by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 2, The Film: 3/5, The Extras: 4/5, Overall: 7/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Peter Cushing, Mary Collinson, Madeleine Collinson, Damien Thomas
Intro:
… a solid meat and potatoes vampire flick.
The Film:
Despite being a massive, worryingly obsessive horror movie fanatic, your humble word janitor has a relatively slender education in the realm of Hammer films. To be fair, the prolific British studio knocked out some 158 films in total, with 50 of those being explicitly horror yarns, so getting across that entire caper would be a full time job! Happily, the benevolent undead over at Imprint Films have been kind enough to dust off some of these classics and release them in brand spanking 4K prints, which brings us to today’s offering, Twins of Evil.
Set in the Austrian state of Styria (although everyone speaks like a bloody Pom), Twins of Evil tells the story of identical twin sisters Maria (Mary Collinson) and Frieda Gelhorn (Madeleine Collinson), who are forced to live with their witch-burning uncle Gustav Weil (Peter Cushing) after their parents cark it.
Gustav is a grim and imposing figure, who spends his nights hanging out with the fanatical Brotherhood, burning sheilas as witches on the most spurious evidence. As is true of the real world, one of the twins (Frieda) is evil and becomes obsessed with local hornbag and Satan enthusiast Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), who has such lovely long teeth… Will Frieda succumb to evil? Will Maria be able to save her sister? And can Gustav pull his finger out and actually take on some real evil for once? The answers will probably not surprise you, honestly.
Twins of Evil is a pleasingly old-fashioned vampire flick crossed with a bit of Vincent Price’s Witchfinder General (1968). Gorgeously directed by John Hough (Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, Biggles) and shot by the wonderfully named Dick Bush (heh), this is a pretty film. The performances are good too, with Cushing bringing his reliable gravitas and Damien Thomas being a highly entertaining decadent vamp. The titular twins do solid work as well, which is surprising considering their previous on-camera experience consisted of being the first identical twins to feature in Playboy magazine.
Twins of Evil isn’t going to be blowing anyone’s minds or changing the way they view vampire films, but it’s a smarter and classier film than the rather salacious advertising suggests. Although it features the expected cheesecake scenes, the actual yarn being told is a solid one. The third act in particular features plenty of effective moments and a surprisingly gory climax for the era.
Some pacing issues in the second act hold this back from being an all-time classic, but Twins of Evil is a solid, well-acted, beautifully shot vampire yarn, now looking better than ever.
The Extras:
A very solid collection of extras here. There are two audio commentaries, one with the legendary critic/authors Kim Newman and Stephen Jones, and another with film historians Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons.
There are numerous documentary featurettes, including the brand new (and pretty great) Bloodlines: Inside the Twins of Evil, The Flesh and The Fury: X-Posing Twins of Evil (the director’s cut of the feature length doco), Satanic Decadence & The Legacy of Sheridan Le Fanu in Hammer’s Twins of Evil (video essay from Kat Ellinger) and The Props That Hammer Built: The Kinsey Collection. There are interviews with director John Hough and some of the cast plus the usual deleted scene, trailers and various bits and bobs.
The whole package comes in a very flash hardbox that contains a hardcover photo booklet that classes up the thing something fierce, along with a reprint of the original press kit.
The Verdict:
Twins of Evil is a solid meat and potatoes vampire flick. It’s not subversive or genre-defining, but it is thoroughly entertaining and visually pleasing for all sorts of reasons (not just the twins, ya pervs). Buoyed considerably by solid performances from Cushing and Thomas, this is the perfect package for those who frequently find themselves muttering “they don’t make them like they used to.”
Gorgeously shot, well-acted and surprisingly bloody, you may well find yourself saying, Twins of Evil, fangs for the memories.
