A beautifully intimate image for the serious Hammer Horror collector, bringing real-life identical twins Mary and Madeleine Collinson together as Maria and Frieda Gellhorn in TWINS OF EVIL (1971).

Dressed in delicate white nightwear and facing one another closely in their bedroom, the sisters create a striking composition filled with warmth, vulnerability and sisterly intimacy. For collectors accustomed to the film’s blood, vampirism and Gothic menace, this photograph preserves the human bond at the very heart of the Gellhorn twins’ story.

The warm color photography is particularly beautiful. Mary and Madeleine face one another beside the bed, their long dark hair and pale white garments illuminated against the shadowy bedroom surrounding them.

The visual symmetry is unmistakable.

As real-life identical twins portraying fictional twin sisters, Mary and Madeleine brought something to TWINS OF EVIL that conventional casting could never completely manufacture. Photographs such as this exploit that remarkable resemblance beautifully while also allowing subtle differences in their expressions and body language to emerge.

That relationship becomes increasingly important as the film progresses. Maria and Frieda may look extraordinarily similar, but their personalities and eventual paths are dramatically different. Frieda becomes fascinated by Count Karnstein and is drawn toward vampirism, while Maria remains the more innocent of the sisters.

This quiet bedroom moment therefore provides an effective counterpoint to the supernatural horror surrounding them. Here there are no vampires, witch hunters or Gothic confrontations—only the two sisters sharing a private moment together.

That apparent simplicity makes the image more powerful within a broader TWINS OF EVIL collection.

The photograph also captures the distinctive visual character of Hammer’s early-1970s Gothic productions. The white nightwear, period bedroom, warm illumination and deep surrounding shadows create an image that combines Hammer glamour with Gothic atmosphere without requiring a monster anywhere in the frame.

Mary and Madeleine Collinson were Maltese-born identical twins who achieved international attention as models and Playboy Playmates before appearing together in TWINS OF EVIL. Their casting gave the film its central visual concept and provided Hammer with one of its most immediately recognizable pairings of the period.

TWINS OF EVIL is a 1971 British Gothic horror film directed by John Hough and starring Peter Cushing as Gustav Weil, Damien Thomas as Count Karnstein, and Mary and Madeleine Collinson as Maria and Frieda Gellhorn.

The film forms the third and final entry in Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy, following THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970) and LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971). Inspired by elements of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s CARMILLA, TWINS OF EVIL combines the Karnstein vampire mythology with religious fanaticism, witch hunting and the contrasting destinies of the Gellhorn sisters.

For a collector building a deeper Hammer or Karnstein archive, this photograph offers something the more overtly horrific images cannot: the Collinson twins together in a quiet, intimate moment before their characters’ paths dramatically diverge. It is an elegant photographic study of the relationship that gives TWINS OF EVIL both its title and its emotional foundation.

Carefully restored and professionally printed from archival source material, this museum-quality photograph is a distinctive collectible for admirers of Mary Collinson, Madeleine Collinson, TWINS OF EVIL, the Karnstein Trilogy and classic Hammer Horror.