Director Fred Eger Sister This remake of the 1973 Brian DePalma horror classic is far less interesting than the original. Festival co-director Julien Fonfrede promoted the screening as the film's North American premiere while, in fact, it was previously shown at the Sitges Film Festival. Despite the marketing faux pas, the film caught this reviewer's interest as a remake of a DePalma film.The story centers around Siamese twins who, as adults, must face surgery to live in health. Physiological disorders place their health in jeopardy and a severe psychological disorder of one results in an evil act. DePalma's film focuses on Danielle (Margot Kidder), a young woman who apparently murders her date, and Grace (Jennifer Salt), a nosy reporter who sees the whole thing. Things get strange when it is revealed that Danielle is a Siamese twin, and her nasty twin sister may have something to do with the murder.This remake lacks engaging characters, which is not to blame the acting but the directing. Stephen Rea as the psychiatrist Dr. Lacan and Lou Doillon as the "slave" Angelique give themselves completely to the performances and keep you connected, but that's about it. Character arcs are weakly resolved and therefore so is the drama of being a Siamese twin. The plot's dramatic story is not explored in depth and is unfortunately not saved by the murder subplot.Lou Doillon's acting is perfect�she handles the schizophrenic role of Angelique/Annabelle with a perfect blend of charm, vulnerability and complete wackiness. She took over from Asia Argento who was initially cast as Angelique/Annabelle but dropped out at the last minute. Shooting took place in North Carolina and Vancouver, British Columbia and explains the Canadian money used in the birthday cake purchase scene.The bloody stabbing and the scalpel absurdity at the end creates a superficial yet childish gore without showing what is at stake for these characters. When the last shot which is the same as the opening sequence fades to black, moviegoers leave without an emotional connection to what just happened. The entire film seems to be a pretext to practice directing skills for director Douglas Buck. Apparently the director, impatient to launch his film career, settled for redoing a classic horror film.While the film is good enough for general distribution, one would think that with the amount of dollars committed to the project, the final product would have had more depth of character.Sister Directed by Douglas BuckLou Doillon, Stephen Rea, Chloe Sevigny, William B. Davis, Gabrielle Rose, Talia Williams, Erica Van Briel, Dallas Roberts, Michael Curluck and Dylan Basu

cohuttablue-imdb I picked this up at a video-store closing, but wish I'd known something about it first ~ I would have looked for the original instead of the remake. Some graphic sex in the opening scenes made me look at the wrapper and realize there was a tiny "R" on the store label ~ so I guess I can't complain about sex and violence. I give it higher marks for psychological innuendo than for plot or character interest. This director watched too many Calvin Klein blue-jean commercials in the 80s. Lou Doillon as "Angelique" was a little too "French fashion model." The suspense held my attention, but the plot falls into the post-Silence-of-the-Lambs-that's-just-a-little-too-bizarre-to-believe category. Can't anybody make a plain old murder mystery anymore? The murder scenes were blood-soaked ~ they hauled out many crates of ketchup for this one; and never did explain how the good doctor got that mess cleaned up in five minutes. Perhaps we are to believe the police kept the reporter outside talking for, say, four or five hours while the murder scene was scrubbed? I must have had my head turned when they explained where the body was hidden ~ someone told me it was in the TV (cabinet, maybe?) The flashback scenes filled in some of the history of the twins, and were better than the surface plot ~ a few more of them might have made the film more satisfying. There was a puzzling little scene in which one twin wielded a knife at the reporter (who had morphed into dead-twin Annabelle). I'm not too sure if both girls died, or just walked off in a drug-induced haze; but I suppose, symbolically, we are to assume that Angelique is once more conjoined to a twin. I wouldn't be quite so critical if the expectation hadn't been so great. The film pretended to be arty. From the promising blurb on the back cover, I was expecting an interesting and satisfying psychological murder mystery, sans the Halloween hack-em-up gore. My mistake...

dbdumonteil Brian De Palma 's movie was not a classic,but it was a good thriller,with a good performance by Margot Kidder.The remake is a complete disaster .The screenwriters have changed the names of the twin sisters ,the lover has become a white man,there's no TV show and they have tried some new tacks unsuccessfully.Particularly awful is Stephen Rea's portrayal of a wicked physician .The more he tries to be disturbing,the more he makes himself ridiculous.Bad performances by the three actresses too .The birthday cake episode has been kept but the people in the shop are rather unpleasant .One thing you learn from this movie is that you must keep this kind of cake in a freezer.

Termi21 I saw this film yesterday in a special screening. At least it was free! Oh my god what a terrible movie. The script sounded promising and i am sure they could come up with great ideas based on the central story. But No! This is just an awful mess. The directing is just average, and the story is lame. But the worst thing about this film is the acting. All actors seemed bored, there was no chemistry between them and their acting was much worse than a bad soap opera! Even the "random false-alarm scares" are the most ridiculous i have ever seen. There is actually one scene where the camera zooms at the main actress'es face and a loud, scary sound is heard and...well THAT'S IT! It happened for no reason. They didn't show anything after that! Half the theater was laughing all the time. Usually my ratings are between 5 and 9, because i can always see the "effort" even in bad movies. But this one gets a straight "3".