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Two Evil Eyes (Limited Edition) | 
| Directors: Dario Argento, George A. Romero
Actors: Chuck Aber, Jonathan Adams, John Amos, Tom Atkins, Martin Balsam
Studio: Blue Underground
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 44.99
Buy New: CDN$ 15.81
You Save: CDN$ 29.18 (65%)
New (13) Used (2) from CDN$ 15.81
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 31413
Format: Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Limited Edition, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: 582001
UPC: 766483288761
EAN: 0827058200196
ASIN: B00008WJD9
Theatrical Release Date: October 25, 1991
Release Date: May 6, 2003
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW - Shipped within 24 hrs via Airmail from the USA - Average 5 to 10 workdays delivery time. Excellent customer service. NEUF - Envoy? par avion des USA sous 24 hrs - Livraison en moyenne de 5 a 10 jours ouvres. Service clientele en francais.
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From Amazon.com
Legendary horror directors George Romero and Dario Argento team up to direct a pair of short films inspired by the writing of Edgar Allen Poe. In Romero's story, a woman (Adrienne Barbeau) and her lover hypnotize her ailing, older husband into signing over his riches. But when he dies while still under their command, his soul haunts them, seeking to be freed from their hypnotic spell. In Argento's tale, a crime-scene photographer (Harvey Keitel) kills his live-in girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage, but her black cat continues to torment him after her death. While Romero's piece toys with horror conventions and Argento's plays out in his typically elongated fashion, their dramatic story lines, unexpectedly gruesome imagery, and ironic endings shock some life into the movie. It is rumored that this was originally meant to be a quartet of horror tales with contributions from Wes Craven and John Carpenter, but at least we got these two. I--Bryan Reesman/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Two horror greats in one film. March 27, 2004
Chadwick H. Saxelid (Concord, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
While George A. Romero and Dario Argento worked together on the production of Dawn of the Dead, this was the first movie the two actually 'worked' on together as directors. Each contributed a short film based on a story by Edgar Allen Poe. Romero adapted The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar while Argento chose The Black Cat. Romero's comes first and it is routine EC comic style stuff, solidly made yet hampered by pacing that is a tad too methodical. But the payoff is worth the trip and the cast (Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, and Bingo O' Malley) contribute nice work. Argento's segment is far more energetic, a surreal trip into madness as a crime scene photographer (Harvey Keitel) is driven by his art to kill his live-in girlfriend's black cat. Of course the cat returns, again and again, and things get even worse in that surreal nightmare way that only Argento can pull off. Not content to just adapt The Black Cat, Argento also tosses in references to other Poe stories; namely The Pit and The Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, Bernice, and several characters have famous Poe names (Usher, Pym, etc.). If he didn't go overboard, then he wouldn't be Argento, now would he? Blue Underground has done another first rate job with this wonderful disc. The maligned movie has never looked or sounded this good and the extras are more than worth the bonus disc. Romero and/or Argento fans will love it. Recommended.
