TWO EVIL EYES (1990)
Label: Blue Underground
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 120 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Atmos; English DTS-HD MA 2.0; French DTS-HD MA 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Directors: George A. Romero & Dario Argento
Cast: Bingo O'Malley, Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, E.G. Marshall, Christine Forest, Tom Atkins, Harvey Keitel, John Amos, Martin Balsam, Kim Hunter
Two-parter fright anthology Two Evil Eyes (1990) pairs legendary icons of fright George A. Romero (Dawn of the Dead) and Dario Argento (Suspiria) together, with each adapting a story by seminal horror writer Edgar Allan Poe, each with ghoulish special effects by Tom Savini (Day of the Dead) and gorgeous scores by composer Pino Donnagio (Don't Look Now). To be honest, by 1990 both of these directors were looking at the most vibrant eras of their careers in the rear view mirror, but this anthology film still offers up some late era chills for fans of both directors, even if it's what I consider to be a minor entry in both the directors careers.
Romero opens the anthology with ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’, a spooky tale about a terminally ill elderly millionaire named Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O'Malley, Creepshow) who is being kept alive well beyond his expiration date by his money-grubbing trophy wife Jessica (Adrienne Barbeau, The Fog). Jessica is banging her near death husband's personal physician, Dr. Hoffman (Ramy Zada, After Midnight), and the duplicitous cheaters have conspired to keep him in a weird state of hypnosis, feeding into a plot to pull the wool over the eyes of Valdemar's lawyer, played by E.G. Marshall (Creepshow). In this state of at death's door hypnosis Valdemar is coerced into verbally authorizing his lawyer to liquidate his assets into cash and deposit them into his wife's account. However, there's a stipulation in the will that states that if the old man croaks before the money is transferred that the agreement will be terminated and she will get absolutely nothing. So, when the old man keel's over well past his natural expiration date, but legally prematurely, it puts the pair into a bit of a bind. What to do? They place the old man's corpse in a freezer in the mansion's basement with a plan to thaw out his body once the money has been deposited, only then will they properly declare him dead.
It's a convoluted plan but it gets stranger yet when Valdemar's voice can be heard echoing throughout the mansion, emanating from the basement. When they open the freezer he's still in there frozen solid as a popsicle, and still seemingly very dead, but it turns out that because he was in a state of hypnosis when he died his soul has been trapped in a void between life and death. This new wrinkle intrigues the scientific brain of the doctor who investigates further, but Valdemar's wife is scared witless by the whole ordeal, and with good reason.
This story is a good and proper chiller, but it takes a bit of time for it to get to a good boil, which gives the story a little room to breath and work up a good head of steam before things get pretty wild in the final stretch. The cast in this one are Romero familiars, we have the lovely Adrienne Barbeau reunited with her Creepshow co-stars E.G. Marshall, as well as The Fog co-star Tom Atkins (Night of the Creeps), the latter of whom shows up as a detective investigating the bizarre case at the end of the piece.
It's certainly not be top tier Romero but it's some of the best stuff he did from this point on in my opinion. It's a well-lensed with a terrific looking old stone house with a cool spiral staircase, plus it's great to see Romero playing with the supernatural sub-genre he didn't often play with much outside of his zombie films, though there's still an element of the undead. We get some vengeful spirits and supernatural happenings in this one, and I dug the oddball hypnosis element, though I did think that the doc using hypnosis on himself was a bit weird. For the gore-fans we also get some fine Tom Savini creations, including a cool-looking frozen undead and a gruesome death by digital metronome, which is the bloodiest part of Romero's segment, and which looks fantastic in 4K Ultra HD!
Italian terror titan Dario Argento tackles Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale 'The Black Cat' starring Harvey Keitel (Blue Collar) as Rod Usher, his name being an homage to another Poe story 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. Rod is beret-wearing crime-scene photographer who gets a little too into his work if you know what I mean. The film opens on a macabre crime scene of a woman cut in half by a swinging bladed pendulum, which is yet another homage to Poe classic 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. Right from the get-go you see that the photographer has a morbid fascination with death, and throughout the film he is driven a mad by the arrival of a stray black cat that his violinist girlfriend Annabel (Madeleine Potter, The Bostonians) has brought into their home.
