Embodiment of Evil 2008

After being released from the prison mental ward, Coffin Joe, José Mojica Marins, is greeted at the gate by his old and loyal servant Bruno, Rui Rezende, who leads him to a secluded basement below a São Paulo favela. The hideout is cramped with four devoted followers who have been waiting and preparing for his arrival, eager to faithfully serve the man whose infamous ideas they revere. The atmosphere is tense, and Coffin Joe wastes no time testing their loyalty and motives, signaling that his return marks a calculated move in his longtime agenda to shape fate according to his own brutal code.

Coffin Joe immediately commands the group to begin kidnapping women, a ruthless step in his quest to renew what he terms “the continuation of the blood”—his obsession with finding a perfect partner who will bear him a son. His first target is Dr. Hilda, Cléo de Paris, a controversial eugenicist whose kidnapping Bruno carries out. Coffin Joe tests Hilda’s will with drugs, sending her into vivid hallucinatory episodes that involve him performing a grotesque act and then presenting it to her; astonishingly, she reacts by eating it, a stark moment that cements the twisted dynamic surrounding his theology of power and reproduction.

As word of Coffin Joe’s release spreads, Coronel Claudiomiro Pontes, Jece Valadão, a Catholic police captain who carries a personal grudge against him, and Father Eugênio, Milhem Cortaz, a priest whose own psyche bears scars from Coffin Joe’s past victims, decide to join forces in a bid to stop him once and for all. Their pact signals a dangerous alliance between law and faith against a man who views the world through a chilling lens of domination and ordained destiny.

On Coffin Joe’s first night back, he is haunted by ghostly visions of his former victims—Terezinha, Guta Ruiz, Lenita, Raissa Gregori, and Laura, Alessandra Miranda—even as he stubbornly denies that these specters are real. He then singles out Elena, a young gypsy woman who has long been drawn to him. Elena, Nara Sakarê, is protected by her aunts Cabíria, Helena Ignez, and Lucrécia, Débora Muniz, who perform a protective ritual and lay a curse on Coffin Joe to shield Elena from his malevolence. The tension escalates when Coffin Joe murders the two aunts, and Elena offers herself to him. During their intimate moment, he experiences a disturbing vision of another dimension—a bloody, maze-like interior that seems to bend reality itself.

In that otherworldly encounter, Coffin Joe meets the Mystifier, José Celso Martinez Corrêa, who guides him toward a barren, surreal landscape called Purgatory. The Mystifier exposes Coffin Joe to terrifying visions of human depravity, suffering, and perversion, along with a chilling image of Coffin Joe’s own death. These revelations shake him to the core and push him to push his followers toward kidnapping more women, subjecting them to brutal trials to test their endurance and perceived suitability for his ultimate lineage.

When the authorities finally locate Coffin Joe’s hideout, the place is deserted save for the grisly remnants of his victims. Coffin Joe flees into the night, pursued by Colonel Pontes and Father Eugênio through a dark forest toward a closed amusement park, Playcenter. A savage confrontation ensues in which Coffin Joe kills the pursuing officers but is mortally wounded by a crucifix wielded by Father Eugênio, who drives the weapon into his heart. Believing he has ended Coffin Joe, Eugênio’s relief is short-lived, as Coffin Joe’s presence lingers in the shadows and in his own voice. Elena appears in the aftermath, removing the crucifix from Coffin Joe’s body and, in a final twist, sharing a sexual encounter with him as the dark chapter seems to close on the creator of this monstrous myth.

The closing scene returns to Coffin Joe’s funeral, where a disturbing revelation unfolds: the women who survived his ordeals—Hilda, Elena, and the others who endured—have all become pregnant. The implication is that Coffin Joe’s ominous obsession has, in a grim and unsettling fashion, achieved its macabre goal. The ceremony leaves a searing impression of how power, ritual, and violence intertwine to create a legacy that continues long after the man himself is laid to rest.