TWO EVIL EYES
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1990 /
Horror
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Movie Trailer
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Preview Clip
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Extra Content
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Directed by Dario Argento and George A. Romero
Written by Dario Argento, George A. Romero and Franco Ferrini
Starring Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, E.G. Marshall, Harvey Keitel, Madeleine Potter, John Amos and Tom Atkins
Two horror tales based on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe directed by two famous horror directors, George A. Romero and Dario Argento. A greedy wife kills her husband, but not completely, and a sleazy reporter adopts a strange black cat.
The following tags are associated with this movie: Anthology, Supernatural, Edgar Allan Poe
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Two Evil Eyes (1990)
Review by Michael Mahoney
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Featuring two Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by two well-respected directors (George A. Romero and Dario Argento), I wish that I could like this movie more. As it is, the first story is really enjoyable, but Argento's addition here just drags, and deeply pulls down my enjoyment of the film overall.
Directed by Romero, the first story is a pretty spooky idea, and has a rather classical feel to it. It felt like one of those stories you might see in a 70's Amicus anthology (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, what-have-you), with a great feel for suspense and a solid conclusion.
Argento's story, based off The Black Cat, just felt off, for lack of a better word. The last six minutes or so were pretty good, if only because it was moderately suspenseful, but the rest of the story just didn't do it for me. It's made worse by both the fact that it's the longer of the two stories (about an hour and three minutes long as opposed to the first story's fifty-five minutes) and almost none of the performances did anything for me, and in fact, the main actor bothered me quite a bit.
The cast for the first story is so much better anyway. Starring Adrienne Barbeau (from such classics as The Fog and Creepshow) and Ramy Zada (who I know only from a segment in 1989's After Midnight), who work rather well together, this story also has strong performances by Bingo O'Malley, Tom Atkins, and E.G. Marshall. O'Malley isn't a name I'm familiar with, but Atkins was in such genre classics as The Fog, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps, and Maniac Cop, and was great to see here. E.G. Marshall hasn't done much for the horror genre (in fact, this movie aside, he's only been in two others, 1979's television movie Vampire and a segment in Creepshow), but was amazing in the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men, and seeing him here was sort of a treat.
The second story, on the other hand, had just one performance I actually liked, being that of John Amos (who, along with being in the second Die Hard, was also in twenty or so episodes of The West Wing), who played a police detective. The star, Harvey Keitel (who I know mostly from Pulp Fiction), had a pretty weak performance here - his character didn't really make much sense to me, and he seemed all over the place. Both Madeleine Potter and Sally Kirkland were in much the same vein, and I especially didn't like Kirkland's esoteric character.
Originally titled Due occhi diabolici (though the film's in English, it's an Italian production), Two Evil Eyes had a decent concept, but it didn't work out, which is a shame. If I could rate the movie off the first story only, it'd be getting a pretty high rating. But as an overall package, Two Evil Eyes isn't a movie I'd want to see again. My advice is to give the first story a watch, as it truly is pretty good, and just ignore the second. 5.5/10 (rounded down to 5/10 to fit site's format).
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