José Mojica Marins (March 13, 1936 – February 19, 2020) was a Brazilian actor, composer. filmmaker, presenter and screenwriter.
He's best known as the pioneer of Brazilian horror cinema, particularly as the creator and actor of the famous Brazillian pop culture icon character "Zé do Caixão" ("Coffin Joe") in several media. Mojica, as he was best known, was born on a Friday the 13th and grew up watching movies in the theatre his father worked with and reading comic books, both of which inspired his creative experiments with a V-8 camera he got when he was twelve, and then make movie in his adulthood. His first movie, A Sina do Aventureiro was the first Brazilian movie filmed in Cinemascope. He'd became pioneer again after a bad dream where he was dragged from his bedroom to a cemetery, where he was placed in front of his grave and saw his birthdate and (he looked away) his death. After waking up, the experience gave an inspirational spurt, and he ran to his studio, woke up an actress who worked there and dictated the idea for a completely unprecedented thing in Brazilian cinema: a horror movie.
From that was born At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, which told the story of Coffin Joe, a creepy funeral agent who didn't believe God or Devil, good or evil, only in the matter and what was logical, and had this obsession for finding a woman who can give him a perfect child to keep his superior lineage. The film got a sequel in 1967, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. He'd appear in other movies, sometimes as a legend within the story, cementing Coffin Joe as one of the most iconic modern figures in Brazilian pop culture.
In the 80's, he went through a decaying phase, unable to fund his projects and had to submit to to make erotic films and appearances in TV where his character was mocked and reduced to a bit of a joke, occasionally appearing as a parody of himself. One positive example of this was when he became the host to Cine Trash, where obscure horror movies were aired on TV Band.
In 2008, Mojica directed the third and final film in the Coffin Joe trilogy, Embodiment of Evil. His last work as a director was in the horror anthology Black Fables, which a group of Brazilian horror directors joined to make. The credits include interviews with the production, who all share their joy to put him on a horror project one last time.
He passed away in February 2020, a month shy of his 84th (which, ironically, would be Friday the 13th).
He is not related to the ex-president of Uruguay, José Mujica.
Filmography:
- Olho Por Olho (1988 — 1989) as Lúcio Fera
- As Aventuras De Tiazinha (1999) as Dr. Ziggy
- Acampamento Legal (2001 — 2002) as Zé Do Caixão
- Gods Sentence (1958)
- Adventurers Fate (1958)
- We Were Brothers (1960)
- My Destiny In Your Hands (1963)
- At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963)
- Nightmare (1965)
- The Devil Of Old Town (1966)
- This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
- The Strange World Of Coffin Joe (1968)
- Awakening Of The Beast (1970)
- The End Of Man (1970)
- Sex And Blood In The Trail Of The Treasure (1972)
- The Prophet Of Hunger (1972)
- When The Gods Fall Asleep (1972)
- The Virgin And The Macho Man (1974)
- The Bloody Exorcism Of Coffin Joe (1974)
- Failure Of A Man In The Two Nights Of Nuptials (1975)
- Women Of The Violent Sex (1976)
- The Strange Hostel Of Naked Pleasures (1976)
- How To Console Widows (1977)
- Hellish Flesh (1977)
- The Woman Who Made Doves Fly (1978)
- The Marble Goddess (1978)
- Hallucinations Of A Deranged Mind (1978)
- Perversion (1979)
- World Market Of Sex (1979)
- A Praga (1980)
- Fifth Dimension Of Sex (1984)
- The Hour Of Fear (1986)
- The Two Faces Of A Psychopath (1986)
- Forty Eight Hours Of Hallucinatory Sex (1987)
- Dr Frank In The Clinic Of The Taras (1987)
- Demons And Wonders (1987)
- A Summer Show (2004)
- Embodiment Of Evil (2008)
- The Black Fables (2015)
Tropes
- Adam Westing: Whenever Coffin Joe had an appearances in a comedy show.
- As Himself: Would occasionally play as himself in his own films.
- Author Appeal: Marins was fond of poker, and there are poker tables in both first Coffin Joe movies.
- Based on a Dream: His idea to make a horror film was after having a bad dream, where a shadowy figure dragged him off his house into a cemetery, where he saw a grave with his name. Said nightmare also inspired a dream sequence in This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, where Coffin Joe is dragged off to a cemetery and pulled by hands underground into Hell.
- Beard of Evil: One of the most remarkable traits from Coffin Joe and arguably the best-known example in Brazilian film.
- Copiously Credited Creator: He directed, co-wrote and starred all of his Coffin Joe movies.
- Directed by Cast Member: He was an actor in several of his own movies, most famously the ones starring "Zé do Caixão".
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: His films probably introduced the first examples in Brazilian cinema, as the violence tended to be very subdued at the time. Marins liked to test limits even before he decided to make horror movies and creating Coffin Joe cranked that up to eleven.
- Femme Fatalons: Coffin Joe's long fingernails, which Mojica even kept in his everyday life.
- Horror Host: In the 90's, he starred Cine Trash, where he as Coffin Joe introduced the audience to the horror movie of the week. This phase is best known for introducing his catch-phrase "The Plague of the Day", in which he cursed the audience to suffer X in case they didn't do Y (most often if they missed the following movie) which became strongly associated with his character, despite never being in his horror movies.
- It Is Pronounced Tro Pay: His name is not pronounced Hosé Mohica, as the Portuguese "J" is much closer to French (as in Jacques or Jean-Luc) than Spanish. Though his maternal name "Mojica" is Spanish, he would pronounce it in Portuguese.
- No Budget: His movies were known to be extremely low-budget B-Movie, and he would often recruit friends and amateur actors for the cast and crew, as well as play characters himself.
- Same Language Dub: As with Brazilian movies at the times, all of his early films had to have entire dialogue dubbed in a studio by other voice actors (Marins himself chose voice actor called Laercio Laurelli for Coffin Joe, after seeing his work as the Italian actor Mario Carotenuto).
- Stock Footage: His productions often recycled footage from previous films.
