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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: SISTERS (1972)

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DIRECTED BY: Brian De Palma

FEATURING: Margot Kidder, , , Charles Durning, Lisle Wilson

PLOT: A reporter witnesses a murder through the window of a nearby apartment, but her investigation leads her to a mysterious pair of conjoined twins with a dark and disturbing past.

Still from Sisters (1972)

COMMENTS: Brian De Palma loves Alfred Hitchcock. Everyone knows that. Sure, he’s capable of turning a Stephen King novel into a horror classic or an old TV spy show into a -led blockbuster, but one thing we know for sure is that, once he got over his reputation as a comedy director, there’s nothing he’d rather do than a slavish impersonation of the Master of Suspense. Want proof? All you need to do is look at Body Double. Or Blow Out. Or the twisty thriller that made his name, Sisters.

The thing is, when you actually watch Sisters, what quickly becomes apparent is that De Palma is in conversation with Hitchcock as much as he is in thrall to him. Alfred Eaker compared De Palma to “a free jazz artist, filtering, reworking, improvising, and expanding on a body of filmmakers, which includes Hitchcock (among many others) to craft postmodern compositions that often are warmer and (as blasphemous as it may be to some) more startlingly original than the master.” Eaker also calls Sisters one of the best films of the decade. High praise, but quite defensible given the genuine shocks, eerie backstory, sprinter’s pace, and uncomfortable laughs the film still delivers. In the great tradition of low-budget horror flicks that rise above due to their cleverness and wit, Sisters is a welcome surprise.

Sisters does wear its forebears on its sleeve, with allusions to Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo among the most recognizable (to say nothing of the unmistakable sounds of Bernard Herrmann, who De Palma lured out of semi-retirement to lend his trademark screeching violins to the soundtrack), but the student demonstrates more facility with modern sensibilities than the Master, with powerful insights into racism and misogyny, comfort with sexuality, and  willingness to indulge the supernatural. Most notably, he’s found a subject that would absolutely appeal to Hitchcock, turning the true story of the conjoined Krivoshlyapova twins into Kidder’s pretty girl with a very dark past. Where Hitchcock made do with doppelgängers and confused identities, De Palma uses a genuine medical curiosity as his launchpad.

Mind you, none of this theft homage would mean a thing if the film didn’t work on its own terms. De Palma opens with a classic bit of misdirection, aping a “Candid Camera”-like show to introduce our charming hero couple, coquettish Kidder with her Québécois accent and babe-in-the-woods demeanor and the charming, unsuspecting Wilson. Their romantic whirlwind occupies the first third of the film. Wilson is an almost perfect gentleman, while Kidder tries to explain away her unusually possessive ex-husband (Finley, whose Slugworthian vibes never let up). If De Palma steals anything from Hitchcock, it’s the value of a full-blown paradigm shift that justifies admitting no one after the first act.

The film sputters a bit in Act II as the baton is handed over to Salt, who is a fine heroine but suffers from the script’s need to isolate her by setting her adrift in a sea of backstory and mansplainers. (Fun Easter egg: the headline of the news clipping from her column adorning her back wall reads, “Why We Call Them Pigs.”) It’s the final act, when she finally discovers the strange truth of Danielle and Dominique’s unusual condition and upbringing, that pays off in the form of the one scene that owes nothing to Hitchcock: a nightmare sequence in which Salt imagines herself as Kidder’s conjoined twin and gets the scoop on just what screwed up the twins so many years ago. It’s a moment that DePalma gets to claim all for himself.

It’s hard to deny that Sisters is De Palma doing Hitchcock. The parallels are just too obvious, right through to the final joke of the unclaimed MacGuffin. The truth, though, is that he does Hitchcock extremely well, with a freshness and modernity that the Master’s later works struggle to capture. If this is mere copycattery, audiences were right to demand more of it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“From start to finish, Sisters is weird, but it rarely feels like it’s just for the sake of being weird… the story is infused with so many off-kilter details that even when you know what’s going to happen, you can never predict how you’ll get there.” – Jenna Stoeber, Polygon (Blu-ray)

(This movie was nominated for review by Jim Wolfe. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

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Sisters (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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    APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: SCARLET WARNING 666 (1974)

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    AKA It Happened One Weekend; It Happened on Sunday; Scarlet Love; Love Is Deep Inside; Rockey’s Style (?); Scarlet Love 666

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    Beware

     

    DIRECTED BY: Palmer Rockey

    FEATURING: Palmer Rockey

    PLOT: A detective, and his twin, investigate the murder of their sister at the hands of a money-worshiping cult.

