Zé do Caixão [ˈzɛ du kajˈʃɐ̃w], known in English-speaking countries as Coffin Joe, is a character created and mostly portrayed by Brazilian writer, director, and actor José Mojica Marins. An amoral undertaker with Nietzschian beliefs, he is driven by his desire to have a son by "the perfect woman", believing that immortality is achieved through procreation, a concept he refers to as "the continuation of blood". He often resorts to murder, kidnapping, and rape to achieve his means, with his violent nature, atheism, and antagonism towards Christianity placing him into conflict with his largely Catholic neighbors. Despite his own disbelief in the supernatural, he often finds himself experiencing paranormal phenomena, including encounters with ghosts, Death, and visions of Hell.

Initially conceived of by Marins to serve as the antagonist in At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, Brazil's first horror film, Coffin Joe has gone on to appear in nine more films, three television series, songs, music videos, and comic books. The character has been called "Brazil's National Boogeyman", and is considered a horror icon and a cultural icon of Brazil, with his popularity resulting in descriptions of him as being the Brazilian equivalent of the United States' Freddy Krueger.

Coffin Joe is an undertaker by trade and runs his own funeral home, from which he also sells caskets, flowers, and wreaths. Unlike his neighbors, who dress largely in peasant or farming clothes, he wears a black top hat, black suit, and black cape; his most distinctive features are his thick beard and grotesquely long, curled fingernails. He is an amoral character who considers himself superior to others and exploits them to suit his purposes. He believes in reason and materialism, eschewing all religion and superstition, believing them to be impediments to human evolution; he looks down on anyone who does not hold his beliefs as inferior and exploitable, especially his Catholic neighbors. Conversely, he accepts others who share his beliefs as "superior", particularly women. The only individuals Joe considers to be pure are children, whom he believes have yet to be corrupted by the false moral codes of the adult world and towards whom he shows uncharacteristic displays of kindness.

While Joe himself disbelieves in the paranormal, he oftentimes finds himself experiencing supernatural phenomena, including encounters with ghosts (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul), visions of Hell (This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse), and meeting otherworldly beings, including Death itself (Embodiment of Evil). The character rarely comments on these experiences, and they appear to have no lasting effect on his cosmology or personal beliefs.

Although none of the films in which he appears explore the character's backstory, Marins has outlined in interviews that Joe became jaded when he fought with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II, and developed his attitudes towards women when he returned home to learn that his beloved had begun an affair in his absence. The dual experiences both forged Joe's beliefs about mankind, as well as his desire to find the "perfect" woman.

At the time of the first film's production, Brazil had produced no horror films of its own. Marins was a lifelong fan of horror films, having grown up watching them in the theater that his family owned, operated and lived above in an apartment.

Marins states that the idea for the character came in a dream:

"In a dream saw a figure dragging me to a cemetery. Soon he left me in front of a headstone, there were two dates of my birth and my death. People at home were very frightened, called a priest because they thought I was possessed. I woke up screaming, and at that time decided to do a movie unlike anything I had done. He was born at that moment the character would become a legend: Coffin Joe. The character began to take shape in my mind and in my life. The cemetery gave me the name, completed the costume of Joe the cover of voodoo and black hat, which was the symbol of a classic brand of cigarettes. He would be a mortician."