So, last night I was looking for a new movie to watch and “Two Evil Eyes”(1990) caught my eye.
Horror masters George A. Romero and Dario Argento, both famous for their own particular sub-genres, teamed up to direct Two Evil Eyes. They each took a classic Edgar Allan Poe story (Which you probably know is where we got the name for our website) and made it their own.
Jessica Valdemar (Adrienne Barbeau), who married the wealthy Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O’Malley), tries to embezzle all of her husband’s wealth while he is on his death bed. She does this for herself and her hypnotist lover, Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada) as she discovers that her husband is planning on leaving her nothing at all. Ernest dies earlier than what they had hoped, so they are forced to (quite literally) keep him on ice until the money has cleared and his death is officially announced.
However, after his death, Jessica starts hearing strange sounds from the basement. Needless to say, Romero brings about a lovely twist that is both typically him and yet still unexpected enough to leave us somewhat surprised.
A tabloid photographer, Roderick Usher (Harvey Keitel), takes gruesome photos of crime scenes investigated by Detective Legrand (John Amos) for a living. Rod’s girlfriend of four years, Annabel (Madeleine Potter), one day brings a stray black cat back to their mutual home.
The cat and Rod do not get along very well from the start. Antipathy grows between Rod and the cat over a few days and Annabel’s excessive protectiveness over the cat does not help to ease their stressed relationship.
One day, Annabel spots his new book in the window of a local shop and the cover deeply upsets her. Annabel, at her last straw, goes home immediately with the intent of breaking up with Rod. Upon her arrival though, chaos erupts. As with Romero, Argento does not fail to disappoint. At the movies splendid conclusion, the aforementioned chaos escalates violently.
While I would not rate this amongst the best horrors that I have seen, I do think it was a good collaboration between these two directors. It has your typical, cheesy, 90’s feel to it…But that’s the part that, in my opinion, makes it great. The fact that these were stories based on Poe’s work just makes it even better for me.
It scored 6.1 on IMDB and wasn’t raved about by critics, but as an old horror fan and a fan of the work of these directors, I thought it wasn’t too bad. So, in conclusion, I give it a solid 7/10.
Trailer below:
— Merman
