‘She’s not dead, she’s going to kill you!’
Danielle (Margot Kidder, doing a confusing French Canadian accent) is a model slash actress slash slasher living in Staten Island. A date with Lisle, (Phillip Woode) a man she meets on a game show ends in murder, (his, because as in the tradition of horror the Black guy dies first) but nosy neighbour investigative journalist Grace (Jennifer Salt) is on the case. When Grace’s overbearing mother isn’t mithering her about getting married, Grace is working hard to expose corruption and racism in the local police force. Grace also sports the most majestic 70’s hairstyle I’ve ever seen - a bouffant wolf-cut mullet of Marge Simpson beehive proportions. I’m a big fan of Grace.
It turns out that Danielle was a conjoined twin, joined with sister Dominique at the hip. AT THE HIP. During the operation to separate them, Dominique died. Grace is able to discover this via breaking and entering Danielle’s horrible cold flat (what is it with horrible cold flats in these films?) and a doctor that breaks some serious patient confidentiality laws.
Grace is also able to casually stroll into a mental health clinic because on-one in this film apart from her takes things seriously. However once she’s in there Danielle’s creepy doctor husband, Emil (William Finley) convinces the staff that Grace is a patient called Margaret and she’s promptly checked in with no questions asked...sharing a room with Danielle. Emil hypnotises Grace into believing she didn’t see Danielle murder poor Lisle whose only crime was being Black in the wrong place at the wrong time (according to the police officers that turn up following Grace’s phone call).
Emil ends up dead, and Grace, still under hypnosis, insists she saw nothing and cannot help the now interested police locate Lisle’s remains.
Sisters is an unexpectedly comedic film, largely to Larch, a PI hired by Grace to assist her in finding out exactly what happened in Danielle’s apartment. It’s not all fun, though. There’s a nightmarish black and white sequence that has a real uncanny valley feel to it and Emil is seriously sinister character.
It’s a short film that packs a lot in the 90-odd minute run-time
Content warning: referring to conjoined twins as ‘Siamese’, 70’s film blood that has the appearance and consistency of red paint. An appearance from the Annabelle / Poltergeist doll.
Final verdict: Lois Lane loses the plot.
Sisters is streaming on Shudder.
