the poster kind of seems like a spoiler...
If your like me, you mostly know the name Brian De Palma from the immortal classic CARRIE. but before CARRIE, Phantom of The Paradise, even before SCAR-FACE, he made a strange little horror movie called SISTERS. i mean he also made a strange little horror movie called TENTACLES but that's a story for another time.
Inquisitive journalist Grace Collier is horrified when she witnesses her neighbor, fashion model Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder), violently murder a man. Panicking, she calls the police. But when the detective arrives at the scene and finds nothing amiss, Grace is forced to take matters into her own hands. Her first move is to recruit private investigator Joseph Larch, who helps her to uncover a secret about Danielle's past that has them both seeing double.
its interesting the way modern movies have silently shaped our perception of what a movie should be. for example, i usually expect my movies to open with some sort of action or high point to get you invested in the characters/story, but this movie is under no such obligation. it sort of leaves you in limbo for the first 15 minutes, and makes you wonder what exactly you have just signed up for. and then you wait. and after that you wait a little bit more. then you check to see how far into this movie you are (18:23) and keep waiting. your at 25 minutes now, and your beginning to question if this movie has a plot. and at 26 minutes, this movie kicks off with a gory as fuck bang and you start to remember why you wanted to watch this movie in the first place.
its also right around this point the movies screen splits in two and you get this lovely comic book panel effect and split diopter shots that made CARRIE so... well Brian De Palma. i really love the way De Palma directed CARRIE, and you can see a lot of the same visual style in an early form. now it seems like we are on the fast track to a Rear Window style amateur detective movie right? well...
besides the mom character being spot on and hilarious, this movie never stops with making you wait. i really wanted to like this movie but the pacing is far to relaxed, and the stretches of time between events just feels... dull. there no real tension, you already know who the killer is, and the characters really aren't strong enough to be stuck with them for so long unbroken. in the last movie i covered (BIRDS OF PREY) my biggest complaint was how in your face and overwhelming the pacing was. this movie has the exact opposite problem.
an hour of my time is probably more than i should have given this movie.
meh its whatever/10
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