The Different Sounds of Brazilian Horror: Stylistic Modulations of the Soundtrack in Three Films by José Mojica Marins

• Grant number: 24/22694-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Suzana Reck Miranda
• Grantee: Leonardo Luiz Frederico Patracão
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to investigate the construction of the soundtrack in three films directed by José Mojica Marins, known as Zé do Caixão - At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964), Tonight I'll Incarnate in Your Corpse (1966) and The Awakening of the Beast (1969) -, taking into account the different production circuits in which these works were inserted. Although Marins is considered one of the most emblematic filmmakers in Brazilian cinema, his work, despite being widely studied, still lacks a more in-depth analysis of the use of sound. The aim of this work is to understand how the sound elements present in the films are articulated with the images in the construction of fundamental aspects of horror and the director's unique aesthetic. To this end, the analyses will be based on theoretical references such as Claudia Gorbman (1987) and Michel Chion (2019), in dialogue with specific studies on horror cinema such as those by Carreiro (2013, 2019), Cánepa (2008) and others. In this way, it is hoped that this study, as well as contributing to research on sound in Brazilian cinema, will also reveal aspects that are still little explored in existing reflections on this filmmaker's style.