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> Sisters - Criterion Collection |
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Staring:
Margot Kidder,
Jennifer Salt,
Charles Durning,
William Finley,
Lisle Wilson
Director:
Brian De Palma
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $17.46
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
EAN: 9781559409087
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 1559409088
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2000-10-03
Running Time: 93
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: 1973-03-27 |
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Description
Margot Kidder is Danielle, a beautiful model separated from her Siamese twin, Dominique. When a hotshot reporter (Jennifer Salt) suspects Dominique of a brutal murder, she becomes dangerously ensnared in the sisters' insidious sibling bond. A scary and stylish paean to female destructiveness, De Palma's first foray into horror voyeurism is a stunning amalgam of split-screen effects, bloody birthday cakes, and a chilling score by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann. Criterion is proud to present Sisters in a new Special Edition.
Amazon.com essential video
Sisters is not Brian De Palma's first film, but in many ways it is the first Brian De Palma film, or at least the first to reveal (and revel in) his affinity with Hitchcock. A pre-Superman Margot Kidder struggles with a French-Canadian accent as an aspiring actress whose one-night stand leads to a homicidal morning-after. Jennifer Salt is a reporter with more moxie than tact or skill who sees the killing from her apartment window across the way. When the police fail to turn up any evidence of the crime, Salt investigates with a private eye (the hilariously relentless Charles Durning), uncovering the secret story of a pair of Siamese twins and a weaselly, stalker doctor. It's a mystery simmering in a stew of voyeurism, guilt, sex, and obsession. De Palma borrows from Rear Window, Psycho, and Vertigo (as well as Roman Polanski's Repulsion), and composer Bernard Herrmann quotes from his own Hitchcock scores (notably Psycho) for the unsettling music, but the result is more original than you might imagine. Laced with dark humor, inventive technique, and impressive technical precision (the split-screen sequences are breathtakingly effective), De Palma flexes his cinematic muscles with thrilling results, right down to the mordantly wry conclusion. De Palma graduated to big-budget thrillers, but this modest little production remains one of his sharpest, slyest, most engrossing films. Long available only in pallid video transfers, the Home Vision/Criterion letterboxed restoration is bright, clear, and beautiful. --Sean Axmaker
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Does your sister have issues like this?, 2007-11-08
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.
Great suspense!!!, 2008-11-24
Awesome thriller.
Will remind Hitchcock.
Losely based on some true facts.
Has some intense scenes mid-way when it its all clear to the viewers.
Terrific start. End may not be the best.
A Must watch, buy if you can view thriller again and again.
In the end, a quality work. The way the story unfolds itself is one of the best I have ever seen.
early Brian DePalma, ripping off Hitchcock, still charming, 2010-03-03
This is an early Brian DePalma thriller, back when his ripping off of Hitchcock was still considered charming. A young, very fetching Margot Kidder is under suspicion of a murder that may or may not have been commited by a twin sister she may or may not have. Briskly paced, exciting, and because it was cheaply made, has the feel of a low-rent exploitation flick. Good for fans of PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW, slasher films, and early '70s fashions!
Not bad as a story concept; needed better execution, 2010-03-14
This is a good concept, with conjoined twins being separated physically but not emotionally or mentally. Margot Kidder does a great job as Danielle, whose ex-husband is also the one who treated her surgically. Jennifer Salt is even better as a young reporter who witnesses the twins doing something terrible and takes it upon herself to investigate the matter, putting herself in great danger as a result.
The score is really awful, though, and some of the flashback or hallucinatory scenes are clumsy and just not very effective. These things take away from the film in some ways.
It's decent entertainment for killing an hour and a half.
Twisted Sisters, 2009-02-20
Certainly worth watching, and has some very riveting moments. As very low budget horror films go, it's pretty decent, but it hasn't aged particularly well as a film. Margot Kidder's performance is the best part of the film. I find the homage to Hitchcok wearing at times, and if you compare this to Hitch's contemporary film, Frenzy, De Palma is clearly very much the apprentice. Even so, there's more than enough creepiness to go around here and it's fun to watch, which is a lot more than you can say for many other films.
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