Animal-Handling AND Masonry: Components for Perfection December 17, 2003
TastyBabySyndrome (#34;Daddy Dagon's Daycare#34; - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA)
When directors get together, they have the potential to make interesting things happen. When great directors join forces and decide to take on a project, even better results areexpected. It honestly doesn't matter what type of material they're doing or if the viewing population has tasted it time and time again. They, the silver screen's version of power coupling, know their art, understand the little versions - or perhaps perversions - of atmosphere that balance the viewing scales, and have the most cards to play when it comes to forging complete pictures. Unfortunately, both don't always deliver a knockout punch like you'd like. pIn this initial piece, it's a story you've heard before. An older fellow with dollarsign-laced pockets decides to marry a younger woman. People jeer it in the community and friends seem appalled by it, but attraction is attraction and a little IWantATrophyWife-itus is sometimes what wealth is all about. In our tale, we join an ex "airline hostess" and her much older husband as he's teetering on that painful plateau just outside of dying. Plans are in the works on how to acquire some of his fortune before his estate and the long years of "settling" are addressed, with hypnosis and the application of falsified doctor reports working fairly well. It all seems to be going splendidly, too, and three million dollars is all set to arrive in two weeks - providing the wife, Jessica, can keep her husband around that long. As movies would have it, however, he dies and the planning gets worse and worse and worse until....pThis Romero addition to the power duo has some serious flaws in it. The plot is thin, the effects are a little drowsy, and what seems to start off well dances down the corridors of lackluster architecture. Honestly, it's a good thing that things happen the way they do in these tales, because the atypical plan thrown into this type of movie would normally end up with someone going to jail for a very long time. Money or not, you wouldn't want to bury someone in your own backyard with a couple of bullet holes in them and you wouldn't want them kicking it with you ice-cream and getting freezer burn. This is worse than that in some ways, however, because it seems to say that a master in his field and Savini can't get together and make something that hasn't been seen a hundred times over. Instead of illustrating a story the way an audience knows they can, they take a Poe idea, splash a little effect work on it, and somewhat go through the motions. pIn Argento's version of The Black Cat, things play out a lot better. Our focal point, a man with a gruesome day job, brings home a little hatred and finds himself in a not-so-happy position of trying to conceal what he's done. When things get a little stressed and push come to shove (and hack and slice), it seems that things can get a little ugly at home. This seems especially when you're the owner of a cat you hate and don't want to keep up with, and moreso when you're half of a marriage that will ultimately self-destruct. Without giving all the gray matter away, this ultimately becomes a testament to revenge going awry, why you should treat animals a little bit better, and why post-it notes are a good thing if you don't want to leave out any small details to a crime.pIn my personal opinion, the Argento piece is a short film made in gore heaven. Not only does it make a show of force with all its little pieces coming together and working out all-too-well, but it also gives little shout-outs to other Poe stories as well. brAnd then the eye candy begins to make its rounds. brThe first effects, mutilated bodies, birth even better effects. The deaths seem to get worse and worse until, in one place, I saw something that I could almost feel because of the way the image evoked words like "pain." Still, it didn't stop there. With little kitties doing things little kitties shouldn't do; hairless, nasty, and bathed in the debris brought to you by a mind that has imported images of this variety time and again, it gets even more graphic. And that's all I really ever wanted. pCombine that with build, a good plan that twists until it morphs into something horrific that the main character couldn't foresee, and nice acting and you can even overlook Romero's shoddy addition to this collection. Simply be warned that it does have a little kick in the "gruesome" department.
 The Evil Eyes are crossed---but it's still good stuff. October 6, 2003
Legio Mortis Assassin JSG (Fortified Bunker, Undisclosed Location)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have to confess: I was thrilled beyond words when I heard Blue Underground was releasing this 1991 collaboration between two of my favorite horror masters, George Romero and Dario Argento. I bought the DVD sight-unseen, having only seen a few snippets of sequences from the second story in this two-movie collection, Argento's adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat". pI had seen those snippets as part of a larger Argento documentary called "Dario Argento: an Eye for Horror"---and they were ghoulish indeed! Harvey Keitel impaled on a stake? Mewling, hairless baby cats walled up with a gore-caked corpse, 'Cask of Amontillado' style? The gruesome final finishing touch---death by merciless, razor-sharp pendulum---that even Poe himself had shied away from? pI had to have it, just for the Argento work alone! As for the Romero adaptation of "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", well how could you lose, with the evil mastermind behind "Night of the Living Dead" helming up a short movie about a miser left in hypnosis after death?pBlue Underground has done an excellent job with their Limited Edition DVD: the DVDs themselves are nicely decorated with two of the more chilling sequences from the film, and the material on the bonus DVD (including---hey!