The relationship with his Annabel quickly begins to sour after the felines arrival, leading to Rod hitting the bottle and eventually strangling the black cat, going so far as to photographing the crime, and then using the image of the strangled cat on the cover of his new photography book! After seeing the book cover at a local bookstore Annabel angrily confronts which leads to Rod losing his shit, killing her with a meat cleaver, and then concealing her corpse behind a wall inside his apartment. If you're familiar with the story you know that the black cat returns to ruin his well-laid plans, with some horrific special effects from Tom Savini, who himself turns up in a came as a grave-robbing dental enthusiast.
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 120 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Atmos; English DTS-HD MA 2.0; French DTS-HD MA 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Directors: George A. Romero & Dario Argento
Cast: Bingo O'Malley, Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, E.G. Marshall, Christine Forest, Tom Atkins, Harvey Keitel, John Amos, Martin Balsam, Kim Hunter
Two-parter fright anthology Two Evil Eyes (1990) pairs legendary icons of fright George A. Romero (Dawn of the Dead) and Dario Argento (Suspiria) together, with each adapting a story by seminal horror writer Edgar Allan Poe, each with ghoulish special effects by Tom Savini (Day of the Dead) and gorgeous scores by composer Pino Donnagio (Don't Look Now). To be honest, by 1990 both of these directors were looking at the most vibrant eras of their careers in the rear view mirror, but this anthology film still offers up some late era chills for fans of both directors, even if it's what I consider to be a minor entry in both the directors careers.
Romero opens the anthology with ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’, a spooky tale about a terminally ill elderly millionaire named Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O'Malley, Creepshow) who is being kept alive well beyond his expiration date by his money-grubbing trophy wife Jessica (Adrienne Barbeau, The Fog). Jessica is banging her near death husband's personal physician, Dr. Hoffman (Ramy Zada, After Midnight), and the duplicitous cheaters have conspired to keep him in a weird state of hypnosis, feeding into a plot to pull the wool over the eyes of Valdemar's lawyer, played by E.G. Marshall (Creepshow). In this state of at death's door hypnosis Valdemar is coerced into verbally authorizing his lawyer to liquidate his assets into cash and deposit them into his wife's account. However, there's a stipulation in the will that states that if the old man croaks before the money is transferred that the agreement will be terminated and she will get absolutely nothing. So, when the old man keel's over well past his natural expiration date, but legally prematurely, it puts the pair into a bit of a bind. What to do? They place the old man's corpse in a freezer in the mansion's basement with a plan to thaw out his body once the money has been deposited, only then will they properly declare him dead.
It's a convoluted plan but it gets stranger yet when Valdemar's voice can be heard echoing throughout the mansion, emanating from the basement. When they open the freezer he's still in there frozen solid as a popsicle, and still seemingly very dead, but it turns out that because he was in a state of hypnosis when he died his soul has been trapped in a void between life and death. This new wrinkle intrigues the scientific brain of the doctor who investigates further, but Valdemar's wife is scared witless by the whole ordeal, and with good reason.
This story is a good and proper chiller, but it takes a bit of time for it to get to a good boil, which gives the story a little room to breath and work up a good head of steam before things get pretty wild in the final stretch. The cast in this one are Romero familiars, we have the lovely Adrienne Barbeau reunited with her Creepshow co-stars E.G. Marshall, as well as The Fog co-star Tom Atkins (Night of the Creeps), the latter of whom shows up as a detective investigating the bizarre case at the end of the piece.
It's certainly not be top tier Romero but it's some of the best stuff he did from this point on in my opinion. It's a well-lensed with a terrific looking old stone house with a cool spiral staircase, plus it's great to see Romero playing with the supernatural sub-genre he didn't often play with much outside of his zombie films, though there's still an element of the undead. We get some vengeful spirits and supernatural happenings in this one, and I dug the oddball hypnosis element, though I did think that the doc using hypnosis on himself was a bit weird. For the gore-fans we also get some fine Tom Savini creations, including a cool-looking frozen undead and a gruesome death by digital metronome, which is the bloodiest part of Romero's segment, and which looks fantastic in 4K Ultra HD!
