SXSW Review: Sisters

"Lord help the mister/
Who comes between me and my sister/
And Lord help the sister/
Who comes between me and my man."

-- Irving Berlin, "Sisters"

Debuting at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival, Douglas Buck's Sisters looks like yet-another remake -- this time, of Brian De Palma's 1973 thriller of the same name. Something about Sisters caught my eye in this iteration -- possibly the cast, including Chloe Sevigny and Dallas Roberts among others. The curious thing is that I've never seen De Palma's original -- I was going into Sisters blind, and curious if the film would work on its own without memories and recollections laid over it to fill in any blank spots or uneven patches.

And from the jump, Sisters doesn't quite feel like a remake -- to use a musical metaphor (which, for a film that debuting at SXSW, is certainly allowable), Buck's take on Sisters felt less like a cover version than a mash-up. Sisters has De Palma's original story and credits him, but a lot of the film's look, feel and sensibility are on loan from that other avatar of '70s horror, David Cronenberg. You have all of the classic De Palma touches in Sisters -- voyeurism, faux-Hitchcock, cheap and greasy surprises that satisfy -- but you also have many classic Cronenberg elements -- bizarre institutes of medicine, signifying and stomach-churning scars, winter-grey Canadian shades in the cinematography.

Sisters begins on the gothic, chilly grounds of an institute run by Dr. Phillip Lacan (Stephen Rea); Lacan's unusual methods and secrets have earned him renown and scrutiny in equal measure. There's a kid's carnival going on; Dr. Lacan is doing magic tricks, assisted by his partner -- and ex-lover Angelique (Lou Dollion). New local doctor Dylan Wallace (Dallas Roberts) is a welcome help, volunteering his time; less welcome is journalist Grace Collier (Chloe Sevigny), sneaking onto the grounds in clown-camouflage to continue her surveillance of Dr. Lacan. ...

In short order, Wallace witnesses Lacan and Angelique's complex connection, and Collier's thrown off the grounds. Wallace offers Angelique a ride back to the city; there's something a little off about Angelique, and a little alluring; Wallace hears Angelique talk about her sister, Annabelle, and that also seems odd. Just how odd, exactly, will become more and more apparent -- and haunt Wallace for the rest of his life, even as Collier and Lacan duel for advantage in a long-running feud. ...

Sisters is full of shocks and startling moments -- grim revelations and grisly murders, sins seen from afar and committed intimately. The tone of Sisters feels curiously muted, though -- even with all of the bloodshed and bizarreness that spills out onscreen in Buck and John Freitas's revision of De Palma's original script, the film feels curiously poky near the end -- one protagonist dies, the other sinks into madness, while both those events are certainly chilling, they're not exactly rousing. Sisters isn't quite my cup of spilled, sticky crimson blood, but it did make me curious about DePalma's original -- a partial victory, and one that a lot of remakes wind up having to settle for.