Two Evil Eyes (1991)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

On the surface, this would seem like a horror fan's wet dream. Two of horror's most celebrated directors, George Romero and Dario Argento, in a pseudo-anthology film, dedicated to the works of American legend, E.A. Poe. The reality, however, is that the film has its' shining moments, but the negatives outweighed the positives for me.Most of us have some passing familiarity with Poe's work, maybe you've read it in grade school, or maybe you're more familiar with the Corman adaptations from the 60s. He is considered to be the father of American horror, as well as the inventor of the detective story. His work has been used as a launching point for many horror films and here they attempt to adapt his work somewhat faithfully, though with plenty of additions and embellishments. The stories were originally created for a proposed television series. Unfortunately it was abandoned with only two episodes and, thus, we get the two one-hour segments shown here. The fact that they were created for the small screen is one of the biggest drawbacks to the film. Romero's segment, especially, just reeks of low budget and bad production values. The first story is THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M VALDEMAR done by Romero. It utilizes some of the weakest parts of the Poe oeuvre, in my opinion. It's very indicative of the sort of "detective fiction" that was crafted by Poe letting a plot VERY slowly unwind and, also, shows his preoccupation with the mysticism and hypnotism so popular at the time. The problem is that all the tension that he tries to build just goes nowhere and never provides a satisfying resolution. Maybe I'm just too jaded, but a guy laying frozen with a disembodied voice just doesn't elicit many chills for me. Of course, being Romero, he uses the story as an excuse to comment on capitalism and drag out one of his trademark zombies. The second story is THE BLACK CAT by Argento, which is really a strange melange of several Poe stories, including THE CASK OF AMONTIDALLO. It stars Harvey Keitel a few years before his Tarantino-fueled resurgence. The story has a few of the best elements of Argento's work, including some gorgeous looking crime scenes. Unfortunately, it has some of the worst elements of his work, as well, namely an odd, meandering plot and a bad male lead character that is hard for anyone to relate to because I've never met one person who acted remotely like him. Both directors were about five years past their prime, at this point, and do a serviceable job of translating stories that are now over a hundred years old, to make them more modern. I found the Argento segment to be much better than the Romero, but neither one would even have made a very good episode of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, let alone an entertaining horror film.

I was sure to find the usual negative for the classic'80s horror film. This site is safe meet in negative judgement on a horror film. All horro movies suck, we do not save one, is crazy. Detestate: prom night, Creepshow, society exception etc. The film is very nice. A good comedy horror 80 years, beautiful women, good special effects for the time, we are just irony and the classic'80s horror film. This film in Italy was also known as the home of Helen. A good film for the period. Go now to see the crimes of black cat and I am sure that meet a new negative judgement. Next time to you when you remember that the horror film on the site are all rejected.

This two-part film was a project initiated by Argento, who invited Romero to make an anthology together in which each would direct his favorite story from the celebrated horror author's work. Incidentally, the fact that both these stories had already been incorporated into Roger Corman's own Poe compendium, TALES OF TERROR (1962), renders this a semi-remake of that film! The resulting mélange is tolerable but rather unsatisfying as a whole – it must be said, however, that both directors' careers had already started slacking by this point. Romero's decision to adapt "The Facts In The Case Of Mr. Valdemar" reveals perhaps why he feels such a strong affinity with the zombie subgenre; still, the results here are pedestrian and curiously uninvolving – though the zombie moans are decidedly creepy. The cast includes Adrienne Barbeau (ex-wife of John Carpenter, a contemporaneous genre exponent) and E.G. Marshall (who, memorably, had played an insect-hating businessman in a previous anthology Romero had directed by himself – CREEPSHOW [1982]).Even if it's an image of the undead Mr. Valdemar which made this film's poster, Argento's segment – yet another adaptation of "The Black Cat" – is actually more highly regarded; still, despite boasting some of the director's trademark visual flair, the segment is generally heavy-handed and overlong. Harvey Keitel brings his method training to the characteristically expressionist Poe landscape; this clash of styles lends the proceedings a welcome air of black comedy – especially in the star's openly hostile relationship with the ill-fated titular creature. It also provides irrelevant inserts of gory detail since Keitel is a crime-scene photographer named Rod Usher (Argento must have had his Poe stories mixed-up at this point!) where the murder victims, appropriately enough, have expired in the sadistic fashion typical of the author's work – including an unlikely and cumbersome pendulum device. There's a nightmare sequence, too, in which Keitel finds himself in medieval times and suffers an excruciating death lifted from the notorious CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) – and, needless to say, we're treated here to the usual cat-meowing-revealing-a-body-hidden-behind-the-wall ending! Martin Balsam appears as an elderly nosy neighbor of Keitel's, but his contribution doesn't amount to much.Pino Donaggio's score is most effective during the closing credits sequence; responsible for the gruesome effects in both segments is Tom Savini, a Romero regular (with the half-putrefied kitten at the end being a particularly inspired creation).

Two adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe's dark tales. Two famed directors and recognizable stars. I was real eager to view TWO EVIL EYES, but it didn't take all that long and I was bored to death. Not enough action; not enough gore. George Romero directs THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR, where a deceitful cheating wife(Adrienne Barbeau)plans on killing her husband(E.G. Marshall); and while he is in a vegetated state, she cashes in some of his major assets. Even a fully clothed Barbeau is gorgeous.THE BLACK CAT is directed by Derio Argento and tells the tale of a crime photographer(Harvey Keitel), who is haunted by cats after himself being involved with a murder. Keitel,who is known for playing some quirky roles, does not disappoint.Other stars involved in these twin tales: Sally Kirland, John Amos, Kim Hunter, Martin Balsam and Ramy Zada.