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As Dominic Toretto once proclaimed; “THIS IS BRAZIL!” Only this time instead of muscle cars being raced by sweaty men capable of physics-defying driving techniques, we get a side of Brazil that deals with much darker things. Bringing together a quartet of local legends (amongst them, Coffin Joe himself, the late, great José Mojica Marins and Petter Baiestorf who blessed the world with Zombio and then shat all over everything with its sequel) we are treated to an anthology with its Brazilian blood pumping enough madness and variety to keep me intrigued. A group of goofy kids take a break from their delightful costumed shenanigans in the woods, enjoying some hybrid fantasy role playing that involves homemade weapons, homemade costumes, slabs of wood serving as swords and water balloons. A kick to the balls puts a sudden end to the tomfoolery and eventually some storytelling eases the youthful boredom. First up is Monster of the Sewer from Rodrigo Aragão. A corrupt, obese mayor dies on the shitter (the kind of brief illness that involves blood shooting out of your double chin until the back of your head explodes… I think that’s mono) and everything he voids goes into the sewer system he has refused to fix. This ends up poisoning the water supply that crosses paths with the overflowing sewer outside of some frustrated man’s home. This has the nasty effect of turning said fed-up guy into a violent sewage zombie for… uhm, reasons. It also has a giant, living turd found by the soon-to-be sewage zombie’s child who keeps it as a pet. It’s pure toilet stupidity, which I have seen plague more than a couple Brazilian flicks but it’s at least reasonable because it’s being told by a pre-teen boy. We’re idiots, especially at that age and I can definitely see this as something hilarious to some youthful dope who swears it to be true. A very cheap zombie, a very messy kicked-in head and a very lovely giant insectoid BM combine for an opening act that kind of has me shrug while shaking my head. It’s not my cup of tea but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. As the kids march off to grab some food, one of them stumbles across a giant track left in the dirt. This leads him to telling a local legend about a werewolf fucking up the cruel, racist military rule of a small village. Pampa Feroz comes from the aforementioned Baiestorf and it is a charming bit of budget-strained lycanthrope madness. Chocolate syrup splatter and truly despicable victims pair well with a majestically janky monster (think the creature from Cellar Dweller but realized by Andy Milligan and you’re practically there) and a transformation back into human form that is fucking jaw-dropping in a very cheap and icky way. It’s also shot to look like it was filmed through your memory of an unfinished basement in the Midwest. Yes, that is praise. Why are you looking at me like that? One of the boy’s fears of something called the Saci leads to O Saci from Marins which he shows up in. A young girl is tempted by some horny dope to join him while hunting in the woods at night. An old timer warns them that it’ll be dangerous after dark because they’re in the land of the Saci but the guy ignores the warning and ends up shooting the mythical hopping monster. The girl’s parents aren’t happy and they don’t believe her story. The guy decides the truth can only come out if he finishes the job and embalms the Saci for all to see. The creepy-ass rubber monster pays a visit to the girl’s home and the question rises as to whether or not the girl is just insane or actually being plagued by an ugly nightmare. Possible possession leads to Marins performing an exorcism which leads to a concerned father and unfortunate ends for a few folks. It works fine and features a folkloric beast I haven’t seen before. The next story comes from Joel Caetano and involves a ghost haunting the bathroom of a rundown boarding school. Bloody Blonde is said specter and she’s leaving some bodies in her wake. The headmistress buries these dead kids on the school grounds and goes about her business, informing nobody but she has darker secrets than that and it connects to the school’s spirit. Bloody Mary scared the fuck out of me when I was little and this ghastly ghost really hits me in the terrifying nostalgia section of my brain. The effective entity is decayed to hell and covered in blood, conjured up by speaking her name in the bathroom mirror… it’s damn-near perfect when it comes to giving this middle-aged idiot some chills. Cruelty, a hideously scarred butler, bitchy classmates, nauseating wall paint, some nasty violence and a nice level of grime just wrap it all up into the kind of package I am madly in love with. Rodrigo Aragão bookends with Lara’s House which has a woman murdering her adulterous husband and bumping uglies with a Satyr that clued her into her husband’s infidelity. Legend has it that the scorned woman still resides in her now derelict house, leaving the confines once night falls. Our storytellers now sit outside the seemingly abandoned home and a simple, mean-spirited prank is going to show just how factual the scary tales were. If you have no issue with production budgets stretched as far as they can go, this anthology is a pleasant surprise (outside of a mostly forgettable first story). Giving us a zombie, a giant poop-creature, a werewolf, a one-legged thing from folklore with a case of the giggles and one hell of a ghost all brought to life on film sets you can smell from the comfort of your own home with a cast that could use a shower. Again, that’s praise.
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