"SISTERS".......AS IF STATEN ISLAND WASN'T HORRIFYING ENOUGH........

Sisters (1972)   Not sure we could justify calling any of Brian DePalma's lurid Hitchcock homages good movies.......

                But jeez, they're damn fun to watch. ....

                 This one kicks off like gangbusters.......with Bernard Herrmann's music in brazen, delirious overdrive while the main titles display creepy photos of malevolent embryos........(Herrmann pushes the electronic Theramin wailing to operatic heights.....glorious.)

                  The opening sequence.....nothing less than brilliant in first setting up an unsettling, silently cinematic scene that abruptly turns into a game show parody that seems left over from DePalma's previous, freewheeling satires, "Greetings" and "Hi Mom"......(the tasteless, dopey game show appeared wildly satiric in 1972.....now it just look like something you'd see on any cable network....)

                  Then we're off to the races, with a French-Canadian actress-model (Margot Kidder, not kidding at all) tormented by her homicidal Siamese twin, from whom she's been surgically separated.

                   Or has she?

                   Needless to say, it bodes not well for any guy who thinks he'll enjoy a one night stand with her.......

                   The Big Twist is fairly obvious but that's not really why anyone would spend time with this movie.......you get your jollies by watching DePalma pluck out his favorite Hitchcock riffs and drop them into the movie like a Greatest Hits medley.......(as in....hey, isn't that from 'Rear Window'?.....isn't that from 'Psycho'?....etc, etc).

                   Jennifer Salt takes on the thankless role of Innocent Bystander Sucked Into The Madness......a Staten Island newspaper columnist who aggressively attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding Kidder and her murderous sibling.

                     Blood flows, wack-a-doodle dreamy flashbacks unfold and Bernard Herrmann's gorgeous disturbing music underscores it all.

                     "Sisters" doesn't have the high gloss and polish that DePalma would bring to his subsequent faux-Hitchcocks  ("Obsession", "Raising Cain", "Body Double")......but its cheap, slapped together 'Staten Island Rear Window' vibe is part of its peculiar charm.

                    3 sharp carving knives (***) and blessed with a 4 star Herrmann score (****)......a gruesome good time for all.....