---a tour of make-up guru Tom Savini's home!)is worth the price of admission alone. It's a handsome DVD, and a nice addition to any horror movie aficionado's collection. pAs for the movies---well, they're not what I had expected, highly uneven, and not the best examples of either Argento or Romero's work. But they're enjoyable, gory, ghoulish fare, with Romero's piece more subtle and stylish and Argento's entry an over-the-top assault on the senses that pays tribute to some of the nastiest of Poe's nuggets, including "The Black Cat", "Lenore" (ah yes, her lovely 32 teeth! nice touch, Dario!), "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and even a glib nod to "The House of Usher". pTaken together, the two pieces that comprise "Two Evil Eyes" give the film a "Creepshow"-like feel, not surprising given that Romero helmed that movie. Romero's piece here has been unfairly savaged, and while it seems sedate in comparison to Argento's gory Italian Grand Opera, it's a stately, stylish little chiller. Adrienne Barbeau plays the crafty youngish wife of financier Valdemar (played to the hilt by Bingo O'Malley, who gave me the creeps!---he also shows up as Stevie King's dad in the Meteor episode of Creepshow), who plots with her hypnotist lover to get rid of the sick old man and abscond with a fortune. brNot surprisingly, things don't go as planned; look for an opening shot right out of "Night of the Living Dead" and a scene-chewing contest by movie veteran E.G. Marshall and Barbeau (who holds her own). pBut it's really Argeno's sanguine little number you should check in for. Ostensibly an adaptation of "The Black Cat", it features Harvey Keitel as a demented crime photographer whose lifestyle and pre-occupations would make his "Bad Lieutenant" character cry for his mommy. It's not Dario at the height of his game, but it's wicked, depraved, gory stuff.pAll told, these two shorts make a jolly, gory little evening of Poe-vian goodness. Break out a nice cask of Amontillado from your cellar (don't mind the knocking from the other side of the wall), open up a tin of caviar for your trusting black cat, put a blanket over your pet raven's cage, and enjoy two horror masters having some fun with their medium.
Good horror, great directors July 28, 2003
El Smoksta (ILLINOIS)
This movie is based on the writings of Poe. The first film is okay. It drags a little, but once things pick up it gets very interesting. The second film is probably the BEST horror short ever made. If you're a fan of episode horror films, (Creepshow, Trilogy Of Terror and the like), then this is a MUST HAVE DVD. The extras alone are worth the purchase. It's a limited edition, so make sure you snag it up before it's gone!
Scary and entertaining. April 8, 2003
Andrew D. MacEwen (Oakland Gardens, NY)
I've always felt that this was an unfairly maligned film. Horror critics generally passed, and mainstream critics trashed it. The criticisms leveled at the two segments (on the part of horror critics) generally derive from the fact that neither of them are as substantial as Romero's and Argento's feature films. This criticism makes little sense to me. Let me quote a critic from the 1992 Motion Picture Guide Annual: "With neither director under pressure to sustain a feature-length film, both seemed to loosen up and have some fun with their familiar themes." My feelings precisely.pMr. Valdemar is the lesser of the two segments, and I must admit I was disappointed with it when I first saw it in the theater. Give it a chance, though. The story revolves around Adrienne Barbeau's character who wants to rid herself of her terminally ill husband to inherit his fortune. Her lover helps her by way of mesmerism, and this is where Poe's original tale comes into the picture. The segment is taut, and the writing contains Romero's characteristic satire centering, this time, on human greed. Plus, the sudden shock ending is very effective. Chris Gallant dismissed this segment as essentially worthless TV-movie fare. I admit I have loosened my standards somewhat, probably because Argento's follow-up is so good; still, slim though it is in comparison to Romero's longer works, it is better than its dismissal would suggest. pArgento's "The Black Cat" is nearly perfect for what it is: a terrifying, antic, and disturbing short film. Gallant, who sees some of its value, notes that the themes are undeveloped (which I basically agree with), and Walter L. Gay has complained in a much harsher critique that the segment is "padded out" and rambling (which I don't agree with, although I know what he is referring to); but these complaints, particularly the first, go back to what I said earlier: it is not a feature film. Argento's theme of the artist as killer is effectively constructed and sustained for a 60-minute segment, providing a basis for what is basically a bravura mood-piece. And Keitel plays a madman to agitating perfection. Between the two segments, this definitely has been better received critically, as Douglas Winter, Weldon (who might have overstated the case when he called it one of the best things Argento has done), and the Overlook Encyclopedia have all given it its due. pIf you're looking for material on the level of the Living Dead films or Suspiria, you will be sadly disappointed, especially with Mr. Valdemar. I say break out the popcorn, put your feet up, and view Two Evil Eyes as a sleek and scary piece of horror entertainment. Even Romero and Argento's radically different styles add to the fun, rather than cripple it as the film's detractors claim: they offer an effectively contrasting variety of tones that succeed in keeping you off balance.
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