Director Brian De Palma made a name for himself with this twisty shocker starring a pre-SUPERMAN Margot Kidder as the mysterious Danielle. A French-Canadian model, Danielle may be covering up a murder to protect her recently separated homicidal Siamese twin--or maybe not. Plucky female reporter Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) witnessed the killing from her apartment window but can't convince some clueless cops to investigate, so she hires a private detective (Charles Durning) to help her solve the case. Eventually she winds up at a mysterious sanitarium in the clutches of Danielle's creepy psychiatrist husband, Emil (William Finley), and begins to unravel the shocking truth.
Scary, funny, clever, and firmly rooted in a Hitchcockian universe, SISTERS set the tone for many of De Palma's future works, including DRESSED TO KILL and RAISING CAIN. Bernard Herrmann's score even recalls his work on PSYCHO--only this time he's spruced things up with bizarre electronic effects. However, not all of De Palma's work pays debt to the master of suspense. An innovative use of split-screen techniques to heighten the suspense is distinctly his own, as is a memorably twisted black-and-white hallucination sequence.
This ghoulish horror film deals with Siamese twin sisters who are surgically separated--with horrible results. One is mad, one is sane, and it is impossible to tell who is who.
Theatrical release: March 27, 1973
SISTERS was filmed on location in Manhattan and Staten Island, New York.
Olympia Dukakis can be seen briefly as an employee in a bakery.
DVD Features:
Region 0
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
Letterbox - 1.85
Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono - English
Subtitles - English - Optional
Additional Release Material:
Production Interviews: Brian De Palma - Director
Text/Photo Galleries:
Essay: MURDER BY MOOG: SCORING THE CHILL - Brian De Palma
Poster Art/Lobby Card
Stills/Photos: Production Stills
Publicity
Additional Text: RARE STUDY OF SIAMESE TWINS IN THE SOVIET
Cinematographer
Gregory Sandor: Director of Photography, early '60s-'80s, SISTERS (1973)
Writer and Conception
Brian De Palma: American Director/Screenwriter, SCARFACE (1983)
Art Director
Gary Weist: Art Director
Review 1:
"...Daringly perched between the exploitive funk of PSYCHO....and the romanticism of VERTIGO..." -- Rating: B
Source: Entertainment Weekly
pp.86-7 10/09/1998
Review 2:
"...Wildly entertaining....This is a leaner, edgier De Palma than we're used to seeing now..."
Source: Total Film
p.100 03/01/2001
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