TWO EVIL EYES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Two famous horror directors tell two
stories that are said to be based on Edgar Allan Poe stories.
Poe would not have recognized the stories and certainly would
not have liked them. If you want to see it, do so quickly.
It will disappear soon. And that's just fine. Rating: -1
(-4 to +4).
Poor Edgar Allan Poe. For the longest time he has been the acknowledged master of the horror story. How often have films claimed to be his stories. Yet I can honestly say that I cannot think of a single film that was a faithful adaptation of a Poe story. Roger Corman came a little closer than usual in a 1961 quickie called TALES OF TERROR in which Richard Matheson adapted three stories: "Morella," "The Black Cat," and "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." "The Black Cat" had "The Cask of Amontillado" mixed in but it was clear that Matheson had at least read the Poe. Now two of these stories have been re-done in TWO EVIL EYES.
TWO EVIL EYES is not so much an anthology film as two one-hour films, each possibly made for cable, stitched together to make a feature film. In each case the films borrow from Poe--or from other Poe films--but these can hardly be said to be adaptations. Both are updated to the present, since as long as the writers are inventing they might as well save money doing it. George Romero wrote and directed "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"; Dario Argento wrote and directed "The Black Cat."
In "Valdemar" Poe told the story of a man who dies while under hypnotic trance and, though the body is dead, the trance remains, so the body has become a sort of obedient zombie. This telling throws in an unfaithful wife (played by Adrienne Barbeau, of course) impatient for her husband to die. In her scheme to inherit hubby's fortune she has a doctor hypnotize her husband. When the husband dies she pops him in the deep freeze, not knowing that while the body is dead, the mind is alive and still in a trance. The story gets muddled with doorways to other worlds and omnipresent gore, both of which would have surprised and shocked Poe.
Dario Argento's "Black Cat" is a long, complicated, uninvolving bore. But then rare is the Argento film that is not a long, complicated, uninvolving bore. Harvey Keitel plays an art photographer who likes to get scenes of urban violence. As comes as no surprise to anyone, this guy is also pretty much a twisted cookie. He drinks too much and abuses his live- in girlfriend, an irritating violinist. The friend adopts a stray black cat who runs around the house making more like a puma than a house cat. The piece drags incredibly and, while the story is not entirely predictable, the twists do not seem to be to any valuable purpose. There is a lot of blood spilt, but other than that there isn't much to laugh at at all.
TWO EVIL EYES is two wasted hours. My rating is -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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