Two Evil Eyes/Due Occhi Diabolici is an Italian-American co-production helmed by Dario Argento and George A. Romero. One is the grandmaster of Italian thrillers and the other is the godfather of the zombie craze. With a pedigree like that, one would expect the two tale compendium to be much better than it is.
The film starts oddly with a short tour of Edgar Allan Poe’s Baltimore home and gravesite, leading into Romero’s segment:“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”. This snippet of Poe’s world was intended for a documentary Argento was working on but that was never completed, so it was decided that this little piece would be placed at the head of the film.
Romero’s segment tells the story of Jessica Valdemar (Adrienne Barbeau) a former stewardess whose wealthy, elderly, and very ill husband (Bingo O’Malley) is near death. With the aid of his doctor (Remy Zada), who also happens to be Jessica's boyfriend, the two hatch a plan to have Valdemar sign over his estate to her and liquidate his assets. I won’t go into more detail so as not to spoil the story, but the problem is that there really isn’t anything more to it! For an hour, this simple tale of greed unreels with one repetitive and redundant “plot point” after another.
The performances are all passable, with Adrienne really stepping up and giving her character quite a bit of pathos. You really do feel for her predicament and she’s simply in over her head at every turn. Bingo O’Malley has the misfortune of laying in bed for the bulk of the film with some fairly heavy make- up. Remy Zada as the duplicitous doctor is affable enough I suppose, but Barbeau’s charm and presence wash him away.
Argento’s riff on “The Black Cat” is next. Rod Usher (Harvey Keitel) is a crime scene photographer who sees himself more as an artist than someone who merely catalogs atrocity for the local authorities. He’s working on a book of photographs taken from his daily work and feels they can catapult him from journeyman photographer to a serious artist. His girlfriend, Annabel (Madeleine Potter), brings home a black cat, and it doesn’t take long for Rod and the cat to begin a very uneasy relationship. This also causes a major rift in his relationship with Annabel.
Anyone who has read Poe’s short story of the same name will immediately recognize Argento’s expansion into Poe’s universe within the framework of the basic story. Fans will notice clever nods to Poe's work, including Rod’s name, photographs inside his home, and references to “Berenice” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
Next to Romero’s section of the film, Argento’s zips along at a nice pace, and there are nice cameos by Sally Kirkland as a barmaid named Leonora, Kim Hunter and Martin Balsam as the Pyms (another Poe nod). For good measure Argento even throws in a wink to Psycho with Balsam ascending a flight of stairs at one point. Argento’s grasp of the material is so much stronger than Romero’s. He never lets his “Argentoisms” get in the way of telling the story in the way that Romero does by relying on themes and worn out tropes of the living dead.
One of my biggest problems with this two-story anthology is that there is no wraparound device. It would have given the two stories some cohesion at least, but instead they are two separate films that fail to make a whole. One idea, credited to Tom Savini who was responsible for the FX, was to have Harvey Keitel’s crime scene photographer walk out of the end of one tale and into the beginning of another. This is a simple solution to the problem, yet Keitel wasn’t around for any of Romero’s shoot, so that idea of Savini’s never came to pass.
Once again, Blue Underground has done a commendable job bringing this film to DVD. Intentionally photographed in very bland tones, both films look clear and crisp, and the detail level is impressive for a film that was shot fairly soft and “dull”. Romero’s segment has its two leads wearing blue against the dark brown of the interior sets. Argento similarly sets his film in a drab, nameless American city. Fans of Argento will put this right in line with other films like Trauma and the Argento produced/Michele Soavi directed The Sect as part of what I call his “brown period”.
The audio on the disc is clear and dialogue is never fights the score. Subtitles are provided in English, Spanish and French. For a film so low on the radar of both genre stalwarts, there is a decent array of bonus material here. A nice documentary titled “Two Masters’ Eyes” kicks off things nicely. It is followed by a bit of Tom Savini’s home movies of his FX studio and his home during the shoot, a brief interview of Adrienne Barbeau talking about working with Romero, and lastly a trailer for the film.
The names George A. Romero and Dario Argento should have added up to a stronger film. Instead, the two-story “anthology” limps along during Romero’s segment, only to pick up some steam during Argento’s. With that being said, neither film showcases the two veteran filmmakers at the top of their game. The film is a curiosity for purists only, as I fear anyone else would simply be turned off either director’s work. Romero originally wanted to film The Masque of the Red Death, and Argento toyed with doing The Pit and the Pendulum set in South America. One can only wonder what that could have been!
Film Score: 2.5/5 Disc Score: 4/5
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