Hallucinations of a deranged mind (aka Delirios de um Anormal)Directed by José Mojica Marins
First released in 1978
Dr Hamilton (Jorge Peres) a prominent psychiatrist starts to believe that Coffin Joe (aka Zé Do Caixão) is real and intent on stealing his fiancée. Delirious he has visions of Coffin Joe’s hellish world. His colleagues and fiancée Tania (Magna Miller) turn to José Mojica Marins (himself) the creator of the infamous character for help. With the help of a new script ridiculing his own creation Martin can be convinced that Coffin Joe is indeed a mere fictitious character. 
José Mojica Marins cannibalised all of his previous films featuring the Coffin Joe character to produce "Hallucinations of a deranged mind". Scenes from "At midnight I’ll possess your corpse", "The strange world of Coffin Joe", "Awakening of the beast" and others were used for Dr. Hamilton’s delusional dream. Often scenes were even repeated making them seem a lot longer than they actually are. Now I don’t mind a little creative filmmaking to compensate for a limited budget. But even if you haven’t seen any of the Coffin Joe picture’s it’s obvious the footage is taken from different sources if only from the difference in quality. Plus there are all these characters from the previous movies running around in Hamilton’s dream for no explainable reason. Long story short Marins apparently made no effort to integrate all the different footage into the plot.
There is actually little new footage to be found. And what there is, is cheap and badly acted. The acting in Marins’ features never stand out but here the acting, especially by the love interest played by a Magna Miller, is absolutely horrendous. And I don’t want to be mean but for someone who is supposed to be perfect as implied in the film she is just plain ugly.Does all this mean that "Hallucinations of a deranged mind" is a bad movie? Well yes and no. Yes because it’s hardly a movie at all. It’s more of a 'best of' compilation or one of those Christmas episodes in a long running series with loads of flashbacks.
But then again it does collect the strongest, funniest, most gruesome and most imaginative imagery of all the Coffin Joe pictures. This does not make the film an ideal starting point for fans of the genre that really want to get to enjoy Marins’ work. Ripped from their original plot the scenes lose most of their value reducing the director and his creation to a caricature.
"Hallucinations of a deranged mind" is better reserved for projection on the club wall near the dance floor, to watch with your beer buddies through a drunken haze or for those already familiar with Marin’s films wanting to revisit some of his work. It did remind this reviewer that there are still some films by the director he needs to seek out.
The print used for the Donut DVD release is almost pristine and this time the extra’s are a little more interesting as well. Apart from the obligatory trailers, the comic slideshow, lobby cards and filmography there are also two fragments of Marins’ erotic movies. The first fragment is taken from "Estrupo" in which José Mojica Marins plays a rapist who gets paid back in kind by the victim’s sister. And there is probably twice as much to say about this than there is about "Hallucinations of a deranged mind". But suffice to say that it’s a horrendous piece of film and makes you doubt the qualities of José Mojica Marins as a director. It’s well worth a watch however because it is that bad. The scene contains a sex scene with Marins’ showing way too much flesh (really you will want to wash your eyes out afterwards) and him getting his dick cut of. The screaming and gore is mind-boggling.
" The second scene shows a man in a bull-suit and a woman in a cow-suit having sex. The movie is credited as a sexploitation feature. But although this scene shows no actual intercourse the feature itself is pure hardcore pornography. Some liner notes accompanying the scenes would have been helpful but the scenes are enjoyable enough on their own.
So buy the DVD, call your friends, have a beer and put this disc in your DVD-player, you’re guaranteed to have a blast. But if you really want to see a great film seek out "At midnight I’ll take your soul instead".
---STEVEN---
Country: Brasil; Year: 1978, Running time: 84 min.; Language: Portuguese; Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1; Subs: Dutch