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“The devil has sent me twins of evil!” Well, it’s only half-bad as all that, but one is more than enough. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they try to figure out which twin is which in Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971).
Decades of Horror 1970s
Episode 110 – Twins of Evil (1971)
In nineteenth-century middle-Europe, orphaned teenage twins Maria and Frieda go to live with their uncle Gustav Weil, who heads the Brotherhood, a vigilante group trying to stamp out vampirism. But their methods are random and misplaced and the only result is a terrorized populace. The real threat lies with Count Karnstein, and although the twins seem outwardly to be identical, Frieda finds herself much more drawn than her sister to the Count’s castle dominating the skyline.
IMDb
- Director: John Hough
- Writers: Tudor Gates (screenplay), Sheridan Le Fanu (characters created by) (as J. Sheridan Le Fanu)
- Cast
- Peter Cushing as Gustav Weil
- Kathleen Byron as Katy Weil
- Mary Collinson as Maria Gellhorn
- Madeleine Collinson as Frieda Gellhorn
- David Warbeck as Anton Hoffer
- Damien Thomas as Count Karnstein
- Judy Matheson as Woodman’s Daughter
- Luan Peters as Gerta
- Kirsten Lindholm as Young Girl at Stake
- Katya Wyeth as Countess Mircalla
- Roy Stewart as Joachim
Your Decade of Horrors 1970s Grue-Crew puts another Hammer notch in their belt with this entry from the loosely connected Karnstein Trilogy. Chad thinks Cushing’s performance in Twins of Evil is one of his best and Doc, Cushing fan extraordinaire, adds some interesting bits of Cushing trivia. Damien Thomas’s performance as Count Karstein – in turn, arrogant or sniveling – is exactly what Bill wants in his vampires. Jeff has a little trouble getting over the puritan wardrobe (except for the twins’ plumage) but did like the violent deaths.
All-in-all, if you haven’t availed yourself of Twins of Evil, it’s time to rectify that situation, and if you have experienced it, it’s time to revisit this classic 70s-Hammer effort. As of this writing, Twins of Evil is available to stream on Amazon Prime and Shudder and in Blu ray on a 2012 release from Synapse Films.
Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror 3-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In three weeks, the next episode in their very flexible schedule will be The Evil (1978), starring Richard Crenna, Joanna Pettet, and Andrew Prine.
We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave us a message or leave a comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at docrotten@decadesofhorror.com.
