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Sister, Sister
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Vinegar Syndrome Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (6th March 2022). |
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The Film
 Ever since the deaths of their parents, former debutant-turned-spinster Charlotte Bonnard (The Devil's Advocate's Judith Ivey) and her younger sister Lucy (Single White Female's Jennifer Jason Leigh) have run their plantation mansion The Willows as a bed and breakfast. Living in a state of arrested development, wandering around the estate and the swamps she believes are full of the ghosts of everyone who died there, Lucy does not seem to understand why her sister warns her off "playing" with their Cajun childhood friend-turned-handyman Etienne (Whore's Benjamin Mouton); that is, until handsome stranger Matt Rutledge (Haunted Summer's Eric Stoltz) arrives for the weekend, standing out as much for his looks and quiet demeanor compared to the other guests: domineering "blue hair" Mrs. Bettleheim (Unfaithful's Anne Pitoniak), her long-suffering daughter Fran (Hoffa's Natalija Nogulich), and henpecked son-in-law Lenny (Cagney & Lacey's Richard Minchenberg). While Etienne is outwardly violent in his jealousy about Matt's apparent interest in Lucy, Charlotte – whose current beau Sheriff Cleve Doucet (Retribution's Dennis Lipscomb) has called it quits over her reluctance to "upset" Lucy by accepting his proposal – subtly attempts to undermine her sister in the eyes of Matt and the other guests. Charlotte encourages Lucy to tell her ghost stories, only stopping her when she claims that one of the ghosts she saw was Jud Nevins (Hitcher in the Dark's Jason Saucier), Charlotte's wrong-side-of-the-tracks suitor whose mysterious disappearance during a party on the estate years has cast a shadow over the sisters with the locals. When someone brutally murders Lucy's beloved dog, Cleve suspects Etienne, but Etienne knows that there is only one person at The Willows "used to killing." As a flood washes out the town and isolates The Willows, an increasingly deadly triangle forms as Charlotte and Matt vie for an increasingly fragile Lucy who believes that a dark secret has brought supernatural retribution upon the sisters. Co-scripted by Joel Cohen (Toy Story), the directorial debut of Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) is a "Southern Gothic" on the surface, highlighting psychological damage underlying its glossily-photographed real and imagined fleshy couplings; and yet, it manages far more successfully a sense of erotic melodrama than distributor New World's other "adult" film of the same year: the low-rent, big screen adaptation of V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic – for which Condon might have been a better choice in replacing Wes Craven than Jeffrey Bloom (Dogpound Shuffle) – without slipping into camp or parody. The film is at its best when buoyed by the performances of Ivey, Leigh, and Mouton focusing on psychological and emotional manipulation (although never to the level of Karen Arthur's wonderful horror-tinged chamber piece The Mafu Cage about codependent sisters). Stoltz is rendered bland by the need to keep his character ambiguous; and indeed, the spell woven by the early scenes in the film is undermined by the more "mainstream thriller" elements of the third act including one character's unmotivated decision to look into a past crime, another character not "recognizing" the true identity of another until the most convenient moment, and some stalk and chase mechanics before trying to recapture the atmosphere of earlier half of the film with an ambiguously supernatural climax; and perhaps this is less indicative of studio interference than the more mainstream, high concept subsequent work of Condon. The film's ending on a wedding scene is not unlike the coda to the Condon-scripted Strange Behavior, a slasher-era parody of fifties horror flicks set in the American Midwest but shot in Australia. The Panavision photography of Stephen Katz (Messiah of Evil) is superficially pretty at first but surprises with a number of striking compositions split between the foreground and background, and the symphonic scoring of Richard Einhorn (The Prowler) is perhaps better suited in its gentleness than comparable (yet admirable) work of New World's in-house composer of the period Christopher Young (Hellraiser). 
Video
Shot at the end of 1986 but not released theatrically until 1988, Sister, Sister was not quite the mainstream hit New World may have been anticipating, going to television, VHS, and laserdisc in a panned-and-scanned transfer that gave the impression of a TV movie with some commercial-ready fade outs. The film's first DVD release came from budget bin label Top Ten which was not only panned-and-scanned but also the film's television version (85:48) which deleted the entire pre-credits sequence (featuring nudity) and some other bits not nudity and bloodshed. It was quickly superseded by Anchor Bay's 2001 DVD which featured an anamorphic widescreen transfer, a 5.1 remix, and extras. When Image outbid Anchor Bay on renewing the rights to the Lakeshore library, Image put the film out as part of their barebones Midnight Madness Series line. Transferred from a 2K restoration of the 35mm interpositive, Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray is a nice upgrade, greatly aiding the sense of theatrical slickness to a film that looked gauzy on VHS and DVD. Exteriors now look misty and subtly foggy rather than diffused in front of the lens while interiors look warm and intimate without skintones looking jaundiced as they could under candlelight once the power cuts out. 
