My Last Interview With José Mojica Marins (Part 1 of 3)

The creator of Coffin Joe remembers his first movies

On February 19 this year, José Mojica Marins died in São Paulo at the age of 82. He was one of the great Brazilian filmmakers and the pioneer in the production of Horror Cinema in the country. He was also the creator of Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe, in English), a sadistic undertaker who, for now, is the first and only 100% Brazilian horror character — who doesn’t borrow elements or characteristics from international creatures.

Mojica had a sui generis life. Although he is remembered for directing horror films, he made a little bit of everything: erotic comedies, melodramas, westerns, musicals, and even X-Rated films. His private life, on the other hand, was too complicated to be summarized here, with multiple relationships with several women, sometimes at the same time.

Very popular in the 1960s-70s, Mojica was celebrated by great intellectuals of Brazilian cinema, such as Glauber Rocha, Rogério Sganzerla, and Júlio Bressane. From the 1980s onwards, he fell into ostracism, then into oblivion, and finally had a comeback as a personality sometimes comic, sometimes caricatural.