Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

acidburn-10 Here we have two short stories based on the works by Edger Allen Poe, and joint directed by 2 of the greatest horror directors alive George A Romeo & Dario Argento, as well as featuring a great cast that includes Adrienne Barbeau (Creepshow, The Fog), Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant, Reservoir Dogs), & Tom Atkins (Halloween III, Night Of The Creeps) and not to mention wonderful special effects done by Tom Savini.Now all this sounds like a recipe for greatness and while the entire movie is highly enjoyable and entertaining, but however it doesn't quite live up to the high expectations that you would expect from the finest directors of the horror genre. Both segments of this story are about an hour long and both do feel rather stretched with too much padding.The first story 'The Facts In The Case Of Mr Valdemar" which was directed by Romero follows a young gold digging wife plots her husband's death so she and her lover can steal his fortune, only for the husband to come back from the dead and out for revenge. While the storyline is certainly intriguing and its small cast is good with Adrienne Barbeau being the clear standout with the complexity of her character creating much of the tension and Ramy Zada does well as her secret lover as we constantly doubt whether or not he can be trusted. Firstly it's nowhere near Romero's best work with quite a few dull moments, and definitely the most padded one out of the 2 stories and is not tackled with the imagination that this story should have had and the cinematography also falls flat and has that made of TV feel to it, making it look far dated than 1990.The second segment 'The Black Cat' directed by Argento is definitely the strongest one out of the 2 which tells the story of a photographer driven insane by cat and therefore is cursed with bar karma. With some stunning and gory visuals and a brilliantly unhinged performance by Harvey Kietel who definitely steals the entire show as he steadily spirals into complete madness is just thrilling to watch, with a fast pace, an even more intriguing story and solid visuals, Argento balances his strong direction flare on an intense focused story with such style.So all in all 'Two Evil Eyes' should have been a masterpiece, but sadly doesn't quite live up to that level, although both stories are entertaining , they're just not up to the level of what these directors have done previously and comes off on the whole feeling a little bit flat.

tomgillespie2002 Originally conceived as a quartet of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, by George A. Romero, Dario Argento, John Carpenter and Wes Craven, the previous due were to be the only contributors to the double bill film Two Evil Eyes. Modernising (and in Argento's case merging a variety of Poe's themes) two stories, 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' and 'The Black Cat', Romero and Argento tackle similar themes about guilt and morality. In the first story, Romero's, Jessica (Adrienne Barbeau) is the wife of an older, rich, dying man, as she attempts to gain all of his wealth before his demise. Using her doctor/lover, Dr Hoffman (Ramy Zada), they hypnotise him, so they are able to embezzle the cash. However, when Valdemar dies, and they put him into a freezer, his disembodied voice can still be heard, a spirit trapped between two worlds.In Argento's piece, Harvey Keitel plays a crime scene photographer, Rod Usher, who has also published a book of questionable ethics, involving (along with photos of mutilations of women from real-life crime scenes) some apparent shots of a black cat being tortured, a cat owned by his live-in girlfriend, Annabel (Madeleine Potter). After an argument, he kills her and conceals her body behind a dry wall fronted with a bookshelf. In dreams and in life, Rod is tortured by the presence of the black cat, who may possess spiritual powers. Fundamental to both of these narratives is that element of overwhelming guilt. Both characters are tormented, whether psychologically or supernaturally. This is a theme that permeates a lot of Poe's horror writing, in one of his most famous short stories, 'The Tell-tale Heart', where the protagonist receives a visit from the police, and the trap door where a dead body is concealed, pulsates as the narrator's anguish and paranoia envelops him.'The Black Cat' is the better of the two short films. Romero's feels at times like a macabre daytime soap opera. The Dallas iconography of dazzlingly bright-coloured decor, and immense shoulder pads, the garish face paint of the ruling classes. That said, as with many of Romero's films, he infuses the film with social commentary, coming out of the 1980's processing of our consumerist indulgence: The ethic of greed. Argento makes a more stylish attempt, which has heightened paranoia, one which is elevated largely due to a series of suspicious characters. Tom Savini's by now obligatory horror effects are also superior in the latter tale of terror. But, as with all horror films of the early 1990's, this (and they) loses something as they are consumed by television aesthetics, perhaps a project that would have benefited from being made ten years previously. The overall film experience is dampened by these production values, and the atmosphere is stilted, with little, or no sense of terror or impending horror. The definitive film adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe are still those beautiful Technicolor Roger Corman productions of the early 1960's, and Two Evil Eyes is best suited to Poe/Romero/Argento purists.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Paul Celano (chelano) So Dario Argento and George Romero decided to make some movies based off of Edgar Allan Poe. This was tough since it was two movies in one because one movie couldn't ruin the whole feature. The first film was "The Facts in the Case of Mrs. Valdemar". This was Romero's film. I enjoyed this film and how it was done. The cast was half and half though. Ramy Zada was good and so was Jonathan James who played the zombie. Adrienne Barbeau on the other hand was not that good and didn't play her part well. The movie makes you wonder if there is life between reality and Heaven? If so, are they good or evil? The film had some moments that were not scary, but creepy. Where if you were in that situation, you would really be scared. The next film was "The Black Cat". This was Argento's film. The film started off strong, but faded by the end. The cat in the film got creepy after awhile. Harvey Keitel was the lead and at points seemed pretty good. But again, near the end, his acting faded. Madeleine Potter was getting on my nerves. First off I couldn't stand how she looked. It did not fit her character and her acting didn't really work either. Even though the film kind of left the good zone by the end, the whole background to the story was pretty interesting so I will give it that. So Romero wins and I guess you could say Argento was a close second.