    Still from Scarlet Warning 666 (1974)

     

    WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The eccentric Palmer Rockey exhibits a complete failure to communicate his intentions with the baffling Scarlet Warning 666. Is it a legitimate attempt at an occult thriller, an arty anthem of nonconformity, an avant-garde meta-movie spoof, or just an excuse to cast himself in awkward sex scenes with buxom women? You’ll have no idea. File it with After Last Season as one of those mysterious objects you can’t believe actually exists.

    COMMENTS: Bruce (the good twin) is walking in the park, as he often does when investigating the death of his sister Jackie. Spread out on a yellow napkin, he discovers flowers and feathers covered in sticky stage blood. A clue? But what about the swinging knife? The pirate hat perched on the coffin? The totemic feathered rattle? The spinning plastic skull lit by a flashlight? The belly dancer? The silent topless woman with big “pineapples”? All clues?

    No, the movie does not have a clue. This impenetrable mystery is the magnum opus of one Palmer Rockey. Rockey was not an idiot. He was an army veteran and, surprisingly, he had a Ph.D. and had translated theology books into German. He was also a huckster, a womanizer, and some kind of sui generis madman. The opening of the film brags that Rockey plays 54 different roles—7 in front of the camera, and 47 behind it—but on screen, there are only 2 or 3 (it is often near-impossible to distinguish which character he is portraying). The film did, apparently, did go under 7 different titles, however. After its disastrous reception after its four-walled debut, a devastated but defiant Rockey further tinkered with his masterpiece for two decades, adding narration and reshooting scenes (removing his ex-wife Cookie, the former female lead, whenever possible). He incorporates footage from a student film he shot in the 50s, which is positioned as a nightmare/flashback and has nothing whatsoever to do with the later scenes. Knowing that Rockey added exposition throughout the years in an attempt to make the plot more comprehensible makes you wonder how puzzling the original must have been. His later narration is particularly bizarre, as he engages in dialogue with a falsetto version of himself discussing the movie’s genius, but also disparaging his own actors and deflecting criticism by claiming that the entire movie is a satire of some kind.

    If you like bad acting backed by bad singing (also courtesy of Rockey, naturally), mismatched film stocks, continuity errors, characters who appear without being introduced, randomly edited footage, and jarring sound edits, have I got the movie for you! Despite the added exposition, I doubt the film’s plot can be reconstructed even by the most dedicated scholars. There is an artistic intent here—Rockey depicts himself as a little guy, a nonconformist fighting an evil, greedy cabal—but it’s essentially undecipherable. We will simply note that it all ends on a bare stage with blue walls and a blue floor, which is either the site of a cult ritual or a symbolic psychodrama. A shirtless Rockey poses in front of spinning yellow wheel of justice while impassive bikini-clad women stand around in the background, and later spin in a circle dance. It segues into some kind of trial, followed by an action sequence of some variety with wrestling, gunplay, and a surprise twist reveal. All acted out in front of an idol of a plywood eagle inscribed in magic marker with a dollar sign. And as the credits roll, the audience leaves none the wiser as to what just went on.