Italian terror titan Dario Argento tackles Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale 'The Black Cat' starring Harvey Keitel (Blue Collar) as Rod Usher, his name being an homage to another Poe story 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. Rod is beret-wearing crime-scene photographer who gets a little too into his work if you know what I mean. The film opens on a macabre crime scene of a woman cut in half by a swinging bladed pendulum, which is yet another homage to Poe classic 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. Right from the get-go you see that the photographer has a morbid fascination with death, and throughout the film he is driven a mad by the arrival of a stray black cat that his violinist girlfriend Annabel (Madeleine Potter, The Bostonians) has brought into their home.
The relationship with his Annabel quickly begins to sour after the felines arrival, leading to Rod hitting the bottle and eventually strangling the black cat, going so far as to photographing the crime, and then using the image of the strangled cat on the cover of his new photography book! After seeing the book cover at a local bookstore Annabel angrily confronts which leads to Rod losing his shit, killing her with a meat cleaver, and then concealing her corpse behind a wall inside his apartment. If you're familiar with the story you know that the black cat returns to ruin his well-laid plans, with some horrific special effects from Tom Savini, who himself turns up in a came as a grave-robbing dental enthusiast.
Keitel is an actor who never seems to do anything subtley, he's both intense and a bit over-the-top, but it works for the character and the film, though the scene of him shrieking "It's fucking cat! Meow! Meow!" always makes me giggle. The special effects are a bit more abundant in the Argento tale than with the Romero, with Savini creating several memorable crime scene corpses, including an homage to Cannibal Holocaust (1980) that would make Vlad the Impaler proud. This surreal scene happens during a dream sequence that finds Rod swept back into medieval times, it's a bit out of place here, but I enjoyed it for the strangeness and gruesome imagery. On the whole this mini-film doesn't really have the vintage artful eye feel of Argento's early gialli, but it is attractively shot with some well-executed camera movement.
Be on the lookout for John Amos (The Beastmaster) as an allergy-riddled detective investigating Annabel's disappearance, and Martin Balsam (The Stone Killer) and Kim Hunter (Bad Ronald) as an elderly couple who live in the same apartment building as Rod and are witness to his strange behaviors.
I've always thought there should have been some sort of wrap-around story that brought the pair of stories together, maybe an appearance of Keitel's crime scene photographer in Romero's story, just something to bridge the gap at least, but there's nothing, and the film's are so disparate in style and tone that watching one run into the other is a bit jarring. Of the pair I prefer Romero's supernatural chiller, which is probably a minority opinion, but for me it breathes a little better and the tone is more in line with my preferences as a horror fan. I think it holds up a bit better than Argento's tale, which is a story that has been told many times over in cinema and quite a bit better at that, though perhaps not as gruesomely.
Audio/Video: Following it's exquisite 3-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray Two Evil Eyes (1990) gets the patented 4K UHD upgrade from Blue Underground with a 2-disc limited edition 4K UHD & Blu-ray release, featuring a 4K 16-bit scan of the original camera negative framed in 1.78:1 widescreen in 2160p HD now presented with Dolby Vision HDR. The uptick in resolution offers pleasing grain throughout with a nice velvety veneer that brings increased detail to close-ups of facial features, gore effects, and the clothing textures. The Dolby Vision HDR deepens black levels and contrast as well, giving the impression of more depth to the image, and we get crisper whites. Flesh tones also look more natural and slightly warner, with primaries getting a nice boost, those greens and reds look great with the HDR upgrade, weather it's the green fauna or the red lights from the cop cars flashers or pools of blood.
Audio comes by way of a newly created English Dolby Atmos that is nicely balanced with the Pino Donaggio (Carrie) score coming through with excellent fidelity, dialogue is always crisp and clean. Switching back and forth between the DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio the Atmos easily bests it with more depth and oomph. We also get a French DTS-HD MA 1.0 Mono track with optional English subtitles.
As with the other Blue Underground UHD releases of catalog titles there are no new extras, but we do get the full compliment of video extras from past releases. One the UHD we get the audio commentary with Troy Howarth, author of Murder By Design: The Unsane Cinema of Dario Argento. It's another excellent Howarth commentary loaded with production notes, facts and trivia about the film. Also on the UHD we have the theatrical trailer for the film and a photo gallery of international posters, lobby cards, home video releases and original artwork from artist Enzo Sciotti.
