Truth be told, I turn down way more music videos than I accept to cover because, well, people make a whole lot of boring ones. It's not enough to film candid footage on tour and splice it in with your crappy metal band on a rooftop in Des Moines anymore. I expect a plot, a narrative, something to drive us along on some kind of emotional journey. This is not just an excuse to preen in front of a camera.
Usually, a band that just put together a bunch of old monster-movie clips and set their music under it would also count as spam-folder fodder. Granted, you can sometimes make a brilliant music video that way. Metallica's "One" remains a seminal work despite being little more than the band playing in an abandoned warehouse over footage from "Johnny Got his Gun." In general though, it's just lazy shite.
That was until From Beyond took on Coffin Joe under the direction of Joey Graham.
If you don't know of Coffin Joe, then you're missing out. He wasn't just a groundbreaking Brazilian horror filmmaker. For a little bit, he was the Brazilian horror industry. All of it, all by his ownself.
José Mojica Marins directed and starred in the Coffin Joe trilogy about a demonic man searching for the perfect bride. Each time finds him undone and murdered, and each time he rises again to pursue his lustful deviancy. The films are masterpieces of sexual frightmares, full of exploitation and Satanic themes that make Rob Zombie look like Ang Lee.
Robert McCarthy of From Beyond was inspired to write "At Midnight" and make the video after watching the first Coffin Joe film, À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul).
"I couldn't believe how absolutely brilliant his directing was, how innovative, and how underrated and unknown he is," says McCarthy. "I wanted to write the song as an homage to the character itself: Coffin Joe wanted to find the perfect woman to have the perfect son that would maintain his legacy forever. You could say that this is From Beyond's first 'love song.'"
See the video and more about it on the next page.