MARIO GAUCI This two-part film was a project initiated by Argento, who invited Romero to make an anthology together in which each would direct his favorite story from the celebrated horror author's work. Incidentally, the fact that both these stories had already been incorporated into Roger Corman's own Poe compendium, TALES OF TERROR (1962), renders this a semi-remake of that film! The resulting mélange is tolerable but rather unsatisfying as a whole – it must be said, however, that both directors' careers had already started slacking by this point. Romero's decision to adapt "The Facts In The Case Of Mr. Valdemar" reveals perhaps why he feels such a strong affinity with the zombie subgenre; still, the results here are pedestrian and curiously uninvolving – though the zombie moans are decidedly creepy. The cast includes Adrienne Barbeau (ex-wife of John Carpenter, a contemporaneous genre exponent) and E.G. Marshall (who, memorably, had played an insect-hating businessman in a previous anthology Romero had directed by himself – CREEPSHOW [1982]).Even if it's an image of the undead Mr. Valdemar which made this film's poster, Argento's segment – yet another adaptation of "The Black Cat" – is actually more highly regarded; still, despite boasting some of the director's trademark visual flair, the segment is generally heavy-handed and overlong. Harvey Keitel brings his method training to the characteristically expressionist Poe landscape; this clash of styles lends the proceedings a welcome air of black comedy – especially in the star's openly hostile relationship with the ill-fated titular creature. It also provides irrelevant inserts of gory detail since Keitel is a crime-scene photographer named Rod Usher (Argento must have had his Poe stories mixed-up at this point!) where the murder victims, appropriately enough, have expired in the sadistic fashion typical of the author's work – including an unlikely and cumbersome pendulum device. There's a nightmare sequence, too, in which Keitel finds himself in medieval times and suffers an excruciating death lifted from the notorious CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) – and, needless to say, we're treated here to the usual cat-meowing-revealing-a-body-hidden-behind-the-wall ending! Martin Balsam appears as an elderly nosy neighbor of Keitel's, but his contribution doesn't amount to much.Pino Donaggio's score is most effective during the closing credits sequence; responsible for the gruesome effects in both segments is Tom Savini, a Romero regular (with the half-putrefied kitten at the end being a particularly inspired creation).