TWO EVIL EYES
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
When two of the most legendary names in horror collaborate on a new film, the Phantom drops what's he's doing and heads for the cinema. After all, George A. Romero doesn't make a new horror film every day, and Dario Argento's films rarely, if ever, see the light of day -- so to speak -- in American movie houses. Since most studios and distributors believe that our taste in horror runs more toward the staid and predictable, Italian horror is infrequently seen as it should be: on the big screen. All too often it is released directly to video; sometimes it is simply not available at all.
Now, Italian horror is somewhat of an acquired taste -- unlike American directors, filmmakers like Argento tend to concentrate more on atmosphere and gore than on plot and character development. Italian horror films may suffer somewhat for these omissions, just as they usually suffer from excruciatingly bad dubbing and jumpy editing, and in general we're not likely to see an Italian HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Argento and his fellow horror filmmakers (including Mario Bava, his son Lamberto, and Lucio Fulci) tend to avoid the subtle and go straight for the body parts, sharpened household implements, and bathtubs filled with blood. However, the Phantom would rather watch the ridiculously plotted, poorly edited, nearly nonsensical GATES OF HELL any day than another tedious CHILD'S PLAY or NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequel. Italian horror is a lot like Domino's pizza: it leaves a lot to be desired, but you know it'll deliver.
So instead of SUSPIRIA, we get FREDDY'S DEAD, while another batch of newly installed studio executives wonder why the American movie-going public no longer wants to see horror films (even if they're filmed in headache-inducing "Freddy-Vision"). Alas, the last Italian horror film the Phantom remembers seeing on the big screen is GATES OF HELL, and that was back in 1983. Before that it was Fulci's ZOMBIE, a full three years earlier.
But here we are eight years after GATES OF HELL was released, faced with TWO EVIL EYES in a rather limited engagement at a handful of theaters across the country. It's being distributed by tiny Taurus Entertainment, which means it's got one foot in Blockbusters even before the opening credits roll; their releases tend to arrive for the briefest of runs and then head straight for video stores across the country, ensuring only that most people have a vague sense when they're in their local video stores that the film they're pondering was, in fact, a theatrical release at one point and not just another sleazy "direct-to-video" quickie. "But how did I miss this one?" they may ask themselves. "I make a real effort to see new horror in the cinema, where the screams of the audience around me add to the fun, and where I can talk back to the characters on the screen and tell them what to do in a setting where that sort of behavior -- speaking out loud to fictional characters -- is socially acceptable rather than an early-warning sign of a severe personality disorder" they may say.
Well, perhaps they may not say all that, but at least some of it is likely going through their minds as they fish through their wallets for their video rental cards. And that's the only reason why TWO EVIL EYES is now in theatrical release at all, as the film itself has all the hallmarks of a sleazy, "direct-to-video" quickie. Romero and Argento fooled the Phantom a bit with this one, or at least the advertisements for the film fooled him, as he was led to believe that TWO EVIL EYES was a single, full-length feature film produced, written and directed by two of the best horror filmmakers working today.
In fact, TWO EVIL EYES is more like two "Tales from the Crypt" episodes seen back-to-back. Romero and Argento each pay homage to Edgar Allen Poe (who doesn't need any more homages of this sort, the Phantom is quite sure) by butchering two or three of his stories and stitching them back together in rather uncertain fashion. As the Phantom isn't really up on his Poe (it's been a long time since he's read any of the Master's work), he didn't mind the obvious cut-and-paste effort, but he suspects that some of his more literate phans may take umbrage at the appropriation of Poe's name and short stories by two directors who aren't known for producing particularly well-considered or literate films. Let's just say that Roger Corman and Vincent Price did it all better thirty years ago.
Putting that minor quibble aside, the two segments are quite uneven even judged on their own merits. As one might expect, Argento's piece, "The Black Cat," is by far the better, as Romero has been trading on his name for years now, not having done anything of value since DAY OF THE DEAD. His piece, "The Curious Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," plays exactly like an extended CREEPSHOW segment. There's enough material for 30 minutes -- the piece would certainly be at home on "Tales from the Crypt" -- but Romero stretches it out to an hour, and even Adrienne Barbeau's bad acting can't save it. Perhaps if he had had the foresight to cast Rae Dawn Chong instead, the audience would at least have been horrified, if not terror-struck.
