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Sexy Sisters AKA Die Teuflischen Schwestern (1976)
R0 - Switzerland - V.I.P. Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (16th October 2005). |
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The Film
 Team Franco & Dietrich (director Jess Franco and producer Erwin C. Dietrich) are at loose again, and the results are kinda expected. “Sexy Sisters” is a pure sexploitation film, with a lot of frontal nudity and softcore-scenes. As usual, there are a few aspects on the story, that should add something more than just nudity and moaning, but this time those aspect are not that well presented. Countess Edna Luise Von Stein (Pamela Stanford) goes to the local nightclubs and dark streets to find some male company (no, not to watch the TV together..). She seduces them, and takes them to her mansion. Then, when things get steamy, Edna´s sister Milly (Karine Gambier) is introduced, and like only in the films by Jess Fanco, she is tied to the bed, hungry for sex. But the reason of Milly´s behavior is that Edna has been injecting some drug into her (with the help of the Dr. Barrios (Jack Taylor)), that makes Milly kinda nymphomaniac. The goal of this is to get Milly mentally ill, so that Edna then can inherit the millions that are now in Milly´s possession (she doensn´t know that of course). Fortunately for Milly, there´s one person who might be able to help her.. “Sexy Sisters” is a nicely shot film, with a good balance of the images and editing. Like already hinted in the first chapter of this review, there are people naked or having sex most of the time during the movie, and although there should be some interesting aspects on the story, they pretty much fail to bring anything more to the movie beyond the nudity. Now you could ask that with this type of movie, should there be anything more than a nudity, but Franco has usually succeeded at least to bring various aspects to his movies, that makes the story more interesting, but now there are no such issues (or at least they fail to deliver). Story aside, there are plenty of naked bodies and cheesy dialogue (this is probably also depending of which dub do you listen), so take a comfortable position and enjoy the ride. This film is not meant to be taken too seriously.
Video
“Sexy Sisters” DVD is Anamorphic 1.85:1, and if (like me) you´re used to VIP´s great quality, this is a bit of a disappointing transfer. Don´t get me wrong, I´m sure that VIP have done their best for the existing elements, but still the transfer has some issues. First you´ll notice that the transfer is a bit dark, like black levels are too strong, creating some “murkiness” to the transfer. This obviously is worse when there are dark night scenes (there seems to be some proper night scenes this time, and not those that are shot with “day-for-night” filter in the daytime), and other scenes are better. There are also some grain (more than usual in my opinion), some minor aliasing (line shimmering) in certain scenes (look at the jacket of the man who enters in the mansion first, and sits in the couch), and even few frame jumps (not very bad I might add). There are also some print damage that you get sometimes with the older films on DVD, where there are some “flickering” in the edge of the frame (this probably was in the negatives). Now this all might sound “bad”, but believe me when I say that it´s not that bad. Yes, you can tell that the transfer is not in the same level as some other releases by VIP, but then again you can see that there are no film artifacts nor major print damage, and quite frankly this transfer still looks better than some others that are out there. And this is a small budget film from 1976, so I´m just happy that this is released by VIP. Transfer uses German credits, but the title (“Satanic Sisters” - not sure where that word “satanic” came from) is in English for some reason, and there are no end credits at all. Disc is R0/NTSC, and the film runs 86:49 min. It has 12 chapters, and the disc is Dual Layer.
Audio
The disc has 4 audio tracks this time, all Dolby Digital 2.0 mono: English, German, French, and Spanish. Sadly, there are no subtitles on the film. Technically, English and German-tracks are better than the French and Spanish-tracks, which are probably taken from inferior source(s). I watched the movie with English audio, and there was some “hiss” here and there in the track, but no major problems. German-track sounded a bit more clearer, and it´s probably a better way to watch this movie anyway if you know the language (or French-track). English dub is not bad, but not very good either (some lines will make you laugh probably). Do note, that this film was dubbed in various markets, so it´s not that simple to say which is the “original soundtrack”.
Extras
This release includes the same "Behind-the-scenes" –featurette as the “Blue Rita”, “Voodoo Passion”, “Women In Cellblock 9”, and “Love Camp” -discs (and few others too) from VIP, and it´s actually an interview with producer Erwin C. Dietrich (with some narration). It starts as a PR-featurette of VIP´s “The Official Jess Franco Collection”, but you have also some interesting info about Franco´s other film, “Jack The Ripper AKA Der Dirnenmörder von London”, and also some stories about the actor Klaus Kinski. Dietrich also finds connections between Franco and Dogma-movement, and doesn´t have warm memories of the German censors “FSK” back in the days. Featurette runs 21:22 minutes and is in German (with English subtitles). Then we also have over 40 minutes worth of trailers, all in German (except “Mad Foxes”, which is in English): “Voodoo Passion”, "Sexy Sisters", "Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun", "Blue Rita", "Barbed Wire Dolls", "Doriana Grey", "Jack The Ripper AKA Der Dirnenmörder von London", "Island Women AKA Gefangene Frauen", "Come Play With Me 2", "Come Play With Me 3", "Me, A Groupie", "Mad Foxes", "Fräuleins in Uniforms", "Ilsa, The Wicked Warden", and "Rolls-Royce Baby". 2 photo galleries includes 15 “production stills” of “Sexy Sisters”, and then “original poster gallery”, which includes other (s)exploitation movies by Dietrich. Finally there are bio/filmographies for Franco and Dietrich, and filmographies for Pamela Stanford, Karine Gambier, Eric Falk, and Jack Taylor (there are no bios of the actors). Finally there is some basic info about "The Official Jess Franco Collection" (you can find similar info from the “leaflet” with the case itself), and “DVD credits”.
Overall
Franco-fans probably will like to see this film, and also enjoy various aspects of the movie, but if you are not familiar with Franco´s work, this is not the best movie to start with. Then again, if you just want to see plenty of naked people, this might just be the film for you. Transfer is a bit lacking (compared to the other releases by VIP), but this is still a good effort to bring this film to DVD. Extras are basically all lifted from the other VIP-releases, so this has to be the first VIP-disc if you fully want to enjoy them. I´m still wondering why they didn´t inteview Franco, since they basically could´ve sat down for 45 minutes or an hour, talk about all the films in the VIP-series, and then edit little featurettes to every separate release. For more info, please visit the homepage of VIP´s The Official Jess Franco Collection.
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