Two Evil Eyes

Two Evil Eyes/Due Occhi Diobolici brings together two of the horror genre's best loved directors, George A. Romero (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead) and Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno, Tenebrae, Sleepless), to adapt two Edgar Allan Poe tales previously brought to the big screen by B-movie maestro Roger Corman in his 1962 film, Tales Of Terror.

Directed by Romero, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar tells the story of scheming Jessica (Adrienne Barbeau) who convinces her psychiatrist lover (Ramy Zada) to hypnotise her dying husband (Bingo O'Malley) in order to get him to sign his fortune over to her. When the husband dies while still under hypnosis, he finds himself caught in a limbo between the worlds of the living and the dead, and hungry for revenge.

In The Black Cat, directed by Argento, Harvey Keitel plays Roderick Usher, a Weegee-like forensic photographer who, naturally, specialises in shooting pictures of death and murder scenes. When his musician wife Annabel (Madeleine Potter) brings home a stray cat, Usher wastes no time in disposing of the animal. The disgruntled cat, however, refuses to stay dead, prompting Usher's terrifying, murderous descent into madness.

Starring genre movie favourites Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Escape From New York, Creepshow), Tom Atkins (The Fog, Escape From New York, Creepshow, Halloween III:Season Of The Witch), Bingo O'Malley (Knightriders, Creepshow) and E.G. Marshall (Creepshow), alongside Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction), Sally Kirkland (The Sting, The Player, JFK), Kim Hunter (Planet Of The Apes, The Seventh Victim), Martin Balsam (Psycho) and John Amos (Die Hard 2), the movie also marks the feature film debut of Julie Benz (Darla from TV's Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer).

Featuring plenty of bloody mayhem to please the gore-hounds, courtesy of special make-up effects wizards Tom Savini (Dawn Of The Dead, Creepshow, Day Of The Dead) and John Vulich (Day Of The Dead, TV's Buffy The Vampire Slayer), and set to a suitably chilling score by Pino Donaggio (Carrie, Dressed To Kill, The Howling), Two Evil Eyes is an essential addition to every horror aficionado's collection.

Argento's The Black Cat

 

Excerpt from the chapter on Two Evil Eyes from my book Dario Argento (Kamera Books)...

The two segments of the film differ as much as the directors who helmed them; Romero is a solid story-teller who has a practical, no frills approach to his subject matter, and meticulously planned his shoot, whereas Argento prefers to revel in style and provocative trimmings, taking his usual experimental approach to its abstract conclusion.

Two Evil Eyes has a different look and style from many of Argento’s other films. The hyper-realistic photography by Beppe Maccari lacks the striking results of Argento’s previous work, and the film is the closest the director has come to creating something that could be described as ‘conventional.’ The camera work however is as ravishing as ever.

Argento films the escalating frenzy of delirious events with his usual style and precision, while Romero quietly ponders death, in a creepy but stagnant tale of revenge from beyond the grave. As a result, Two Evil Eyes is a very disjointed and uneven piece of work from two film makers who are as competent and individual in their approach to their craft as they are different from each other. An intriguing footnote in the careers of both men.

Two Evil Eyes (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£15.99) by Arrow Video on 10th May 2010.