"Valdemar" is about what happens to a man who dies while under hypnosis, but what happens wouldn't make Poe very happy, since his short stories never put anyone to sleep -- and the Phantom came surprisingly close to nodding off once or twice himself. He certainly wasn't helped by the very cold temperature of the theater in which he saw the film -- evidently the thermostat had been set on the assumption that more than five warm bodies would be in attendance -- but Romero's leaden script and relentless focus on a metronome might have been sufficient in and of themselves. It was almost as if he wanted to treat the audience to a taste of what M. Valdemar was experiencing, and although we all waited patiently to be brought out of our trances, Romero never once counted to five nor snapped his cinematic fingers. Suffice it to say that with the exception of a few creepy voice effects and a rather well-done special effect right at the end of the piece (which accomplishes little but remind us why a good story well told doesn't need *any* special effects -- something with which Poe likely would agree), there's not much reason to be in the audience for the first hour of TWO EVIL EYES.
"The Black Cat," however, is a different story altogether. It, too, has been butchered beyond recognition -- it contains bits and pieces of at least three Poe stories -- but it hardly matters as Argento has never felt the need to be constrained by story lines or logic. Instead, he uses the story elements to fashion a tale of a man who may or may not be descending into madness with the help of a stray black cat his girlfriend finds outside the apartment one day.
Naturally the man is a crime photographer -- how else would Argento logically work a number of lovingly photographed, excessively graphic multilated bodies into the story? -- and naturally he has easy access to a number of sharpened home improvement tools. The rest is pure Argento, and while it's not as good as SUSPIRIA (the Phantom's favorite Argento film), it's still very well done indeed. Argento gets to splatter blood everywhere, and his camera work has never been better: in "The Black Cat" we get the CatCam, the RopeCam, and even the DrainoCam. And yes, we do get that bathtub filled with blood, which comes just as the audience begins to think that Argento might not have his heart in the film after all.
The acting and dialogue is atrocious, and the editing is shaky -- sometimes quite good, most of the time fairly standard for Italian horror -- but Argento does a creditable job. There are -- somewhat surprisingly -- no Spring-Loaded Cats in "The Black Cat," and it's obvious that Argento spent some time on the piece and didn't do as Romero did and just toss this one off. The Phantom appreciated the effort even if the results weren't first rate; it may also be that after having sat through Romero's very undistinguished first hour the Phantom was more receptive to Argento's work. There are a reasonable number of scares in "The Black Cat," and gore galore -- enough to satisfy all but the most jaded of horror phans.
In marked contrast, Romero's piece contained no scares at all, apart from a handful of Spring-Loaded Cat effects. In fact, Romero even, at one point, gives us a Spring-Loaded Mop, which is certainly a first; if nothing else, it one-ups the 90-decibel ringing telephone, long a mainstay of inept horror films. Perhaps the Phantom will have to adopt an SLM quotient to complement his SLC quotient; at the very least, he sincerely hopes that Romero doesn't decide to throw other household cleaning implements at us in his upcoming films, as otherwise the Phantom will never again be able to look under his kitchen sink without having a quiver of fear run up his spine.
Argento, on the other hand, wastes no time in focusing his attention on, of all things, a pendulum. And not a pendulum from a grandfather clock, either. The Phantom knew -- he just knew -- that Argento wouldn't be able to resist that most vicious of all of Poe's implements of torture. As an aside, it may be instructive to note that while Argento gleefully swings a razor-sharp pendulum at us, Romero scares us with a mop sliding down the basement stairs. But guess whose next feature will be released by a major American film studio? Is it any wonder that the audience for serious horror films is as low as it is?
All of which leaves the Phantom with mixed feelings about TWO EVIL EYES. On the one hand, $7.50 was a lot to pay for what amounted to one pretty decent short film; on the other, he suspects that most, if not all, of his phans will ultimately see TWO EVIL EYES on video if they see it at all. And in that case, the Phantom really recommends that they check it out, especially if they're also phans of Dario Argento. TWO EVIL EYES is not a great horror film, but half of it isn't half bad at all.
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
.
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