Sisters (1973)

... aka: Blood Sisters

Directed by:
Brian De Palma

French-Canadian model and aspiring actress Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) meets the chivalrous Phillip Woode (Lisle Wilson) on the set of a Candid Camera-like show called "Peeping Toms." He wins dinner, drinks and dancing for two at the African Room. She wins a set of Reynold's stainless steel cutlery. The two meet up after the show, decide to go to dinner together and return to her Staten Island apartment later that evening. All the while, Danielle's ex-husband Emil (William Finley) makes his presence known; first making a scene at the restaurant and then "standing guard" outside of the building. To throw him off and hopefully make him leave, Phillip moves his car around the block, sneaks back over and spends the night. The next morning, he awaken to discover that Danielle's twin sister Dominique (also Kidder) is also there visiting... and she isn't too happy about something. Though he doesn't actually see her, he can hear the two arguing (in French). He learns it's their birthday and, after Danielle sends him down to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her, he decides to lighten the mood by getting the sisters a birthday cake. When he returns to the apartment, Dominique viciously stabs him to death.

Across the courtyard in another apartment house, struggling reporter Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt), who usually writes fluff for the disreputable Staten Island Panorama paper, witnesses flashes of the murder and sees Phillip trying to write out "help" with his own blood on a window. She calls the cops and immediately heads over there to wait on them. Meanwhile, Emil shows up at Danielle's, the two hide the body inside of the sofa, clean up Dominique's mess and remove all traces of evidence so that by the time Grace and a pair of detectives show up to look around, there's nothing to be found. Still, Grace knows what she saw and, though she no longer has the help of the police, she decides to do some investigating of her own. Her editor pairs her up with low rent private eye Joseph Larch (Charles Durning) and the two get to work looking into matters, which turn up disturbing revelations about the twins (who were at one time conjoined and one of whom may have died on the operating table during separation years earlier) and other shady dealings at a secluded mental hospital that may include hypnosis and mind control.

Filmed on a low-budget of half-a-million dollars, Sisters was a critical and financial success in its day. It was also De Palma's first feature of many done in tribute to Alfred Hitchcock; a cycle that would later include the thrillers Obsession (1976), DRESSED TO KILL (1980), Body Double (1984) and others. Each of these films wore their influences on their sleeves, with direct reference paid to the likes of Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) not only in the plots, but also in their visual style, direction, music and camerawork. Sisters is no different. It extracts its central premise from Window, with a voyeuristic lead character witnessing a murder but being unable to convince the authorities of it. The first abrupt, brutal and shocking murder sequence is the movie's Janet Leigh "shower scene" and a sequence where cops search Danielle's apartment as a corpse lies hidden inside the couch right in front of them hearkens back to Rope (1948), which featured a murder victim's body hidden inside a chest while the killers are hosting a party. The connection is solidified with a commanding, eerie score from Bernard Herrmann, who of course also did the music for Vertigo, Psycho and numerous other Hitchcock films. The real question is: Does Sisters make it as both a tribute to "The Master of Suspense" and as its own movie? For the most part, I'd say yes.

Derivative as this and his other Hitchcock-inspired efforts may be, the real joy of De Palma's early thrillers isn't so much in the stories themselves, but in the film-making techniques used to tell those stories. He's quite well-known for utilizing split screen, and we see it here too during several sequences. It's used particularly well during a suspenseful sequence that simultaneously shows us Emil and Danielle hurriedly hiding the body and trying to tidy up while Grace and the cops head toward the apartment. Toward the end, there are some wonderfully stylish and imaginative sequences where Grace is drugged and envisions herself as one of the twins (still attached to the other). Instead of just simply cutting to flashback mode or doing something like putting a waver-effect on the screen, De Palma chooses to zoom in on Salt's pupil until all is lost to black. The image then pulls back from the darkness to reveal a a circular, eye-shaped black-and-white vision of an earlier time. These sequences are extremely odd and somewhat surreal; hazily blending hallucination with reality in a very neat and inventive way. How the Grace character is able to see these things - or what kind of unknown drug she's been shot up with that allows her to see them (granted it did) - muddies up the finale a tad, but there's still much here to enjoy.

The acting all around is pretty good, with Kidder (who was dating De Palma at the time she made this) in a particularly showy role, Finley memorable as her creepy lover and Salt fine as the assertive heroine. Showing up in small roles are Barnard Hughes (The Lost Boys) as a LIFE Magazine writer who'd previously done a story on the twins, Mary Davenport, Salt's real-life mother playing same here, Dolph Sweet as the disbelieving detective and an unbilled Olympia Dukakis as a baker. De Palma (who co-scripted with Louisa Rosa) was inspired to write the film after reading an article about real-life Siamese twins Dasha and Masha Krivoshlyapova.

