Two Evil Eyes

1990, US/Italy, Directed by George A Romero, Dario Argento
Colour, Running Time: 120 minutes
Review Source: Satellite Broadcast; Video: 1.78:1, Audio: Stereo

When it was announced back in the late eighties that George Romero and Dario Argento - who had previously collaborated to legendary effect on Dawn of the Dead - were to re-unite in the production of a horror based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, fans were understandably excited.  Neither were considered particularly to be in decline at that point.  Most recently Romero had bestowed the world with the wonderful Day of the Dead - okay, not well received upon initial release it would later go on to be appreciated and understood as a great piece of cinema by many - and the pretty decent Monkey Shines, a fairly original and engaging take on the man-vs-animal sub genre.  Meanwhile Argento had experimented with crossing the supernatural with his forte, the giallo, to materialise with some success Phenomena, soon drifting back into stylish giallo territory for Opera.  Not only that but the guys were bringing along special effects master Tom Savini (who'd worked on the last couple of Dead films at that point, amongst many other fine examples of the genre).  What the hell could go wrong?  Well, how about almost everything?  The film was a disappointment of the highest order, but it lingered around on video for years, then DVD from the likes of Anchor Bay (and more recently Arrow, whose disc strangely split the film into two distinct options from the menu rather than allowing viewing of the movie in its intended entirety), while nowadays it's available from Blue Underground on what looks to be a well produced Blu-ray.  Years after that initial drop in enthusiasm (I caught it on video rental around '92) I'd considered buying it a few times, thinking that it couldn't have been as boring as I originally remembered.  A recent satellite broadcast gave me the opportunity to check it out again without risking a few quid...

Comprised of two adaptations of Poe stories, Romero takes on the first - 'The Facts in the Case of Mr Valdemar', about a scheming wife and her illegitimate lover who are more than a little interested in the woman's dying husband's vast fortune.  Allowing the old codger to die prematurely before the legal issues have been ironed out they cart the body down into the (grim) cellar where a handy chest freezer becomes the poor guy's home for the next few days.  What they don't expect is to hear his whining voice haunting them from beyond the grave, followed by his eventual lumbering awakening as his corpse is apparently controlled by dark spirits in a quest for vengeance.  This opening story, stretching out its bareness to around an hour, is seat-fidgetingly boring.  The cast, crew, and eventual editor (Pasquale Buba, who surprisingly had previously edited the much more efficient Day of the Dead) appear to be in a trance-like state, and I hate to say but Romero's direction exhibits none of the drive that had previously been evident in virtually everything from Night of the Living Dead onwards.  None of the characters are likable, which doesn't help the maintenance of viewer consciousness, and even a handful of superior gore effects from Savini cannot save this piece.  The near ubiquitous scoring becomes infuriating, implemented in a distinctly unprofessional manner, and the whole thing smells like a bad TV movie.  An increase in pace, sparing use of a score composed by someone else, along with a substantial reduction in running time could have resulted in an improved film all round.

The second story is based (again, loosely) on 'The Black Cat', and directed with more flair by king of the roving camera, Argento.  A flamboyant artist is repeatedly bugged by the black cat that his partner has let into their apartment - no matter what he does he can't get rid of the persistent moggie.  Following the butchering of his partner the artist walls her into a concealed section of their home, but getting away with murder will be cast under the shadow of a meddling cat... The centre performance by Harvey Keitel is suitably angry, and pushes this one a bit closer to 'entertainment' than Romero's segment ever got.  Argento also displays a touch of style here and there (e.g. the pendulum perspective in the opening minutes), reminding us of the presence of an auteur.  Aside from similar issues with the music and to a lesser extent the overall pace, the main problem is probably caused by the first story - by the time the second one kicks off the viewer is already bored to hell and not especially interested in anything that the screen might throw at them next.  I get the impression that each director was granted an hour time slot and they possibly had to fill it regardless, and with threadbare materials this was always going to result in a slow lumbering blob of a film.  The fact that neither director has managed to put out much worth a damn since Two Evil Eyes also suggests that both had in fact begun their decline into mediocrity around this point, a factor entirely symbolised by the effect (or lack thereof) of this film.  I'm glad I saved my money.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe

