14. Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadáver (1967, José Mojica Marins)
The Devil summarizes, somehow, all the modes and possibilities of social norms and transgressions – at least in the Western monotheistic universe. In this sense, the demonic figure is often used as a method to represent transgressions in an imaginative path, especially in societies with conservative viewpoints or those subjected to dictatorial regimes.
This Devil function is deeply rooted in the underground Brazilian films of the 60s and 70s, particularly in the films by José Mojuca Marins. “Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadáver” (1967) is a feast full of excesses released when the Brazilian military dictatorship neared its repressive peak. The film follows the trail of atrocities caused by the protagonist, Coffin Joe (“Zé do Caixão” in Portuguese) in his search for a perfect woman who could bear him a son.
Free of charges from his terrible past crimes – which were seen in his previous film “À Meia Noite Levarei Sua Alma” (1964) – he established himself in another small town. With the help of his minion, the deformed hunchback Bruno (José Lobo), he kidnapped six women and subjected them to cruel torturous experiences.
The sequence of Coffin Joe in his journey into hell (the only colored portion in the entire film) is magnificent, entailing a mixture of hellish visions evoked in a fierce and inventive way.
13. Jigoku (1960, Nobuo Nakagawa)
Hell and evil supernatural entities are not only found within Christianity or other Western traditions and faiths. A terrible place for punishment and torture of the reprobate can also be found in other cultures, displaying the same taste for cruel features, performed on sufferer’s bodies for ages after their death.
The infernal punishment, in any way, is the result of ethical and moral judgments that go beyond utilitarian notions of justice that regulate communities of human nature, with no possibility of relaxing this punishment or providing a contextualization of crimes committed. The supernatural justice takes its form in absolute decrees, and in mysterious hierarchies and penalties marked on the skin and limbs of the culprit.
With that said, “Jigoku”, directed by Nobuo Nagakawa, offers a picture of the infernal punishments exemplified in the lives of sinful humans living the hell on Earth with their physical bodies, before experiencing any spiritual punishment. In the film, we follow Shirō (Shigeru Amachi), a theology student engaged to Yukiko (Utako Mitsuya), who is involved in situations where he witnesses unrepentant sinners, apparently unpunished until death takes them all to hell.
The images of punishments, built by Nakagawa, are all as rich and suggestive as the traditional Japanese prints on the subject, or the cinematic vision from José Mojica Marins. The suggestive power of Nakagawa’s infernal pictures was well recognized in Japan, and the film had two remakes (in 1970 by Tatsumi Kumashiro, and afterward with the title “Japanese Hell” by Teruo Ishii in 1999).
12. The Magician (1926, Rex Ingram)
In 1908, British writer W. Sommerset Maugham published a famous caricature of “Beast of the Apocalypse” Aleister Crowley, who was called The Magician. The book would generate controversy at the time because Crowley, understandably angry because his caricatural figure in the book, Oliver Haddo, was portrayed as a seductive ruffian, accused Maugham of plagiarism.
It was likely was this controversy that aroused the interest of Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Rex Ingram in adapting the novel. In the film, sculptor Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry) suffers an accident while working feverishly on a faun statue. After the accident, she falls in love with her savior, Dr. Arthur Burdon (Ivan Petrovich), but is beset by the sinister Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener), who seeks to break her heart.
The film is full of visual and scenic excesses, and many probably watch ”The Magician” now as a cinematic curiosity. But the magnetic performance of Wegener as Haddo, and the Expressionist solutions of its narrative, make the film a strange missing link between “Häxan” and “Lucifer’s Rising”.
11. The Omen (1976, Richard Donner)
The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible written by John of Patmos, is probably the most influential in Western Christian culture. The biblical Book of Revelation not only defined the final days before the Last Judgment as a terrible struggle between the heavenly hosts and the demonic forces with the final destruction of the Lord’s enemies, but it also set up the Devil as an insidious and unique enemy with a mobile identity, an ironic mimicry of God’s triple identity.
In this sense, “The Omen”, directed by Richard Donner, was a kind of adaptation – with elements of the 1970s – of the revelations from John of Patmos. In Rome, Katherine Thorn (Lee Remick), the wife of US diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), gives birth to a boy, who dies shortly thereafter.
As a kind of compensation, however, Robert receives the proposal of a priest named Spiletto (Martin Benson) to secretly adopt an orphan whose mother died at that very moment. This adoption will bring adverse consequences for both the couple and for humanity. As a film built around biblical images and visions, it became a reference for many contemporary cinematic representations of evil.
10. The Beyond (1981, Lucio Fulci)
The original title of this 1981 master work by Lucio Fulci, in Italian, is “E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà” (roughly, “and you will live in terror! Beyond”). This title efficiently summarizes the fierce, apocalyptic and hellish plot of the film. The hotel Seven Doors in Louisiana was the scene of horrific deeds in 1927, when a lynch mob invaded to kill the artist Schweick (Antoine Saint-John), who was seen by the local community as a powerful sorcerer.
Decades later, the hotel is inherited by young Liza Merrill (Catriona MacColl) from New York. Liza wants to reform the old hotel, but is faced with an escalation of sinister events. The developing cruelty culminates with the final realization that Schweick’s paintings, which describe a universe dominated by demonic madness, are now the only reality.
Their invocations result in a tendency to be symbolically commonplace, but some images of astonishing violence break the barrier of the conventions of the diabolical horror film.
9. Angel Heart (1987, Alan Parker)
As a deity, would the Devil have his chosen ones and favorites? This question – and its possible answers – has become one of the best known diabolism trademarks in many narrative approaches, especially in cinema.
In ”Angel Heart”, Alan Parker’s adaptation of the novel ”Falling Angel” by William Hjortsberg, detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) investigates the whereabouts of Johnny Favorite, a popular crooner prior to World War II who has missing for some time. Angel’s client is Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro), who seeks out Favorite for honoring a certain contract, whose nature is revealed piecemeal throughout the narrative.
Configured as a modern film noir set in a stylized and exotic version of New Orleans, the film gives viewers an incredible climax during the final revelation, in the unveiling of all veils and the discovery of the truth. However, it comes into a curious contradiction with the names of the characters and with its strongly allegorical nature, which turns the plot into a strange fantasy, similar to medieval mysteries.
8. Night of the Demon (1957, Jacques Tourneur)
The researcher who seeks to explain or control demonic powers soon finds that these powers are unexplained and destructive. This theme emerged in the first versions of the legend of Faust, the doctor of theology and medicine, who sells his soul to the Devil because he is driven by dissatisfaction with his life and the world. Several variations arose since then, and the story “Casting the Runes” (1911) by British author M. R. James is a good example.
James’ story about a researcher at the British Museum and his occultist antagonist named Mr. Karwell, who hates negative reviews, is the basis for the movie “Night of the Demon”, directed by Jacques Tourneur. The scholar, in Tourneur’s version, is now American psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews), who comes to London for a conference where another researcher, Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham), plans to unmask the mysterious Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), an occultist who leads a Satanic cult.
The plot is complex, frenzied with demonic evil subtly suggested by simple and natural elements – shadows, sudden storms, the shining mist at night, crumpled pieces of parchment. The Devil has an almost everyday dimension, which is hidden in the appalling cracks and coincidences of the reality that indicate the unknown supernatural presences.
However, producer Hal E. Chester imagined that the film was not “demonic” enough and in post-production, he added a roughly-depicted and clumsy demon (the effect was intended to be made by stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen, but this was not possible) at the beginning and end of the film. Despite this intervention, ”Night of the Demon” remains a unique and interesting approach to demonic powers with something common, impersonal and destructive.