After its initial theatrical run in the U.S. and in Europe, Sisters played at the Venice Film Festival in 1975, made its TV debut on NBC in 1976 and then saw a VHS release through Warner in the 80s. Criterion picked it up for DVD distribution in 2000; offering up a digitally-remastered "special edition" in widescreen. In 2006, it was remade by Douglas Buck (Cutting Moments) on a paltry 60,000 dollar budget that somehow afforded a cast that included Chloë Sevigny (as the reporter), Stephen Rea (as the doctor) and French model Lou Doillon (as the twins). The film received a direct-to-DVD release in 2008 with almost no buzz whatsoever created for the film. Few ended up watching it and most of those who did don't appear to think too highly of it.

★★★

It's Alive (1974)

... aka: Baby Killer

Directed by:
Larry Cohen

One of the biggest fears of a soon-to-be-parent is that something's gonna be wrong with their baby and that's the realm director / writer Larry Cohen works within here. With today's technologies, future parents can find out all kinds of useful information long before the actual birth, but back in the 70s things as simple as weight and gender weren't even known pre-birth, let alone major problems such as deformities. As It's Alive opens, it's in the wee hours of the morning when middle-class suburban housewife Lenore Davis (Sharon Farrell) goes into labor. She and her husband Frank (John P. Ryan) drop their 11-year-old son Chris (Daniel Holzman) off with family friend Charley (William Wellman Jr.) and head to the hospital. Lenore's first birth went smoothly enough. The baby was out in less than an hour. But this one just feels different. The pain is more excrutiating and it looks like it's going to be complicated birth. Instead of being able to stay with his wife, Frank is ushered off to the waiting room with a few other expectant fathers. The next time he'll see his wife, she'll be strapped down to the table deliriously screaming "What's wrong with my baby?" The operating room is covered in blood, every doctor and nurse in the room is dead and the Davis baby is missing in action.

At first Frank thinks someone has abducted his baby, but it's made quite clear that the carnage was caused BY his baby... and it has escaped the hospital. Questions quickly arise about just what the baby is - Animal? Mutant? - and what caused it turn out the way it did - Genetics? Pollution? Radiation? Side effects from medication? - but there are no easy or clear answers. As if that shock isn't bad enough already, because the incident quickly makes the news, the family not only has to deal with the media following them everywhere they go but also being stigmatized by their own community. Frank is promptly canned from his job at a public relations firm by his boss (Guy Stockwell) and a nurse hired to care for Lenore starts drilling her with personal questions because she's trying to secretly record the information. The family can't trust anyone and their son can't even go to school. Meanwhile, the mutant baby - who possesses fangs and claws, super strength, telepathy and sees in blurred vision - is prowling around the neighborhood killing people (including the neighborhood milkman).

Frank tries to maintain his composure through all of this and attempts to disassociate himself from the child emotionally. He only refers to the baby as an "it" or a "monstrosity," cooperates with the police in trying to kill it and even signs over the body of the baby - once it is apprehened or killed - to a medical research facility. The manufacturer of a birth control pill Mrs. Davis took wants the baby more than just dead, but completely destroyed so no autopsy or research can take place and possibly implicate them. Police Lt. Perkins (James Dixon - a regular presence in the director's films) - leads the police investigation as various victims turn up. Strangely, the baby pays a visit to Frank and Lenore's son Chris's school, which leads authorities to suspect the baby may be hunting down its birth family. And there's definitely no doubt about that once the baby turns up at the Davis home. Lenore, who's gone a little crazy over all this, is even able to temporarily pacify the usually violent infant with kindness, milk... and raw meat. Once Frank finds out what's going on, he manages to shoot and injur the baby. Things end up underground in the L.A. sewers as the police and Frank try to hunt the baby down.

The idea of a killer infant may sound funny in theory, but the filmmakers take this material rather seriously and present the idea in a thoughtful and intelligent way. Much of what makes this film so interesting and oddly compelling is that it is told, rather unexpectedly, from the perspective of the father instead of the mother; detailing Frank's conflicted emotional journey to come to terms with what's going on. Ryan is excellent in the role and adds much credibility to this film. There's some pitch black comedy in here as well, such as a funny bit where a police squadron hear a baby's cry and end up surrounding and pulling their guns on a normal human baby. Rick Baker was in charge of creating the mutant and did an effective job of it, though it is actually seldom shown. Andrew Duggan (a professor), and Michael Ansara (police captain) both have small roles and Bernard Herrmann did the score.

A surprise commercial and critical hit, It's Alive helped to put Cohen on the map. He followed it up with the bizarre GOD TOLD ME TO (1976) and then IT LIVES AGAIN (1978), the first of two It's Alive sequels. The other was IT'S ALIVE III: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (1986). It was remade in 2008 by director Josef Rusnak. VHS / DVD from Warner Brothers.