1968, Brazil, Directed by José Mojica Marins
B&W, Running Time: 82 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R2, Anchor Bay; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

Adopting a portmanteou style The Strange World... (AKA O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão) is not really a sequel to This Night I'll Possess... but it does feature 'Coffin Joe' opening the narration in a familiar pseudo philosophical fashion, and when he does finally appear within the film itself (in the final chapter) he's not really playing the same character. That's not to say that this film is without the sadistic edge that we've come to expect... The first chapter - The Dollmaker - sort of apes The Twilight Zone in tone. Three deadbeats listen in on a conversation down the pub where an ageing dollmaker is muttering about having a fortune in the house. Later on they follow him back to where he and his four nubile young daughters manufacture dolls (rather crap looking ones, but dolls nonetheless) for a living. They break in and, threatening the old artist, cause him to collapse clutching his heart. Then the young criminals spot the four daughters in bed in the next room; needless to say, in conjunction with a certain degree of salivation, they decide to head in there and have a bit more fun... The next story, Obsession or Perversion depending on where you get your translation, is pretty much a silent movie. A hunchbacked balloon-seller develops an infatuation with a woman who gets murdered at her own wedding by another, presumably jealous, knife-wielding female (talk about a big-day spoiler). Not letting a little thing like death get in the way of his desires he later breaks into her tomb, strips her off, and molests the body, probably acknowledging that this is the only way he's ever gonna get a hot (or cold in this case) babe. The final tale, Ideology, stars Marins as a professor who speaks about the godless world he believes in, and his theories on the reality of human existence. To make his point he captures a young couple where he subjects them first to horrors experienced by others, and then to horrors experienced by themselves (presumably this now having some context for them...), pushing the girl to a point where she reaches such a level of desperation she is driven by her own instincts to drink the blood of her dying partner.

As with the preceding films by Marins, there is an undeniable air of maliciousness and venom surrounding this film. Each tale becomes more uncompromising than the last, the first being the most - if one can use this word speaking about Joe - commercial of the three. Quite a creepy little tale with an atmosphere of doom as the soundtrack vibrates with constant thunderous noises of the winds and skies outside the morbid little house where most of the action takes place. The second tale must have been the most explicit suggestion of necrophilia ever seen in cinema at that point. It had been touched on before, the most enticing example being The Terror of Dr Hichcock (which I'd dearly love a Blu-ray of), but not quite as obviously as here in Strange World. Very slow and too long for its content (the 'seduction' scene goes on for a hell of a sleep-inducing time), the tale again has an unusual tone that compensates for its shortcomings, which is generally in the acting department. The third story brings us into more familar Coffin Joe territory, although his performance here is much more controlled and sedate. That doesn't mean to say it's much less horrific - the things the young couple, and we the viewers, witness are graphic and downright nasty (one scene had me in a state of surprise that it even got past the BBFC). A man is stretched on the rack before having his flesh devoured whilst still alive by a horde of lepers followed by a caged girl rejecting the advances of men before being burned with acid, the traumatic event causing her to kiss the feet of one of them. The torture of the couple concludes with such profundity it must have been on a Martyrs type plane of its day. Marins does raise some interesting ideas amidst his conquests to shock.

Like the film, the DVD (part of a Coffin Joe boxed set) is grimy and not nice to look at! It's arguably perversely satisfying to watch these oddities in this condition and, let's face it, who's going to spend thousands remastering them? The subtitles are again burned in, though not of great grammatical quality - the errors are, however, moderately amusing (think of watching Hong Kong films). Again, we can be thankful that this sort of thought-lost and buried weirdness can be exhumed and brought to us at all.