    Scarlet Warning 666 (or whatever name the movie was known by) was lost for years, whispered about by and a few lucky others who caught it at its Dallas premiere. The flame was kept burning by obscure record collectors, who treasured Rockey’s supremely awful lounge-rockabilly soundtrack, and wondered in vain about the movie that had inspired such a bizarre artifact. Grindhouse Releasing actually tracked down a copy of the current version of the film and, in 2026, finally put out a Blu-ray for the first time, so everyone could see this astounding monument to one man’s misplaced egotism. The release is filled with interviews, including fans Stang and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, alongside contemporaneous witnesses like Rockey’s ex-wife Cookie and actor Ron DeSilva. But the portrait that emerges of the mysterious Rockey remains as inexplicable as Scarlet Warning 666‘s occult plot. The film, and the man, remain oddities of the weirdest stripe.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…a study of storytelling madness that will either test the patience of even the most adventurous cult film explorer or make them dizzy with delight…  if one can make it past the first ten minutes of the film, there’s a chance for some fun to be had, with the movie gradually becoming an alt-universe ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ as Rockey attempts to mix vanity, inscrutability, and desperation into a single offering of cinematic puzzling.”–Brian Orndoff, Blu-ray.com (Blu-ray)

    I think this movie is weirder than average
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    Palmer Rockey's Scarlet Warning 666

    Palmer Rockey's Scarlet Warning 666

    • Move over, Ed Wood and Tommy Wiseau. Stupefying, incomprehensible, and utterly insane, SCARLET WARNING 666 goes beyond THE ROOM and PLAN 9.

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    Capsules

    CAPSULE: SPLENDID OUTING (1978)

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    Hwaryeohan wichul, AKA Brilliant Outing

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    DIRECTED BY: Kim Soo-yong

    FEATURING: Yoon Jeong-hee, Lee Dae-keun, Lee Yeong-ha

    PLOT: A corporate executive travels in search of her dead twin sister’s spirit, and her journey descends into a surreal nightmare.

    Still from Splendid Outing (1978)

    COMMENTS: “I had read the original script. . . and I expected that once Splendid Outing was made into a film, then surely its ambiguous meaning would take on some clarity—so I watched it with that hope. But again, I still couldn’t clearly grasp what its meaning was supposed to be. In the end, I began to wonder if this film was meant to be some kind of puzzle: ‘Here’s the question, now you try to solve it.’” – Im Yeong, Film: Theory and Practice (March/April, 1978) (essay included in the booklet that comes with the Blu-ray)

    Gong Doo-hee embodies the stereotypical woman who “has it all”: president of the appropriately named Royal Group, she presides over multinational business deals with the regal grandeur of a queen. When she isn’t expanding her company’s territory into far-flung parts of the globe, she lectures at a local women’s association, gives television interviews about feminism, and supports a charity for disabled children. But when she goes home to her own kids in her suburban mansion, she sleeps alone and dreams of a mysterious girl performing a ritualistic dance.

    A widow, the one thing lacking in Gong’s life is a husband. We gradually learn, through voiceovers, how this troubles her; she’s clearly conflicted on whether or not to sacrifice her position in order to remarry. Whenever Gong is alone and we’re privy to her inner thoughts, a male voice narrates them. Are the men in her life still telling this liberated woman what to do? Or has she adopted a male internal monologue in order to increase her own sense of command and authority? This is but one of many fascinating ambiguities peppering the narrative, each of which reveals the complexity of Gong’s character, to the point of completely destabilizing her identity. When Gong consults a shaman about her repeating dream, she learns she had a twin sister who didn’t survive birth. The girl’s spirit still exists, but Gong needs to revisit the seaside community where she was born in order to communicate with her.

    Just the thought of the seashore gives President Gong a headache, but she dutifully drives herself out of Seoul, leaving behind her chauffeur and her pampered existence. Upon arrival, she’s immediately recognized by the villagers who, in a disturbingly strange scene, surround her car and attack her. In the first of many sudden outbursts of violence against her, Gong’s “splendid outing” quickly takes a very dark turn. Mistaken for the runaway wife of a local islander, fishermen promptly catch her in a fishnet. After a beautifully noir-ish sequence where she’s suspended in a shadowy space by blood-red netting, a crew of female divers deliver Gong to her “husband.”

    The rest of the film leaves the viewer wondering if this is a case of mistaken identity. Is Gong, the illustrious head of a corporation, now cruelly kidnapped and held hostage by a lawless populace? Or is she the village runaway, who abandoned her abusive husband five years ago to live an alternate life in the city? Or have she and her unborn twin somehow traded places in an act of cosmic reversal?