★★★1/2

It Lives Again (1978)

... aka: Baby Killer II
... aka: It Lives Again: It's Alive 2
... aka: It's Alive II

Directed by:
Larry Cohen

Much of the cast and crew are back from the director's breakthrough hit IT'S ALIVE (1974), including writer / director / producer Larry Cohen, composer Bernard Herrmann, make-up effects artist Rick Baker and actors John P. Ryan and James Dixon, for this watchable though somewhat disappointing follow-up. In Tucson, Arizona lawyer Eugene Scott (Frederic Forrest) and his law school dropout homemaker wife Jody (Kathleen Lloyd), who's about a week away from giving birth to the couple's first child, are throwing a baby shower. As the crowd clears out, a stranger remains in their home. He introduces himself as Frank Davis (Ryan). It takes the couple a minute to realize it, but he's the same guy who's been in Time Magazine and on the news: the father of the very first mutant, killer baby. Since his case, several other similar incidents have occurred across the U.S., including one in Seattle, where the infant was killed immediately after birth. A blood sample taken from Jody has revealed that she's also likely to be give birth to one of these babies. The Scott home is already being staked out by government agents hired to snuff out the baby once it is born. Frank is there simply to give them another alternative.

Sympathetic to the predicament the Scott family and others are in, Frank and doctors Forrest (Eddie Constantine) and De Silva (Bobby Ramsen) have created a mobile operating room unit located inside a truck. The option is to tranquilize the baby before it is born and then place it in an incubator / cage. When Jody suddenly goes into labor (a week early), they can't reach Frank by phone and are forced to go to the hospital instead. Dozens of policemen are there and a hired baby-killer named Mr. Mallory (John Marley), whose wife had been killed by one of the babies, waits by her bed with a loaded gun. Frank manages to sneak in, holds Mallory at gunpoint and then gets Jody and her husband moved into the mobile unit. Jody gives birth on the truck, the baby is placed in its cage and then transported to a safe house in Los Angeles run by Dr. Perry (Andrew Duggan). There, compassionate doctors experiment on the infants. They already have two in captivity (which they've nicknamed Adam and Eve) and the Scott baby makes the third. Perry wants them to realize their maximum potential, believe they're "the next step forward in evolution" and the babies prove to be highly intelligent, may be able to reproduce at around age 6 and can be non-violent when the surroundings are non-threatening. Like in the first film, they also are able to somehow psychically find their own parents.

With help, Jody - who's still in Tucson being watched by the police - is able to sneak away to Los Angeles to be with Frank, her husband and baby at the safe house. Unfortunately, her backstabbing mother (Lynn Wood), who's in cooperation with Mr. Mallory, had snuck a honing device into her purse beforehand. Lt. Perkins (Dixon) is called in again to organize a police raid on the house. The infants - with their powerful perception - know something is afoot and start freaking out as the police gather around the home. They manage to escape from their cages and kill several of the doctors. Two of the babies are killed by the police, but the Scott baby - with help from Frank - manages to escape into the woods. Eugene and Jody decide to cooperate with the police, who set them up in a country home knowing the baby will eventually find them, but the couple have second thoughts when the baby finally does show up.

Part 2 is a watchable, though pretty mediocre, follow-up. It's at its best in the beginning dealing with the warring factions of the baby sympathizers vs. the baby destroyers; a sort-of parallel to the opposing Pro Life and Pro Choice movements. The babies generally only get violent when their own lives are at stake or someone means them harm. However, they are also shown to get violent when people simply react to them with fear. They're instinctually-driven beings; very animalistic in some regards but not without some very human feelings and seem to want to return to their parents simply to be loved and nurtured (having some raw meat on hand doesn't hurt, either). However, none of that really changes the fact that they're unpredictable, very dangerous and kill indiscriminately whenever they feel threatened.

Ideas are thrown around about taming or teaching them better, but other ideas are also present, such as the babies being a new, evolved form of human who may threaten mankind if their number gets out of hand. The fact is, no one really knows much about them. Since the epidemic is still in its infancy, doctors don't have enough information to make a call one way or another. The government, on the other hand, could care less about answers and just want the things dead on arrival. The film raises some interesting moral and ethical questions along the way, but doesn't really provide any concrete answers. It also doesn't provide enough new material to really warrant this sequel, which rehashes much from the first. Things become less interesting and more formulaic toward the end, a last minute attempt to inject some heart into the proceedings rings false and some of the dialogue delivery (particularly by Mr. Forrest) is astoundingly bad. It's not an awful movie; just a lesser shadow of the first one.

One of the last shots in the film is a city shot of a trolley going down a hill. Off in the background is an island. The third and final film in this series was IT'S ALIVE III: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (1986).

★★