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Sisters - Criterion Collection

Sisters - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hitchcock like Thriller and B movie.
Review: Brian Depalma's first mainstream movie was big win it came out in 1973, and some might say it's has best. Well, it's not, but it is not bad on the other hand. The story has many nods to Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann (who scored TAXI DRIVER and PSYCHO) did the (said to be his finest) score. It's about this woman (Margot Kidder, with irritating accent) whose separated Siamese twin maniacally murders her lover, but did she? The last half of the film get's a little odd (not to me that is) and the film seems like it stood have been called "REAR PSYCHO WINDOW" or something like that. The best part I like in the whole film is win she gets to have her cake.

1973. AIP. 93 MINS.

Rated R for Strong Horror Violence, Brief Language and nudity and for Some General Tone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderfully alternates between scary and funny...
Review: Sisters is the first Hitchcock homage that Brian De Palma launched, and it’s a doozy. There are scenes in any horror film that put the viewer on edge. Right before the slasher slashes his victim or before the monster eats his prey, a good director will rile us up. Sisters takes Hitchcock’s famous comment that he plays his audience like a fiddle to heart, and De Palma makes the first forty-five minutes of the film feel like anyone on screen is about to get hacked up, if only the bogeyman would jump out of the shadows. While there are films, like 1994’s Mute Witness, that offer a similarly distilled horror show, what’s amazing is that De Palma manages to create the sense of a threat without actually revealing the film as a horror film or showing us much action that’s in any way dangerous. He’s obsessing on details and using his camerawork to underline certain dialogue so that we know there must be a point to it all. Obviously, this narrative device has been lifted from Psycho, but it’s almost one-upped here since Sisters relies on fewer red herrings and is more up-front that we’re being teased, turning the passing of time without incident into a game instead of a frustration. The events that actually happen in the first half of the movie are so mundane that the suspense feels illogical even as it mounts, and as a result, it has a giddying effect. You know that the director is setting things up, and you can’t wait for the punch line to rear its head. It’s almost a shame that it has to end and launch the film’s plot properly.

Once De Palma’s initial game ends, the film doesn’t lose much. Sisters becomes an energetic reference to the great scenes and themes of Hitchcock’s work. Beyond Psycho’s plot structure, we get Norman Bates’ motivation. Vertigo’s psychological premise (the obsessive seeker creates the object of obsession in its absence), a body hidden in an apartment (taken from Rope), a Bernard Herrmann score, and Rear Window’s crime solving via voyeurism also turn up here. Even if the abundance of such themes don’t manage to make Sisters better than the combined work of Hitchcock, they all integrate well into the tale that the director tells. Certainly, Sisters feels less constrained by the indebtedness caused by creating homage than De Palma’s later works like Dressed to Kill or Obsession. De Palma’s constantly winking eye and his juxtapositions of horror and humor keep us interested as the film slides into logical implausibility. Though the performances are solid, the director is clearly the star of this show. As such, Sisters is the first De Palma film that I’ve seen that I would deem great, and the first one that makes me feel Pauline Kael’s famously rapturous praise of the director was completely founded*. (...)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: chilling, claustrophobic, sensational
Review: They don't make 'em like this anymore. DePalma picks up where Hitchcock's suspence legacy left off (even though Hitch was still kicking) and wrote Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt two of the best characters in the history of horror. What a hallucination sequence! It scares me just to think about the camera going into Grace Collier's eyeball and inside her imagination. Sheer brilliance to be sure. I love how Criterion's booklet unfolds with each page connected like siamese twins. I will always cherish it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: When Brian DePalma Knew How To Make Movies
Review: I saw "Sisters" because I am somewhat of a Brian DePalma fan. "Sisters" is one of DePalma's most superior films.

A reporter(Jennifer Salt) sees an actress commit a murder. No one believes Salt, so she enlists the aid of a detective(Charles Durning) and sets out to uncover the truth.

Brian DePalma made "Sisters" when he still knew how to make great movies. "Sisters" is DePalma'a third best film after "Carrie" and "Dressed To Kill." A pre-"Superman" Margot Kidder perhaps gives her very best performance as the tormented Danielle; I'm sorry that Kidder never became a superstar. Jennifer Salt is also great as the nosy reporter; I'm also sorry that Salt largely disappeared from the entertainment industry after making this movie. DePalma cleverly borrows elements from two of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest movies: "Psycho" and "Rear Window." DePalma almost literally grabs the viewers out of the audience and pulls them into the queasy and forbidding world of the characters in the story. The film is very suspenseful and shocking, and we develop a great concern for the characters. DePalma's use of the split-screen technique is absolutely brilliant. The inconclusive ending is frustrating yet intelligent. I'm sad that the director of this unforgettable thriller would go on to make such inferior movies as "Scarface" and "Raising Cain."

