Finis Hominis

Now I know José Mojica Marins (a.k.a. Coffin Joe) is pretty much considered a demigod amongst a selected but avidly fanatic group of cult cinema lovers, and I also realize I still have to see more of his work before I can judge properly, but I'm really not the slightest bit impressed so far! I could only appreciate his experimental and genuinely macabre anthology "The Strange World of Coffin Joe", but his supposed masterpiece "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" and particularly this "The End of Man" couldn't fascinate me at all. My fellow reviewers around here – whose opinions I usually follow blindly – compare Marins' style with the oeuvres of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Luis Buñuel and even Mario Bava. I'm sorry, what?!? He may be a hard-working and versatile filmmaker, but he undeniably lacks the vision and talents of the aforementioned cinematic geniuses. If I had to describe "The End of Man" in just a couple of words, they would be: inventive but dull and totally incapable of dealing with budgetary restrictions. Some directors only just become considered as geniuses when they manage to camouflage their film's lack of funding through ingeniousness and creativity. Marins' doesn't have this quality, or at least not around the time he made this film. "The End of Man" looks even cheaper than it probably cost altogether and Marins doesn't even bother to camouflage it. It's a very disappointing film with only a couple of noteworthy moments.