"Twins of Evil", like Michael Reeves's "Witchfinder General", which came out a few years earlier, and Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible", is based upon the witchcraft hysteria of the seventeenth century. A sinister religious sect named the Brotherhood is conducting witch-hunts, burning to death anyone they suspect of witchcraft. The film is set in Germany, at some uncertain period in history. Although the Brotherhood is clearly based upon Cromwell's Puritans, the costumes worn by the some of other characters are more suggestive of the late eighteenth or even the early nineteenth century, by which period the witchcraft hysteria had largely died out.
There is one significant difference between "Twins of Evil" and either "Witchfinder General" or "The Crucible". Both Reeves's film and Miller's play treat belief in witchcraft as an irrational superstition. Miller's quite explicit purpose was to draw parallels between seventeenth century witch-hunts and the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Reeves probably did not have such a specific political aim in mind, but there are clear parallels between his central character, Matthew Hopkins, and twentieth century demagogues who have sought power by exploiting fanaticism and unreason.
In "Twins of Evil", however, we are asked to accept, for the purposes of the film, that supernatural forces of evil do exist and that witchcraft and vampirism are real. The Brotherhood's sexual Puritanism leads them to see every attractive, sexually active young woman as a witch, so most of their victims are in fact innocent of any crime. That does not, however, mean that the crimes the Brotherhood fear are not being committed. The local landowner, Count Karnstein, is a vampire and Satanist, but the Brotherhood are unable to touch him because his aristocratic status means that he is protected by the Emperor. (The film was, in fact, the last of Hammer's "Karnstein Trilogy", the others in the series being "The Vampire Lovers" and "Lust for a Vampire").
Many British horror films from this period, especially those produced by Hammer, often had erotic overtones, and the Karnstein trilogy is no exception, although "Twins of Evil" is perhaps less explicit than its two predecessors, both of which had a lesbian theme. The twins of the title are Maria and Frieda, the orphaned teenage nieces of Gustav Weil, the leader of the Brotherhood. They are played by Mary and Madeleine Collinson, who had recently become famous as the first identical twins to pose nude for "Playboy". As is often the case with identical twins in literature and the cinema, the girls are portrayed as having radically different personalities. Maria is well-behaved and demure, while Frieda is headstrong and rebellious, an attitude which brings her into conflict with her strict, autocratic uncle. Eventually Frieda runs away from Weil's house to Karnstein's castle where she becomes his lover, is bitten and becomes a vampire herself. Unfortunately, her innocent sister Maria is mistaken for her and threatened with burning by the Brotherhood.
The late Peter Cushing was a talented actor, but I feel that his career suffered when he allowed himself to be typecast in the horror genre. Horror films were a staple of the British film industry in the sixties and seventies, so this guaranteed him plenty of work, but as many of those films (such as "The Blood Beast Terror" or "The Satanic Rites of Dracula") were of very dubious quality it did not do much for his reputation. "Twins of Evil" is far from being a great film, but it is at least better than either of those examples, and it does have a very good performance from Cushing himself as the tormented Weil.
Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are not as good as Cushing. It was strange to see Kathleen Byron ("Black Narcissus") and Dennis Price ("Kind Hearts and Coronets"), both major stars of the British cinema in the late forties, cast here in minor roles. David Warbeck who plays Anton, the young schoolteacher who acts as the twins' love interest and as the film's resident expert on the supernatural, is wooden. As for the lovely Collinson girls themselves, their lifeless performances only go to show that, sadly, beauty and talent are not always closely allied; apparently they were so bad that their voices had to be dubbed. Although they were only nineteen, this was to be their last film appearance, and I cannot say that their early retirement deprived the cinema of two major talents.
"Twins of Evil" is in many ways a typical piece of Hammer schlock, but it does have some interesting points to make about the nature of evil. There is an interesting comparison between Weil and Karnstein. The latter is one of those who, like Milton's Satan, have said "Evil, be thou my good!". Karnstein rejects God and deliberately sets out to do the Devil's work. Weil, on the other hand, is a pious man who loves God and sees himself as a crusader against evil. In his eagerness to fight the devil, however, he himself has become devilish; his Brotherhood is responsible for at least as much suffering as is Karnstein. It is only when Weil realises that the fanaticism he has unleashed is threatening his own flesh and blood that he undergoes a change of heart. (Weil is a relatively common surname in Germany, but I wonder if it was chosen here because it is pronounced in the same way as the English word "vile"). The road to hell, it would appear, can be paved with either good intentions or ill ones. 5/10
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