Hammer House of Horror – Two Faces of Evil (1980)

Hammer House of Horror is an anthology series produced by Hammer Films in conjunction with Cinema Arts International and ITC Entertainment. Each episode consisted of self-contained storylines and characters that never tended to relate with any of the other episodes. This series showcased several types of horror that the genre was known for; voodoo, witches, hauntings, demons, and more. Coming from a studio that hatched British reinventions of the classic Universal Hollywood Monsters, the show came from creators with a horror pedigree. This blog entry will be looking specifically at the twelfth episode of the series – “The Two Faces of Evil” (also informally known as “The Hitchhiker“).

The episode follows the Lewis family; Martin and Janet, with their son, David. The family is on a holiday trip to the countryside when they (almost literally!) run into a man in a yellow raincoat. Martin feels bad for almost hitting the man, and offers him a ride – one that proves deadly. The man pierces Martin’s neck with his long fingernail and sends the car careening.

Waking up in the hospital, the camera identifies Janet as the main character, following her experience reuniting with her family. Upon finding out that Martin will need more time to heal, she uses this time to attempt to get the family back to “getting away from it all”. After meeting the owners of their rural getaway, Janet receives word that Martin is better and will be returned back to them. Janet is ecstatic and feels like the family can forget about the terrible ordeal and be able to resume their vacation.

Later we find out that the Martin family’s holiday abode is somehow housing the man in the yellow raincoat, as Janet sees her “husband’s” now unwrapped long fingernail. Janet returns to the hospital to identify the other man. Thinking it is her husband, she is surprised that the dead doppelgänger has horrible teeth. After all, that couldn’t have been Martin as he “had beautiful teeth”. Relieved, she thinks the man at home is her husband, only to find out that this man also has a bad set of teeth – and a desire to kill!

Fleeing the imposter, Janet sends David away while she holds the attacker at bay. She later reunites with her son, only to find that – like from Invasion of the Body Snatchers – he too had been replaced. Janet runs to the farmer for help only to faint at the sight of the creature’s cool demeanors in front of their host. Janet awakens in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, only to realize that this is one trip she will not be returning from!

This episode uses examples of the yellow raincoat as more of a traditional costume rather than attributing additional meaning to the ensemble (though there may be a shred of meaning which we will briefly look at later!). While this Hammer feature uses color in many amazing ways, the yellow raincoat seems to receive less detailed, meaningful attention.

We mainly see the raincoat contrast other items in the set, as it makes the garbed man stand out from the green brush when Janet first sees him. The coat also is a different color from the red car that the Lewis family drives – isolating the man from the environment, the family, and quite possibly the world around him.

After the accident, we no longer see a raincoat, but instead, you could say that the color yellow merely uses the raincoat as a springboard and manifests meaning in other ways. When the car flips over, the imposter loses his hat. While this could be seen as a gaffe, you could attribute meaning to the hat coming off the man as the man is establishing himself as the “new Martin”. Much like his attack, the imposter quite literally dug his claws into his new family.

We later see the man in Janet’s memory – fully garbed, hat and all – attacking her husband. Again, the hat falling off could be argued as a gaffe. At this point in the short film, however, Janet does not know which body is really David – could that be the symbology behind his face being hidden in her thoughts? Could it be that David’s “twin” put his hat back on to further distance himself as he disposed of the original Martin? Could it be that he put the hat back on because his work at replacing Martin had not yet been finished? Like the other scenes, the yellow makes the imitator predominantly stand out from everything else.

The color red seems to also have significance in this short film as it is used as a color of danger for the Lewis family. While not entirely related to the yellow raincoat motif, the color seems to be worth mentioning as it has influence transferred to it from the man garbed in yellow. Red is seen as a “danger” color for the family; their red car is overturned, red is usually shown as blood. During the fight in Janet’s memory between the imposter and Martin, we see the man smash their red suitcase. This piece of luggage was seen predominantly surrounded by the same color in the room with the remains from their wreckage. The foreign man’s fingers are also broken off, showing bloody red dismemberment.

Red is also used in the country home as “Martin” comes home. Janet gets a call on a red phone, “her husband” comes home in a red blanket, they stay under red covers, etc. Janet later speaks with the Doctor and the Coroner, the room that they converse in is bathed in a shade of red indicating that there is danger attributed to this dead man. (Note: The color red is used in many more instances, but I don’t want to touch on it too much in this blog, but it could make an interesting article/video elsewhere!) Color and costuming is given much thought in this text, hence it would be an injustice to ignore any meaning that could be contrived using these devices.

One final instance in the use of the color yellow in Two Faces of Evil can be derived from the fact that each member of the Lewis family has something of the color yellow to show their replacement. This meaning is less justifiable than the previous interpretation but is still worth exploring to guess at what was being deliberately used to signify the body-swappers.

Each member of the fake Lewis family has some form of yellow they surround themselves with before they are discovered as the replacer. As we’ve talked about, Martin is replaced by the man in the yellow raincoat. The next two are a bit of a stretch, but it could be said that the fake David has yellow hair ( and is found in yellow hay) and the yellow seen with the fake Janet could be personified by the yellow word “Ambulance” patched on the driver’s shoulder. (Martin can also be seen in a sweater during the chase scene that when blurred, looks a shade of yellow. This, like the other two examples, however, is a bit of a stretch.)

While this episode is not one where the yellow raincoat trope is given meaning exclusively, the feature uses the color motif quite prominently. This use of incorporating the yellow raincoat by masters of the horror genre further underlines the yellow raincoat as a horror motif, whether they intended to refer to this unrecognized trope or not.

Like all great interpretations, it’s best to formulate your opinion by reading the text yourself. You can watch all episodes of Hammer House of Horrors for free on Youtube!

This article was initially published on my blog, Yellow Raincoat of Horror on October 12, 2021, click here to view the original!