Disc two is a Blu-ray containing the bulk of extras, which are all carry overs from the previous 3-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray, it's actually the same disc that accompanied that 2019 release. Archival extras begin with the half-hour archival Two Masters' Eyes, interviews with Dario Argento, George Romero, Special Make-Up Effects Supervisor Tom Savini, Executive Producer Claudio Argento, and Asia Argento. Other archival extras include the 13-min Savini's EFX, a behind-the-scenes look at the film's special make-up effects, a 5-min interview with Adrienne Barbeau, plus the 16-min At Home With Tom Savini, a guided tour of Savini's home. We also have the 13-min Before I Wake interview with star Ramy Zada who speaks about getting into acting, auditioning for several Romero films before finally landing a role in this one, and the pleasure of working alongside Adrienne Barbeau.
Actress Madeline Potter shows up for the 17-min Behind The Wall discussing being cast in Argento's tale, offering some insights into her character, and commenting on the genius of Argento. In the 16-min One Maestro And Two Masters
composer Pino Donaggio speaks about working with Brian De Palma and the opportunities that afforded him, scoring this film and it's nod to Bernard Herman's Psycho score, working with Romero and Argento, and the differences between working in America versus Italy. We also get a 16-min interview with Co-Writer Franco Ferrini, 27-min with Assistant Director Luigi Cozzi, 14-min with Special Make-Up Assistant Everett Burrell, and 9-min with Costume Designer Barbara Anderson.
What is missing from this 2-disc set is the 21-track CD of the original motion picture soundtrack by Pino Donaggio that came with the three-disc limited edition set. We also do not get the 20-page booklet with new writings on the film from Michael Gingold and the cool-looking limited edition 3D lenticular slipcover with artwork from the by the late Enzo Sciotti. I will be hanging onto the 3-Disc Limited Edition, that booklet and CD are keepers for sure, so don't be too quick to trade that release in at the trade shop when you upgrade if you're an extras junkie.
What is missing from this 2-disc set is the 21-track CD of the original motion picture soundtrack by Pino Donaggio that came with the three-disc limited edition set. We also do not get the 20-page booklet with new writings on the film from Michael Gingold and the cool-looking limited edition 3D lenticular slipcover with artwork from the by the late Enzo Sciotti. I will be hanging onto the 3-Disc Limited Edition, that booklet and CD are keepers for sure, so don't be too quick to trade that release in at the trade shop when you upgrade if you're an extras junkie.
The 2-disc UHD/Blu-ray release arrives in an oversized black Scanovo keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring an original illustrated movie poster design as well as the Enzo Sciotti illustration. There's also a limited edition first-pressing only embossed slipcover with the Enzo Sciotti artwork with embossed features on all four sides including raised lettering on the spine.
Special Features:
Disc 1 (4K UHD Blu-ray) Feature Film + Extras:
- Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth, Author of Murder By Design: The Unsane Cinema of Dario Argento
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- Poster & Still Gallery
Disc 2 (Blu-ray) Extras:
- Two Masters’ Eyes – Interviews with Directors Dario Argento & George Romero, Special Make-Up Effects Supervisor Tom Savini, Executive Producer Claudio Argento, and Asia Argento (30 min) HD
- Savini's EFX – A Behind-the-Scenes look at the film's Special Make-Up Effects (13 min) HD
- At Home With Tom Savini – A personal tour of Tom Savini's home (16 min) HD
- Adrienne Barbeau on George Romero (5 min) HD
- Before I Wake – Interview with Star Ramy Zada (13 min) HD
- Behind The Wall – Interview with Star Madeleine Potter (17 min) HD
- One Maestro And Two Masters – Interview with Composer Pino Donaggio (16 min) HD
- Rewriting Poe – Interview with Co-Writer Franco Ferrini (16 min) HD
- The Cat Who Wouldn't Die – Interview with Assistant Director Luigi Cozzi (27 min) HD
- Two Evil Brothers – Interview with Special Make-Up Assistant Everett Burrell (14 min)
- Working With George – Interview with Costume Designer Barbara Anderson (9 min)
Two Evil Eyes (1990) is not prime era Dario Argento or George A. Romero, but in my opinion it is the best stuff of their late-era careers. Both stories are solid and offer enough suspense, gore and chills to give this an easy recommend to any red-blooded horror fan. This new 2-disc 4K Ultra HD release is easily the most definitive A/V presentation of the film we are likely ever see on home video. It's very hard to imagine what could possibly usurp this new Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos enhanced release, making this another UHD stunner from Blue Underground who continue to release some of the best UHD's out there right now.
