Sisters (Widescreen)

 

 

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This is a great film! Although the acting is a bit rough for a few characters I found myself drawn into the story line. We have Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) has a one-night stand with a black TV-game show player. The morning after, he is killed by Danielle's psycho twin sister, Dominique Blanchion. But Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt), an aspiring journalist, sees everything from her flat across the street. Things get even uglier when the journalist starts following Danielle and his strange ex-husband, Dr. Emil Breton (De Palma perennial weirdo Bill Finley). What dark secret lies behind this murder? Uh? Of course, nobody really seems to care about the plot - De Palma plays the genre rules, twisting every second with his split screen techniques and neat suspense touches. There is a "dream" sequence, some blood, a hideous scar, drugs and a birthday cake.

Sure, the movie owes more than a passing nod to Psycho (Collector's Edition) and Rear Window (Collector's Edition)specifically, but De Palma's exhilarating use of that split-screen technique as well as Margot Kidder's creepy performance add up to a genuinely frightening experience. The "peeping tom" opening is brilliant. The humor doesn't lessen the shock, but rather enhances it by keeping the audience continually caught off guard. He takes the most vulnerable and receptive of human reactions--laughter, fear, and anticipation--and pushes them to their extremes until the audience is caught up in giddy bewilderment. You don't know what the director is going to pull next, so you can't prepare yourself.

De Palma is nothing if not a visceral filmmaker, and in his comfort with the comic and the horrific, he resembles Roman Polanski more than he does Hitchcock. Taking into consideration their mutually varied filmographies and how they've been received, it seems a more apt comparison. The one major difference is that Polanski has a deep sense of the tragic, and almost always ends on that note. Not so much De Palma. In the final scene in Sisters, we find Charles Durning's private dick, who had all but disappeared from the movie, high up on a telephone pole dressed as an electrician, dutifully watching a couch through a pair of binoculars. The movie is over in every way--the blood has been shed, the mystery has been solved, and the suspense is gone--except that it apparently isn't. De Palma wants to leave us with something else. So we have Durning waiting to see who comes to get the couch. This could well be that Shock Recovery Period that the movie posters promoted. This was another great film that was highly recommended by Chris and the one only #1 Depalma fan R.A. Bean which I greatly enjoyed.

nancy drew (jennifer salt) would kill to get off of staten island and become the maverick of NYC journalism. the only problem is that all she has done to this point with her 'little job" is write about rampant police corruption, isolating herself even further from the big city. what she needs is a break, and witnessing a murder, (especially a depalma split-screen murder) appears to be her ticket, if she can get anyone to listen.

nancy drew (jennifer salt) would kill to get off of staten island and become the maverick of NYC journalism. the only problem is that all she has done to this point with her 'little job" is write about rampant police corruption, isolating herself even further from the big city. what she needs is a break, and witnessing a murder, (especially a depalma split-screen murder) appears to be her ticket, if she can get anyone to listen.

nancy drew on acid

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5.0 out of 5 stars As racist as a Stephen King Short Story from the seventies
This movie is the most balsy opaquely racist movie I've ever seen. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Margot Kidder is a bombshell in this movie. Read more

Published on July 19 2004 by N. Siefers

5.0 out of 5 stars In this Hitchcok style this is the best
This film has many aspects to remark. The first of them lies in the style: the film reminds to a slow english picture, in the Hitchcock of the fifties, specially The rear window... Read more

Published on Jun 9 2004 by Hiram Gomez Pardo

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly, Deeply Scary
After all these years it's easy to forget just how revolutionary and exhilarating Brian De Palma was when he first appeared. Read more

Published on Jun 8 2004 by R. W. Rasband

2.0 out of 5 stars a disturbing film with some intense scenes.
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The story is about a recently seperated conjoined twin who has moved to Staten Island in New York. Read more

Published on Jun 6 2004 by Ted

1.0 out of 5 stars So Bad You Will Want to Share
I couldn't take my eyes off this piece of garbage. It is so truly awful you will want to share it with friends. Read more

Published on May 23 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars A fight between good and evil
This was a great thriller about a woman that must battle her psychotic twin sister. There were some scary and some funny parts. Read more

Published on Jan 3 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Whew! Intense and massively disturbing
Brian De Palma has made so many ultra cool films that it would be extremely easy to overlook "Sisters," one of his earliest efforts. Read more

Published on Dec 5 2003 by Jeffrey Leach

4.0 out of 5 stars Twisted Sisters
The pun is so obvious; this twisted movie hails many old horror films, but is not so derivative that the allusions get in the way. Read more

Published on Nov 16 2003 by Rivkah Maccaby

1.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious romp, great camp
It's great camp. I'll give it that.

But let's get serious, nothing holds up to Hitchcock as much as DePalma would have you compare his movie with a masterpiece like Psycho... Read more

Published on Oct 17 2003 by B. Carpenter

4.0 out of 5 stars AN ENTERTAINING HORROR THRILLER!!!
DIRECTOR BRIAN DEPALMA REALLY OUTDONE HIMSELF WITH THIS HORROR THRILLER.
IT WAS A VERY STRANGE AND UNIQUE FILM WITH MARGOT KIDDER IN THE LEAD AS TWO SIAMESE TWIN... Read more

Published on Aug 29 2003 by John D. Seneca

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