) [Election Day].  Per Irene Goranchova: “…absolute trash, a really BAD Russian movie. I sometimes laugh watching it. Bad, bad, bad! Nothing weird…”
  • Posetitel muzeya (1989). [Visitor of a Museum]?
  • Sobachye serdtse (1988). Literally, Heart of a Dog. Based on a Mikhail Bulgakov novel that was also adapted by the Italians into a film called Cuore di cane.  Produced for television?  Per Irene Goncharova: It was a television production, although there may also be another filmed version.  “…a good movie, quite weird.”
  • Zhena kerosinshchika (1988) [Kerosene Salesman’s Wife]?  Per Irene Goncharova: hasn’t seen it, but looks weird from the description.

Spanish

  • Amanece, que no es poco (1989). No English translation of the title.  Per Alon, English translation may be Isn’t dawn enough? “…a masterpiece of surreal humour. You have a serious candidate for The List.”
  • Don Juan Tenorio (1952).  Alon thinks it’s unlikely to be weird, mentions that its notoriety may come from the fact that Salvador Dalí served as the costume designer.

In the interest of thoroughness, we’re potentially saving a spot on the List for all these movies, so any help as to whether they are must-sees or duds will be greatly appreciated!