Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

During the opening credits for Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, a hunchback plays the bongos while circling a semi-naked woman. It's an extremely bizarre image, but pretty standard fare for cult Brazilian director José Mojica Marins, who has carved a whole career from such surreality.

For this particular film, Marins has gathered together numerous scenes from his body of work so far and cobbled them together with a little new footage to tell the story of scientist Dr. Hamilton (Jorge Peres), who suffers from terrible nightmares in which he sees cult horror icon Coffin Joe (played by Marins) trying to make off with his wife Tânia (Magna Miller). In a 'meta moment', the doctor treating Hamilton calls Marins for help, believing that the creator of Coffin Joe might hold the key to curing the nightmares, which in turn gives Marins an idea for his next film.

With the majority of the running time taken up by Hamilton's nightmares, which are essentially a compilation of random freaky imagery taken out of context (not that they had much context to begin with), Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind is an incredibly tedious, meaningless experience and a colossal waste of time, especially for anyone who has already seen most of Marins better known films.

Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

I'll have to say right off that to date this is my first Coffin Joe film. From what I've read this might not have been the one to start off with as this here only features about twenty-five minutes worth of "newly" shot scenes mixed in with outtakes, deleted footage and censored footage from the previous films. I guess you could call this a real cut and paste job but the end results are pretty good. In the film, a doctor is having strange visions of Coffin Joe (Jose Mojica Marins) coming to steal his wife so that the evil one can create a super being. I've read that Coffin Joe's creation and stealing of women is something that runs through all of his film so there's nothing new there but I must admit that the film really captured my imagination. I'm not sure how many people will be attracted to a film like this but if you like LSD-type mind trips then this is a good one. For the most part we get very little story and instead just countless strange visuals, which range from cannibalism to naked women to other strange acts of violence being carried out by Coffin Joe. A lot of times we see the same clips being used over and over and while many are going to read this and think lazy, the director actually does a very stylish job with his low-budget nature. I had always seen images of Marins as Coffin Joe but seeing him in actual was a lot of fun. His entire look and feel were quite attractive for a horror film of this type. I haven't seen too many films from Brazil but this one here certainly has me interested in checking out the rest of the Coffin Joe films, which includes a brand new one just recently finished filming.

Coffin Joe is largely well known worldwide character, made great movies in the past, this weird offer differs from the others, this early movies were substantial, this one made on late seventies is purely bizarre, the plot is minimal about a man who has terrible dreams losing your wife to Coffin Joe, then the real one José Mojica Marins himself is invited to help this odd psychiatric case, Coffin Joe made an excessive visual picture from hell, the continuous use of an imaginary world where nothing make sense, a massive sexploitations scenes as well, psychedelic in several forms and shapes, aimlessly just wander of to nowhere, in fact the movie was made under separate old footages which were refused by brazilian censorship, it explains so many difuse colors between the takes, then Coffin Joe assembled a new picture, the main proposal is display oddity to make money, the name of the movie spoke itself from a deranged mind, that all!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 5.5

In 'Hallucinations Of A Deranged Mind' a psychiatrist (Jorge Peres) is being driven insane with hellish nightmares in which the sinister bogeyman Coffin Joe (Jose Mojica Marins) tries to steal his wife (Magna Miller) for the purpose of creating the perfect woman. His colleagues are so concerned they contact Marins, the creator of the Coffin Joe character, asking for his help, and he readily agrees. The movie mainly consists of outtakes and recycled footage from the earlier Coffin Joe movies including his masterpiece 'Awakening Of The Beast', which are then edited together into a kind of psychedelic collage. Newcomers to the weird and wonderful world of Coffin Joe (which is actually the anglicized name for Marins' Ze do Caixao character he debuted in 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' forty years ago) will probably find 'Hallucinations...' tough going, but if you're already addicted to these extraordinary movies you'll find plenty to keep you amused/amazed. I once described Marins as being a bit like Jodorowsky on a Herschell Gordon Lewis budget, and that gives you some idea of how unique his work is. This is my sixth Coffin Joe experience and I'm now hooked for life!

This film, from what I have read, is the censored material that was cut from Marins' older films. It looks to me like this material was thrown together to form something close to a movie, but very short of a plot or anything else for that matter. The movie is impossible to follow and had I not paid my own money to see it, I would not have finished watching it. I would not advise anyone to watch this film unless they wanted to see what, in my opinion, is one of the worst films ever.