    The plot hints variously at all these possibilities by selectively surfacing the protagonist’s memories. Day-dream (1964), a seriously weird film also about a woman undergoing a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a man with whom she has an ambiguous relationship, apparently influenced Splendid Outing‘s fractured structure. The quick edits recall Franco Arcalli’s work with , as does the color symbolism of contrasting reds and blues. The soundtrack features a mix of traditional music and then-contemporary electronics, also similar to Day-dream‘s even more disorienting score. The changes in tone heighten the contrast between the past and the present, the rural and urban, but also underline moments of idealized femininity.

    Director Kim intended the film as a political allegory, one so skillfully hidden within a modernist narrative that government censors failed to notice it. While knowledge of South Korea’s Yushin Era history adds even more layers to President Gong’s story, that background isn’t necessary to appreciate the film’s sense of style and mystery. Even though the ending provides a concrete answer for Gong’s surreal experiences, a profound uneasiness still lingers even after the outing’s over.

    Splendid Outing initially found few screenings outside of its native South Korea. In 2026 Radiance rediscovered it and released it on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, it is not currently available for streaming.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…quite an unusual film that blends modernism with a touch of realism. It reminded me a little of the work of Luis Buñuel, in its mix of biting social commentary with surreal flourishes…  whilst Splendid Outing didn’t grip me as tightly as I’d have liked, I did admire its peculiar, dream-like approach and can’t deny it’s an intriguing and beautifully made film. I’d suggest you give it a watch and make up your own mind.”–David Brook, Blueprint: Review (Blu-ray)

    Splendid Outing

    Splendid Outing

    • Following an eerie dream a successful tycoon takes a drive to the seaside but her outing becomes a nightmare as she is kidnapped.

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    It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

    IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: BROTHERS OF THE HEAD (2005)

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    DIRECTED BY: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe

    FEATURING: Harry Treadaway, Luke Treadaway, Tania Emery, Jane Horrocks

    PLOT: Conjoined twins Tom and Barry are conscripted into show business by an unscrupulous promoter who plans to make them into gimmicky pop stars, but they follow their own path, becoming punk rock pioneers.

    Still from Brothers of the Head (2005)

    COMMENTS: The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker (who were, in fact, born in Siam, present-day Thailand), were a sensation from the moment they arrived on American shores. For a decade, they toured the country shocking audiences with the horrifying wonder of their physical connection. Their private lives were the subject of public fascination: they married a pair of sisters and fathered 19 children between them, fueling speculation about the physical and moral gymnastics required to accomplish such a feat. They kept slaves until the Civil War, returned to touring to rebuild their fortunes after the war, quarreled with P. T. Barnum, and eventually died within hours of each other.

    I was starting to think about how much the plot of Brothers of the Head paralleled the tale of the Bunkers, when the film came right out and made the comparison itself. The Howe boys hold up a picture of their predecessors in conjoined fame, noting the similarity of their situations, and when they did, my heart sank a little. Far from pre-empting any protests, it solidified my fear that this story of shocking originality—conjoined twins become rock stars—was only going to walk down well-tread paths.

    Brothers of the Head takes the form of pseudo-documentary, unspooling the short but eventful professional lives of the twins through a series of I-was-there talking head interviews and a remarkably deep treasure trove of archival footage. It’s delivered with a high degree of authenticity, which is not surprising considering the nonfiction pedigree of directors Fulton and Pepe, who helmed two different Terry Gilliam making-of documentaries, including Lost in La Mancha. But it also puts the central characters at a level of remove, ensuring that we can never know them except through the interpretations of others. And that choice ends up causing the most damage to the film’s credibility, because it means that any point the filmmakers want to make must be delivered with skull-crushing obviousness. Suggestions of impropriety by the boys’ handlers are conveyed through nervous tics and unsubtle hints. The arrival of a pretty girl to drive a (metaphorical) wedge between the brothers is endlessly dissected by present-day commentators with 20/20 hindsight. And were you wondering if Tom and Barry were working through their troubles via their songs? If the glaring transparency of the lyrics doesn’t tip you off, then the latter-day interviewee observing “Now what do you think that was all about?” with a cockeyed glare should Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: BROTHERS OF THE HEAD (2005) →