Spirits of the Dead

1968, France/Italy, Directed by Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim

Colour, Running Time: 121 minutes

Review Source: Blu-ray, Region B, Arrow; Video: 1.85:1 1080p 24fps, Audio: PCM Mono

Histoires Extraordinaire (or Spirits of the Dead as AIP re-titled it) is quite an unconventional anthology horror movie filmed in 1967, featuring three, almost experimental, adaptations of Poe stories from three well known European directors (Vadim, Malle, and Fellini respectively). They’re not particularly horrifying but there is an air of mystery about them, plus they’re particularly artistic explorations of Poe’s tales of the weird and supernatural. Episode 1, Metzengerstein, relates the fate of a hedonistic woman who becomes attracted to a man - her cousin - living in a nearby castle. When her invite to an evening of entertainment (and probable debauchery) is turned down she extracts revenge by burning down his stables (he’s a horse lover), unwittingly killing the object of her dissatisfaction in the process. After this she develops an unnatural fixation with a horse herself, something that will eventually seal her fate. Vadim’s story is sexy (featuring Jane Fonda in an array of rather amazing costumes) but somewhat wayward, disjointed and protracted. Poe’s poetic prose is reflected in the material developed for the screen to an extent, and would have benefited from some ruthless tightening (I’m guessing each director had a predetermined time slot to fill seeing as they all last around the forty minute mark).

Episode 2, William Wilson, is an intriguing look at a sadistic man with an apparent doppelganger that appears whenever his cruel nature reaches excessive heights. Callous from childhood, Wilson appears to meet his match at a casino-environment when femme fatale Brigitte Bardot challenges him to a card game that lasts all night. When she runs out of money the final round claims her as his slave, but once again the mysterious double appears to put paid to his unethical plans, resulting in a duel to the death between them. Offering no real explanation to help us comprehend what/who the double is and where it/he came from, William Wilson captures a suitable air of mystery alongside its inherent moral commentary. Episode 3, Toby Dammit, skips time to a sort of twisted version of the modern era (à la A Clockwork Orange) whereby a perpetually inebriated celebrity reveals his antipathy towards the world, humankind, and - possibly subconsciously - himself. Following a series of escapades that result in him speeding through a surreal version of Rome in a Ferrari, he finally stumbles upon Satan, the image of whom he has endured prophetic visions of up until that point. Fellini’s final piece famously showcases Terence Stamp’s convincingly deranged performance as a lost, cynical drunk. The director’s approach to the material is exceedingly eccentric and artfully manifested, something which would probably be expected by followers of his work and offering a suitable contrast to the segments preceding it. People who have seen/reviewed Spirits of the Dead generally favour Toby Dammit over the first two parts. Personally I found something to appreciate in all of them, though …Dammit and …Wilson offered the most actual enjoyment. As a whole the film is different to the view of Poe’s material made famous by Roger Corman, though it was obviously picked up for American distribution by AIP because it was the same studio that produced Corman’s classics prior to that. AIP established a certain traditional sex & horror tone, common to the period, with the advertising campaign that I don’t feel is completely in line with how the film should be perceived. They also requested a cut of several minutes (re-instated here) and drafted in Vincent Price (star of the aforementioned Corman movies) to narrate over the opening and closing credits. Clearly they were pulling out stops to present the film as a continuation of their Poe cycle; thankfully it plays here in the manner intended by its makers and can therefore be appreciated in its purest form.

An important film such as this is embellished with a superb transfer for the Arrow Blu-ray Disc - periodically grainy, often exhibiting fantastic clarity. There are a couple of audio language options for each segment and you may wish to flip between these depending on the tale (the first and third tales I believe work better in English due to the fact that the main characters are portrayed by English speaking actors who dubbed their own voices). The fact that Arrow has provided such an array of options is incredibly thoughtful and as a result this release blows the previous video/DVD/laserdisc editions away. The entire French language version is available as a separate entity (can be chosen from the brilliantly designed main menu) but the picture quality of this is not up the standard of the main presentation (though still probably better than DVD quality), plus it’s notable that the colour scheme is very different. The AIP commissioned Vincent Price voiceover is available as a short extra too. The main bonus is a 60 page booklet containing reprints of the three Poe stories that make up the film, plus two essays, one of which is the excellent Tim Lucas study of the film (originally from Video Watchdog in the late 90s). The presentation of this book is very professional and grants a great backdrop with which to understand the film. The Blu-ray Disc is encased in a thin Blu-ray case adorned with poster artwork on every side, and the book plus case are housed in a sturdy cardboard outer box making the whole package supremely attractive. Though the film does take more effort than your average genre outing, this is an essential buy for fans of historical horror and foreign cinema and Arrow are to be congratulated on bringing the definitive edition Spirits of the Dead to the HD market.