GL84
Two of the genre's biggest and most respected directors adapt short stories based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe.The Good Story: The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar-Trying to exploit her terminal husband, a woman and her lovers' plan to collect the money of his estate runs into trouble when he dies before he's required. Desperate for their plans to succeed, they realize that when he was hypnotized before his death the condition carries on into the afterlife only to find his state far more dangerous than they realized. This was quite the wholly enjoyable and thrilling take on the story. Updating the classic period story into a more modern setting, replete with the updates to the insurance methods and finding out how to prolong the death sentence which manages to provide a faithful adaptation of the original story. This one still features enough cleverness in bringing out the haunting angle which slowly creeps into the segment and really begins working nicely here delivering rather chilling scenes trying to bring him out of his condition. Although the ending is somewhat cliché and formulaic based on the type of storyline present, overall there's a lot to like with this effort.The Bad Story; The Black Cat-Trying to get his career going, a photographer finds that his girlfriends' pet cat has taken an extreme dislike towards him which eventually causes him to kill her and the cat. Carrying on as if she left him, he finds that the idea of keeping her stored away isn't as foolproof as he intended when he fears the cat might not be dead after all. This here is quite the disjointed if somewhat enjoyable effort. When this one works, it tends to work on the basis of the tormenting done to the cat, which manages to feel really well-done here with the concept of the photoshoot holding the cat roughly or just physically abusing it which is what makes up the majority of the segment here. The scene of him initially snapping and providing this one with him chopping up the one victim gives this one some extra energy for that scene, and it really plays nicely with the second story adaptation being utilized for the finale. For the most part, though, nothing much happens in this one as it's mostly just the threat of the cat doing something rather than anything actually happening as he spends the main part of the segment trying to get away with his ploy. There's never any tension with anything that happens, and it has so few action scenes that it really just drags on without much happening as a vast majority of its plot threads are dropped and never picked up later on at all. It's enjoyable enough on its own, but there's still plenty of flaws here.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Extreme Graphic Language, Full Nudity and violent actions against animals.
Rainey Dawn
I like the film - it was entertaining. I wasn't crazy about the ending, it ended way to abruptly for me but otherwise a decent watch. It's two short stories - about one hour each.1st: "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" - A very wealthy older man is dying and his young wife is after all the money. The wealthy dying man has a young doctor that his wife is seeing. The doctor keeps him alive to sign papers through hypnosis - signing all over to the wife. They have to keep him alive for awhile longer to get all the paperwork taken care of but the man dies while under hypnosis... is he still alive? Has the wife gone crazy? I really love this first one - I wasn't expecting what happens after the man dies. Kept my interest all the way through! 8/10 2nd: "Black Cat" - A woman finds a black cat and decided to keep it. She lives with her photographer boyfriend who is not crazy about cats but says okay to her keeping it. Later on the boyfriend tortures the cat for photos, kills the cat and the girlfriend knows he did it. They argue a lot as he goes deeper into madness - people end up dead.A pretty good story. It starts out good, hits a lull for a few minutes, then picks back up again. After the girlfriend dies it gets really interesting! 8/10 Overall interesting anthology - I liked it.8/10
TermlnatriX
Romero's half is actually not bad. Seems to work with the expertise of his genre and Poe's story. Builds the suspense gradually and has a creepy tone to it. And then Tom Atkins shows up as a detective, puffin' a cigar while holding a gun. That's worth a watch alone.7/10 Argento's half ain't bad either. Nudity and visual trademarks are present. Thought Keitel's character wearing a beret alone was dumb, but at least that was something to laugh at. It had an unnecessary scene involving medieval times which added nothing. The third act turned into a parody of some kind, not to mention the kid that comes in for a session with the trimmed sleeves "he's lying, lying!" Retarded ending, but funny.6/10
MisterWhiplash
It's always tricky to evaluate a filmmaker when at work on a film that is in an in-between realm of short and feature. Actually, by technical ruling (or what would be considered by most festivals), it is feature-length with each segment. But I found Two Evil Eyes an underrated effort, after reading many mixed reviews (many leaning to the lesser side for especially Romero's film, and some faint praise for Argento's). The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar and The Black Cat are not the tippy-toppest best for either filmmaker, and for Romero it's a strange kind of quasi-conventional experiment while Argento stays in somewhat familiar territory. Each has its own strengths, own weaknesses, and it's a fine little treat.'Valdemar': This starts with the veneer of what comes in the range of something like a cross between daytime Soap and a 40s melodrama. A woman (Adrienne Barbeau) married Mr. Valdemar late in life, and as he's about to die (and soon does) she stands to collect a load of money with her cuckold- a smooth operating doctor who has a knack for hypnosis.What unfolds after his death, and their cover-up in order to secure more funds, is something still like a 'living-dead' movie for the director, but more psychological in head-games and, to be sure, a faithfulness to the Poe source. It is a peculiar feat to adjust to in seeing Romero, at least in the first half hour, directing more like an old pro of the studio era than with his trademark panache in editing and shocks.This time he brings on the dread in a gradual fashion, built on guilt and paranoia, and then as Valdemar is in that freezer, a Gothic form of psychosis: two people stuck with a body, and a voice, they can't get rid of and become absorbed with. I liked it a lot- maybe more than I should have from what I read (the 'Soap' argument against it I read before, though Romero does try to give his actors more to work with than any hack would)- as it preys on the fear of death as not a final measure, with one last wicked kick in the nuts with that bed scene. Top shelf Romero? Not quite, but it's still oddly gripping, like a polished piece of clichés giving way to a wild head game of "old-school" horror.8/10 'Black Cat': Argento's dip in the Poe pool goes to the lengths that he as a director always goes to: elaborate-to-the-Italian-horror degree style in camera and deranged horror, and even bits of dark horror that almost make Poe seem tame. I can't say how much this is tied into Poe more than I can Valdemar, but try as I might I couldn't see this as being totally peak Argento either, despite (or almost in spite of) everything he has going for it. Like Valdemar, it's about someone not coping with life after death; a photographer (Keitel) into the macabre, with a (color me shocked Argento) violinist girlfriend, has a black cat, whom the photographer strangles while taking some provocative photos. She knows he's behind it, but he can't stop himself- he needs another cat- just like the old cat- which will meet some grisly consequences.Keitel's always game for something like this part, which plays like his Bad Lieutenant gone Grand Guignol, which makes for one of the best pleasures of the project. He doesn't have a whole lot of range in the role, but it's a fun one for him, chewing on the meat that Argento throws out for him scene after scene. Argento, meanwhile, even for *him* overdoes it with the horror music in certain scenes, and dares to go to too much excess with the symbolism of the white spots on the cat. But it's totally a wonder to see that dream sequence, where Keitel is in the midst of a medieval Pagan sacrifice, with a sharp cut-away in the most violent bit. And I loved the pleasure that Argento takes in enlivening Poe's macabre with his own, with the violence extending from mania into the visual. I had my complaints at times, but it's hard to not throw up one's hands with Argento and say "why carp!" when he's unabashed in his passions of mostly constant camera movement (tracking, cranes, close-ups, pans, you-name-it) and illogical steps in plot (i.e. why Keitel's character would even put out a book with cat deaths knowing his girlfriend might see them, let alone so soon). 8/10 Bottom line, fans of the directors should check out the films, and decide for themselves how they do. It's two tall tales of curses and death, derangement and the surreal, and it's a concoction worth at least one viewing.
