Due Occhi Diabolici, or Two Evil Eyes as it's more commonly known to English speaking audiences, starts with a brief tribute to Edgar Allen Poe & then it's into the George A. Romero written & directed short-ish story entitled 'The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar'. Rich businessman Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O'Malley) is dying, his wife Jessica (Adrienne Barbeau) wants all of his money so together with her ex-boyfriend Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada) she devises a plan to hypnotise Ernest into signing over his entire estate to her. However Ernest dies unexpectedly while hypnotised which somehow keeps his consciousness somewhere between the dead & the living world. But there is something else in the world beyond ours that intend to use Ernest & his body for their own sinister purposes...
Next up it's the Dario Argento co-written (along with Franco Ferrini) & directed story 'The Black Cat'. Rod Usher (Harvey Keitel) works as a photographer who discovers one day that his girlfriend Annabel (Madeleine Potter) has taken in a stray black cat. This mysterious cat seems to dislike Rod & his relationship with Annabel starts to break down, whatever Rod does he can't seem to escape the cat which eventually drives him to murder...
Before I say anything about Due Occhi Disbolici I have to comment on the IMDb's main page, why is it listed as both horror & comedy? There is no comedy or humour in this whatsoever, or if there is it's so subtle I couldn't notice it. Anyway, this American Italian co-production is an OK horror film based on two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe with each segment running at just under an hour apiece. This is part of the problem I have with Due Occhi Diabolici as I feel the stories are a little too long & drawn out. I prefer my anthology film to have maybe three or four stories that run at the 20 odd minute mark like Asylum (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), Creepshow (1982) & Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Unfortunately I think the stories are basic & don't justify their almost feature length status, both Romero & Argento seem to stretch their thin material out way beyond it's usefulness. I much prefer Romero's story 'The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar' to Argento's 'The Black Cat', it has a better twist ending & is more of a straight horror tale that actually makes sense as far as something like this can. 'The Blcak Cat' on the other hand is a bit of a mess with no focused story as far as I could tell, the origins or motives of the cat itself is never explained & as a whole this story felt very unsatisfying & muddled. With a budget of about $9,000,000 Due Occhi Diabolici looks nice enough but for the most part a little bland & forgettable which you wouldn't usually expect to say about anything involving Argento. While he sporadically shows his flair for camera movements & cool angles like some cat point-of -view shots, a shot where the camera is placed on a swinging pendulum as it passes through a severed body & his camera following a set of keys as they fall to the floor I felt that 'The Black Cat' lacked his trademark visual style & imagination. There are some decent gore scenes & the special make-up effects by Tom Savini are pretty good, some blood splattered gunshot wounds, an impalement, flesh eating kittens, someone gorily killed with a meat cleaver, a body cut in half & one without any teeth & a couple of rotting zombies. The acting is solid from a good cast made up of familiar faces including Tom Atkins & E.G. Marshall with Harvey Keitel standing out as being class. I thought that Due Occhi Diabolici was a decent way to pass a couple of hours & was entertaining enough but I don't think I'd be in any hurry to watch it again. I personally think that both Romero & Argento have made much better films than this but at the same time they have made much worse. Definitely worth a watch especially for Romero's story but nothing spectacular.
Next up it's the Dario Argento co-written (along with Franco Ferrini) & directed story 'The Black Cat'. Rod Usher (Harvey Keitel) works as a photographer who discovers one day that his girlfriend Annabel (Madeleine Potter) has taken in a stray black cat. This mysterious cat seems to dislike Rod & his relationship with Annabel starts to break down, whatever Rod does he can't seem to escape the cat which eventually drives him to murder...
Before I say anything about Due Occhi Disbolici I have to comment on the IMDb's main page, why is it listed as both horror & comedy? There is no comedy or humour in this whatsoever, or if there is it's so subtle I couldn't notice it. Anyway, this American Italian co-production is an OK horror film based on two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe with each segment running at just under an hour apiece. This is part of the problem I have with Due Occhi Diabolici as I feel the stories are a little too long & drawn out. I prefer my anthology film to have maybe three or four stories that run at the 20 odd minute mark like Asylum (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), Creepshow (1982) & Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Unfortunately I think the stories are basic & don't justify their almost feature length status, both Romero & Argento seem to stretch their thin material out way beyond it's usefulness. I much prefer Romero's story 'The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar' to Argento's 'The Black Cat', it has a better twist ending & is more of a straight horror tale that actually makes sense as far as something like this can. 'The Blcak Cat' on the other hand is a bit of a mess with no focused story as far as I could tell, the origins or motives of the cat itself is never explained & as a whole this story felt very unsatisfying & muddled. With a budget of about $9,000,000 Due Occhi Diabolici looks nice enough but for the most part a little bland & forgettable which you wouldn't usually expect to say about anything involving Argento. While he sporadically shows his flair for camera movements & cool angles like some cat point-of -view shots, a shot where the camera is placed on a swinging pendulum as it passes through a severed body & his camera following a set of keys as they fall to the floor I felt that 'The Black Cat' lacked his trademark visual style & imagination. There are some decent gore scenes & the special make-up effects by Tom Savini are pretty good, some blood splattered gunshot wounds, an impalement, flesh eating kittens, someone gorily killed with a meat cleaver, a body cut in half & one without any teeth & a couple of rotting zombies. The acting is solid from a good cast made up of familiar faces including Tom Atkins & E.G. Marshall with Harvey Keitel standing out as being class. I thought that Due Occhi Diabolici was a decent way to pass a couple of hours & was entertaining enough but I don't think I'd be in any hurry to watch it again. I personally think that both Romero & Argento have made much better films than this but at the same time they have made much worse. Definitely worth a watch especially for Romero's story but nothing spectacular.