Danielle, a Canadian model and part-time actress living in New York, picks up a young Afro-American man in a TV show and takes him to her apartment; the two spend the night together, but the next morning the young man is killed. The crime is witnessed by a female reporter living across the street, but when she arrives in the apartment with the police, all traces of what happened have miraculously disappeared. It soon transpires that Danielle is 'the half' of a separated Siamese twin, and that her twin sister Dominique, the 'bad half' must be around somewhere ...
Sisters was Brian de Palma's first horror-thriller (he had done a few other things before), and some think also his best. De Palma is often criticized for aping Hitchcock, and there's no doubt that Psycho and (especially) Rear Window were sources of inspiration (furthermore the film was scored by Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrman), but De Palma uses them to create a style and a universe of his own, far removed from anything Hitchcock has ever done. With black & white pseudo footage about medical experiments involving physically and mentally handicapped people, he creates a horrifying image, often reminiscent of footage shot by the Nazis of their infamous eugenic experiments.
As more often with De Palma, credibility is stressed in a couple of scenes, but he saves his face with his dry humor and visual flair, creating a few astonishing effects with the split-screen technique. I wasn't too fond of Jennifer Salt in the role of the curious and over-zealous reporter, but Margot Kidder is outstanding as both Siamese twin sisters and William Finley (who plays the mad doctor) is as frightening as Dr. Mengele himself. This film is definitely not for the faint of heart.