I plan to see this movie again. "Sisters" is for all Brian DePalma fans and anyone who loves suspense thrillers. Very well-recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A mysterious and mind-altering suspense piece of ART !
Review: Honestly, this film is the single perfect accomplishment of Mr. DePalma's career, and believe me, I think that "Obsession", "Carrie", and "Body Double" showcase the brilliance and magical suspense that only he can bring. Nevertheless, "Sisters" is my favorite of his films. It has a personal feel to it that displays DePalma's own obsessions and raw stylings, in much the same way that "Killer's Kiss" does for Kubrick and "Eraserhead" did for Lynch. If you have the chance, and don't like to be spoonfed, but rather enjoy enigmatic films, and revel in mystery...then you'd better watch "SISTERS".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Disturbing Score from Bernard Herrmann
Review: Bernard Herrmann's score to 1960's PSYCHO was a pure innovative exploration into the psyche of the main character and his victim evoking an emotional response from the viewer of both fear and suspense. It will remain a classic forever. Herrmann's score for 1973's SISTERS on the surface may seem almost a reworking of those same notions. However, I find the score to SISTERS to be far more disturbing and is a direct result of Herrmann's staunch nature to remain the innovator. PSYCHO's score followed an analytical structure resulting in a tour-de-force benchmark for all future psychological film music. The score for SISTERS is a mixture of a childlike taunting phrase repeated over and over with a heavy sub text that funnels the sound into an abyss of pure insanity that the viewer can not escape or forget. PSYCHO's score is frightening yet somehow appealing. This may be a result of its iconic nature. SISTERS's score is utterly revolting and sickening reflecting the graphic acts of violence the viewer sees on the screen. Where Hitchcock's film was primarily a psychological narrative and study reinforced by shocking scenes of perversity and violence, De Palma's film focuses on those very scenes of violence and shocking perversion. Hitchcock showed us what the mind was capable of. De Palma takes the act, works it backward and shows us how what appears to be an ordinary mind can perpetrate such horrendous acts. Herrmann's score for SISTERS jolts the viewer in an almost pornographic sense and is just as horrendous as the visual acts depicted on the screen. This score does not rely on its suspense elements (which are very good) for its strength. The score's ultimate message is its depiction of uncontrolled madness that is riveting and unbearable. Herrmann's genius goes straight to the emotional jugular.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: What were the folks at Criterion thinking?
Review: Clumsy, cheesy early effort by DePalma, who's gone on to have a very uneven career as an always interesting, if often undisciplined, director.

Why in a world where Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST is impossible to find, are the folks at Criterion wasting their considerable talents on dreck like this?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An Early classic by america's most underaated filmmaker
Review: This is the best mastering you are likely to see of this film for some time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brian De Palma's first real success is a knockout.
Review: Brian De Palma has always been one of Hollywood's great imitators. He's the same type of filmmaker as Tarantino: he's seen all the movies and simply cannot resist paying homage to his favorite films whenever he gets the chance (ie. The Odessa Steps sequence from 'The Battleship Potemkin' finds it's way into 'The Untouchables'). Here, De Palma begins a string of Hitchcockian susense films with 'Sisters', a powerfully disturbing look at the extreme bond between a set of siamese twin sisters (played by Margot Kidder in her pre-Superman days). De Palma seems so assured in his direction through-out the film, using flashy jump cuts, eerie montages and flashbacks, and (in simply one of the most amazing sequences ever captured on film) he utilizes the split-screen technique first used to great impact in Michael Wadleigh's "Woodstock" to create two unique viewpoints of a murder. A murder which sparks the film and sets it down it's path. A tabloid reporter named Grace (played by Jennifer Salt) witnesses the murder of a young black man by Dominique (the evil twin) from her window. When she brings the police to the scene of the crime, she meets Danielle (the normal twin) but finds no body... and no Dominique. Soon she sets out to find the truth and expose the murderer. The film is charged with voyeurism, and De Palma carries us along swiftly and adeptly. Bernard Herrmann's score and Gregory Sandor's excellent cinemotography add to what is already a chilling tale of identity and madness, where nothing is what it seems and a simple kiss can be deadly. Much thanks goes to Criterion for resurrecting this long lost classic and restoring it to pristine condition. A great film for fans of the bizarre.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I Liked this movie
Review: I think that this is a good movie. I enjoyed watching the maniac girl act out. Although, this can get tiresome after you've seen it a couple of times. The plot was good and there was an sufficient ending. I also liked the split-screen thingy they did. This was a nice suspense thriller.


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