I can't really say I'm a fan of José Mojica Marins and his Coffin Joe character - I did like his first two films, but the two I've seen since then (The Strange World of Coffin Joe and The Awakening of the Beast) were torrid viewings that I didn't enjoy much. To his credit, however, at least the actor/director was willing to try out different things with his character and I can give his subsequent films plaudits for that. The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe is yet another departure from the themes of the first two films; and this time features the actor playing himself for most of it. As the film begins, director Jose Mojica Marins is being interviewed about his next film, "The Demon Exorcist", and tells the press he is going to spend Christmas with friends so he can mull over what this imaginatively titled movie will be about. However, during his stay strange things start happening and the director learns that his own creation, Coffin Joe, may be at the heart of it.
Plenty of actors/directors with a cult following have made self-referential films; Lucio Fulci did it in 1990 with Cat in the Brain, recently Bruce Campbell did it with My Name is Bruce - and I'm sure many others have done it too. José Mojica Marins has always come across as a man with a high opinion of himself; and that comes through in this movie too, with all the action focusing on the actor himself and there's even time for him to compare his character to the most famous character of Arthur Conan Doyle! The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe is filmed in the normal Coffin Joe style - namely, cheaply, although the style certainly does benefit the film and is the most striking thing about it. The film also carries on with the completely confusing style that plagued all the four previous Coffin Joe movies and that's a bit of a problem. It is possible to simply enjoy the movie because of what you're seeing on screen; but the film does start to get a bit boring before the credits finally roll. Overall, this is at least slightly better than the two Coffin Joe movies that went before it; but it will only really appeal to Coffin Joe fans, and I'm not one of them.