Audio
Vinegar Syndrome has not included the 5.1 remix, but the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 rendering of the Ultra Stereo mix. Dialogue is clear and centered, the score has some nice spread from harp pluckings to orchestral strings – the use of Pat Henley's "The Same Old Song" in one scene may subtly underline a sense of stasis in the lives of the characters – and the surrounds are awash in bayou sounds, rainfall, and torrential storms. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by co-writer/director Bill Condon ported from the Anchor Bay DVD in which he recalls the lucky breaks that lead to his directorial debut, coming to Los Angeles to establish residency to study at UCLA's film school but ending up working at Avco Embassy under new president Robert Rehme who he regarded as one of three mentors in his life, along with director Michael Laughlin – for whom he scripted Dead Kids and Strange Invaders – and Sister, Sister producer Walter Coblenz. He recalls being offered a slasher script by Rehme – who had moved to New World – called "The Louisiana Swamp Murders" at a time when he was willing to take any project as his directorial debut after a number of failed developments, and being allowed to rework the script. His surmises that his concoction that he describes as a bit of Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and Old Dark House proved attractive to Rehme after the release of Jagged Edge which he describes as an "upscale sexy thriller." He recalls his luck in securing Stoltz, Leigh, and Ivy – who grew tired holding out for the Lorraine Bracco role in Ridley Scott's Someone to Watch Over Me – and in working with editor Marion Rothman who was blunt in her assessment of the first edit of the film as a "disaster," (and whose assistant Virginia Katz became his regular editor subsequently) and cinematographer Stephen Katz. He also reveals that the alligator that makes a jump scare appearance was a leftover mechanical prop from the cult favorite Alligator. He recognizes the faults in the project pointed out by Rothman as originating conceptually and now only sees all the film's flaws but also recognizes that there is still a lot he loves about the film. Next up is a brand new audio commentary by author & critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas who discusses the difficulty of critics in assigning a genre to the film, often dismissing it as a slasher while she suggests a combination of the Gothic – along with the Southern Gothic – and neo-giallo stylistics that have filtered through the slasher and the works of Hollywood thriller stylists in the eighties. Heller-Nicholas notes that the film's underlying theme of rape trauma is most Southern Gothic in the way that the characters are frozen in the "pastness of the past" (making the incisive observations that Charlotte's gaslighting of her sister goes back farther than the arrival of catalyst Matt, and that Lucy may be the more outwardly "delicate" sister but that Charlotte's life is more paralyzed by fear than familial obligation). In "Being an Outsider" (13:50), actor Mouton recalls that he left Louisiana and enrolled in the New York Academy of Dramatic Artis and then moved to California only to get his first role in a film that required him to do a Cajun accent. He also recalls working with Stoltz and Leigh – who he perceived as friendly but guarded, particularly when an interviewer asked questions about her father (Vic Morrow having been tragically killed on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie – and also recalls Condon being so excited to be directing his first film. In "Staying Honest" (11:46), actress Nogulich recalls friend Ivey recommending her to Condon, preparing for the role the way she would with a larger part, and varying her multiple deliveries of the line "Ma!" based on she perceived as being left unsaid in the scene.  In "Orchestrating Altered States" (24:52), composer Einhorn recalls experimenting with electronic music and getting his first scoring job with 's Shock Waves, becoming a producer for CBS Records' classical music division where he worked on horror score by night – including Wiederhorn's Eyes of a Stranger (also with Leigh) – having run in the same social circle as Condon in college but being recommended to score Sister, Sister years later by a talent agent, spotting the film during a shutdown while the producers were raising more money, and having only three weeks to compose the score. Since he had already traveled to Prague to work with a film symphony orchestra who recorded at a set rate, he suggested using them again for the film. He recalls not only filling the score in with a mashup of Dvorak's "From the New World" symphony – also riffed on by Rick Wakeman for his score for Ken Russell's New World production Crimes of Passion – and Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" (the interview includes a comparison of recordings of the two pieces to the finished cue in the film), and also credits orchestrator Edgardo Simone with not only transcribing the parts for each instrument but also fleshing out the themes (sometimes on the basis of notes like "high creepy strings"), as well as synthesizer programmer-later composer Jeff Rona (The In Crowd). In "Going to War" (14:48), cinematographer Katz reveals that he collaborated with Condon until he decided to move to the South of France – the interview was recorded in New Jersey while he was there shooting a film for the Arte France channel – and he recalls operating the camera himself at Condon's insistence, using fog and toxic smoke cookies, shooting at light levels as low a five footcandles – admitting that like a lot of cinematographers of the eighties, he was aping Barry Lyndon d – using the scope frame, and also being influenced by The Conformist in mixing indoor and outdoor color temperatures. The disc also ports over from the Anchor Bay DVD the same deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by co-writer/director Bill Condon (3:03) which includes one of the uses of captioned introductions of a character intended in the film – patterned after the first act of Mean Streets – and a short extension of Lucy's and Matt's bed conversation. The former introduces a plot point referenced later in the film, but the latter just redundantly reiterates the psychological conflict. Sadly, we do not get any of the original ending that Condon and Katz both mentioned as being superior to the obligatory final jump scare. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (1:49) framed at 1.85:1. 
Packaging
Housed with the disc is a reversible cover and a 12-page booklet with essay by film programmer/historian Cristina Cacioppo titled "Drawn to a Flame: Bill Condon's Sister, Sister Plays With Fire" in which she draws further parallels in the Southern Gothic conceit of "eccentric sisters in the decay of family property" to Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and even Jack Hill's Spider Baby. The first 5,000 copies ordered directly from Vinegar Syndrome include a special limited edition embossed slipcover designed by Haunt Love.
Overall
Too mainstream to be a satisfying Southern Gothic but never spilling over into the laughable camp of New World Pictures' other gothic melodrama of the same year Flowers in the Attic, Bill Condon's feature debut Sister, Sister is still one of the stronger of the studio's output as they attempted to grow beyond their early eighties horror origins.
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