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    CHANNEL 366: DEAD RINGERS (2023)

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    DIRECTED BY: Sean Durkin, Karena Evans, Karyn Kusama,

    FEATURING: , Britne Oldford, , Jennifer Ehle, Michael Chernus, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine

    PLOT: The Mantle Twins, Beverly and Elliot, open a new “bespoke” birthing center in Manhattan, while Beverly pursues a new relationship and Elliot copes with her jealousy through self-destructive behavior.

    Still from Dead Ringers (miniseries) (2023)
    Courtesy of Prime Video

    COMMENTS: Amazon Prime’s six-episode adaptation of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers features twin gynecologists, a powerhouse central performance, an affair with an actress named Genevieve, an atmosphere of dread, and nothing else in common with the original. Plotwise, it’s about as far away from Cronenberg’s story as the 1988 film was from the real-life story of the Marcus twins.

    This difference, of course, is not only welcome but necessary. We wouldn’t care to watch a new “Dead Ringers” that had no other purpose but to take advantage of modern split screen technology or reflect contemporary mores. Adaptations need to bring their own narrative and thematic spins to justify their existence. The miniseries’ gender-swap of the twins from men into women here isn’t arbitrary or demographics-driven. The sex change makes perfect contextual sense; although we lose the background creepiness of unethical male gynecologists, the fact that these Mantles can actually get pregnant—a factor that the script leverages with its typical delightful devilishness—fully compensates for the loss. In fact, the options it opens up are so intriguing that I now want to see a third adaptation of Dead Ringers where the Mantles are fraternal twins, brother and sister. Think of the implications!

    Most of the praise for “Dead Ringers” quite rightly centers around Weisz’s magnificent performance, which is every but the equal of ‘. (Expect an Emmy nomination for Weisz, even though Irons was snubbed by the Academy in ’88.) Weisz slides effortlessly between Beverly and Elliot, making each one distinct while creating a believable sibling dynamic. The twins’ distinct personalities are established quickly as the sarcastic pair shut down a male creep at a diner, and at almost no point in the series’ entire run will you be confused as to which twin is which. The simple but effective visual conceit is that Beverly ties her hair in a bun, while Elliot’s mane flows freely; the hairstyles reflect their personalities. Beverly, more nuanced and reflective, is the main focus, while hedonistic, co-dependent Elliot is, at times, almost the stereotypical “evil twin.” Overall, the miniseries Mantles are better developed characters, a function of more time spent with them (we even meet their parents in one episode). The extended runtime also allows the story to take some diversions: a satire of 1%ers through an amoral opiate heiress financier, a bit of science-fictiony unethical genetic experimentation (“what Frankenstein shit are you up to?”), and a brief dip into gynecology’s unsavory racist history, as well as an unnecessary and somewhat disappointing subplot with the Mantles’ obsessive housekeeper, whose mysterious plots have less payoff than we might hope.

    While the original movie verged on horror, the miniseries focuses more on depraved drama, although it has plenty of birthing gore and other “sick” moments that will make you squirm with discomfort or disgust—both physical and moral. If that sounds like a Cronenbergian attitude, it sure is. But the feminine spin and unexpected twists make this a fresh trip into gynecology Hell. Reacquaint yourselves with these mirror-image Mantles; you’ll be glad you did.

    Footnote: in an example of “how to quote 366 Weird Movies without actually quoting it,” Alison Herman writes in her Variety review that “‘Dead Ringers’ recycles the film’s most indelible image, decking out the twins in blood-red sets of scrubs.” (Actually, Herman’s observation is almost certainly a coincidence, but we’ll take it as evidence of our subliminal influence on movie criticism.)

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “It’s a measure of this seductive horror show that you want to watch these weird sisters carry on, and on.”–Jasper Rees, The Telegraph (contemporaneous)