Two Evil Eyes 4K 1990 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

In the first story, the wife and her lover expect the eternally ill husband to die. But since Mr. Valdemar does not want to die, his wife's lover helps him enter a coma, from which the only way to go to the grave ... or become a zombie.

In the second, on the contrary, the husband did not like his wife very much and walled her up in the wall of his own house. And at the same time he immured his wife's hated cat.

Review 4K Movie

Two renowned masters of horror, George A. Romero and Dario Argento had different views on the genre, with their own artistic style and cultural traditions. Combining them together in one project is an unexpected gift for the viewer. The connecting thread was quickly found in the form of general inspiration in the works of the classics of Edgar Allan Poe. Inspiration is the key word, because the authors did not make verbatim film adaptations, only interpreting the ideas of the stories for themselves, placing personal accents where they considered necessary.

Doublet of horror stories opens "The Truth About What Happened to Mr. Waldemar." We meet the wife of a seriously ill rich man who has entered into an agreement with his attending physician and her part-time lover. They intend to crank up the scam, having acquired the entire fortune, by hypnotizing the patient, limply signing any document. Where will the idea lead if the decrepit body of the ward steps over the brink of death, but the mind subject to hypnosis will continue to exist?

Many believe that Romero inherited his signature zombie theme. This is partly true. However, this approach to the work of the American director is too narrow, because he carried intelligent thoughts through the genre, often tilting into the social aspect, applicable to our everyday life, in order to evoke a response from the viewer. Obviously, the choice of the story, where the core was based on a terrible, but fascinating experiment, cunningly presented by the writer with documentary evidence of the transition of a sick person to the stage of the deceased, who, in a hypnotized state, broadcasts about all processes, even being dead, is clearly not accidental. Therefore, Romero first transfers the chronicle of the crime to the screen, until the very end not forgetting about the main catalyst of the atrocity - money, which moves everyone and everything, as it flies from the lips of the characters, and then intently concentrates on the involuntary experience when a fraudster awakens a doctor in himself, being enchanted the possibility of conversations with the deceased patient. It is this craving for cognition that is not subject to any living being that becomes a temporary substitute for the passion for wealth, because one cannot escape from death and pay off. Before death, everyone is equal, no matter what your bank account or high-speed car, therefore, the character is seized with a genuine horror to receive information from that distance that one day will call all of us.

In its style, the film is not so scary, filmed very casually, reminiscent of a leisurely television production, nevertheless, it has a strong effect of enchanting mystery, so that, together with scammers, it can be part of an experiment that is gradually catching up with hopeless horror, realizing that somewhere beyond the brink of life there is another life, inevitably waiting for everyone. The spectacular climax only aggravates this frightening thought, when the director, in his traditional manner, resorts to a subtle black irony, once again pointing out the fatalism of life, that money before death turns out to be only worthless pieces of paper fluttering in the wind, and the most unscrupulous cynicism will not become medical science salvation from the inevitable. But this is not the whole toolkit of horror in the skilled hands of the master, because in his wise understanding, death is a natural part of a person's infinite path, and the whole true nightmare is concentrated in the course contrary to the law of the universe, when there is an eternal stop in the middle of the road.

The second segment is entitled "Black Cat". The drink-loving photojournalist of various brutal murders begins to experience fits of rage, first pouring them out on a black cat that his wife has picked up. Specific work and irrational craving for violence plunges everything into hopeless darkness ...

Argento also chose a literary basis that is extremely close to himself, although here you can find a whole bunch of references to other works of the classic, in addition to the basis of the story "Black Cat". For example, the name of the main character is Roderick Asher, one of the murders, where he takes pictures, completely with the help of a devilish invention in the form of a huge pendulum that hacked the victim in half, and there is also a scene from the work "Berenice" about a young man who is obsessed with beautiful snow-white teeth his sick bride. The Italian maestro is close to the storyline of the original source, but he is interested in the adaptation of the most nightmarish atmosphere. He makes an attempt to recreate on the screen an ominous aura of witchcraft pernicious obsession, grinding people no less than the various bloodthirsty maniacs from Jallo, where the author made a name for himself and to whom he gave a courteous curtsy in the opening credits of an indicative yellow color. The nodal insidious crime is shrouded in the same bookish spirit of the original source, despite the general feature of the project to shoot in the prism of modernity, where there is simply no place for enchanting Gothic.

Masterly handling the flight of the camera operator and adhering to the Italian specifics of the genre, when the musical accompaniment is a full participant in all events, inherently sounding with a memorable tune from Pino Donaggio, the author recreates a thick paranoid atmosphere that cultivates a dark seed inside an individual, rushing about, but stubbornly feeding the bloom of evil ... Fatalism permeates absolutely everything, reminiscent of a bad dream, when a person receives a terrible omen in dreams, and already unwittingly directs all his actions in reality in order to transfer disaster into life, intuitively walking to the abyss indicated by the prediction, and not far from it. Working as an artist, capturing other people's violent deaths and perverse murders, has an unhealthy effect on the mind of the main character, authentically played by Harvey Keitel, who turns a mysterious cat into a symbolic black maelstrom of the abyss, where you should not look, otherwise the abyss itself will look into you. The predetermined plot of the famous story works only for the benefit of the director's idea, in order to demonstrate the gradual chronicle of the fall into the pitch darkness of a person who gravitates to the remnants of other people's atrocities, which he is skillful to artistically beautifully convey in the photo.

In general, the project is far from being a masterpiece. Perhaps most upsetting is that the classics of book Gothic have been transferred to our days, therefore, the pristine charm of the stories is not observed, depriving the viewer of the enchanting antiquity. Those who are waiting in vain for a grotesque bloodthirsty horror will hardly like the result, although the master of special effects involves the artisan Tom Savini. Before us are the ideological successors of Poe's immortal brainchilds, trying to evoke a feeling of alarming curiosity from contact with something mysterious, frightening and alluring at the same time. The film resembles the adaptation of the two horror stories of the maestro set out in his own words, where Romero and Argento themselves act as storytellers.