“Twins of Evil”
Year: 1971
Director: John Hough
Stars: Madeleine Collinson, Mary Collinson. Peter Cushing
Studio: Synapse Films
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 89 Mins.
Film Review:
During my downtime from review films, your truly has been catching on some European horror films for 60’s and 70’s. When I first heard that “Twins of Evil” was going to hit blu-ray, it caught my interested as I’ve had enjoyed such films such as “Vampryes” and “Baba Yaga”. I figured, I would give this film a try.
The film is about two identical twins Maria and Frieda Gellhorn (Madeleine and Mary Collinson), who move to the town of Karnstein to live with their uncle (Peter Cushing). Meanwhile, the villiage’s Count (Damien Thomas) turns himself into a vampire, by using black magic. Unhappy with living with her uncle, Frieda escapes the house and falls under the Count’s spell and gets bitten. Now as a member of the undead, Frieda has to hide her secret from everyone including her twin sister, as she has a thirst for human blood. “Twins of Evil” also co-stars cult film actors Kathleen Byron (Black Narcissus) David Warbeck (The Beyond) and Dennis Price (Vampyros Lesbos).
John Hough’s direction was very good here. One of the things that I liked about it, the film had a gothic feel to it. This is a very different type of vampire film than what you would see today. He does a very good job making the atmosphere very gothic. Hough does that very well, by making sure that the film’s scenes felt very dark. It was very tough to do, as most of the film’s scenes felt like they were shot in the late afternoons or early evenings. Hough makes sure that background has that gothic feel to have a very dark film. The other thing that I liked about his direction was that the acting was good. Hough does a very good job making the performances fit with the film’s story. Peter Cushing is very good in this film, as he makes his character feel villainous while knowing that he trying to do the right thing. I also liked Damian Thomas’ performance as the count. He does a very making the character very evil, while showing a seductive side of the character. Those aspects helped this film a lot. If this film felt like a lower tire B-movie, then this would have been a hard one to sit through. Thankfully, this was not the case.
The screenplay duties were handled by Tudor Gates, who also wrote the screenplays for the other two films (The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire) in the Katnstein trilogy. I liked, the way that he takes his time to develop the film’s characters. He focuses on the characters, instead of filing the story with action. By taking time to develop the film’s characters, it gets you interested with the film. The other thing that I liked about this film was the fact that some of the kills are off screen. Gates does a very good job not making the kills so graphic. It adds to the horrific action, as it’s left to the viewer’s discretion and mind.
Blu-Ray Extras:
The first featurette on the Blu-Ray is the eighty four minute feature length documentary, “The Flesh and the Fury: X-posing Twins of Evil”. This was a very comprehensive documentary of the film. The documentary goes into a lot of stuff including history behind the film, from its origins to post production of the film. What I liked about it was the fact that it didn’t stop there. It went into a little bit of history of Hammer Studios and goes into the other films in the Karnstien trilogy briefly. Overall this is a must see, for fans of this film or Hammer studios.
After that featurette, it’s the film’s original theatrical trailer. Once that’s done, it’s onto the Blu-Ray Exclusives.
The first Blu-Ray exclusive featurette is “The Props that Hammer Build: The Kinsey Collection”. The featurette features props from various Hammer films like “Kiss of the Vampire”, “Brides of Dracula”, “Horrors of Dracula”, “The Vampire Lovers” and “Twins of Evil” to name a few that are apart of author Wayne Kinsey’s collection. Kinsey does a very good job of providing stories on how some of these props were used and reused in various Hammer films. He also provides some interesting stories of how some of the films were made. Overall, this was an interesting featurette.
Once that featurette, the Blu-Ray exclusives starts to wrap up with a motion still gallery, a deleted scene isolated score ant effects track from the film and TV spots.
Also, there’s a DVD copy of the film, which is included in the combo pack.
Final Summary:
I truly enjoyed this blu-ray a lot, as “Twins of Evil” was very good film and the Blu-Ray extras provides a lot of history on this film. Hammer fans will not be disappointed with this release.
Film Rating: Four Stars
Blu-Ray Extras: Four Stars
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