THE GOOD SISTERS
DVD Region 1. Forbidden Pictures.

Debbie Rochon and April Burril are two sisters - and also witches. Living a closeted life in the kind of apartment building where everyone knows everyone else, they try to keep to themselves, but are increasingly paranoid that one of their neighbours - or possibly all of them - know what they are and are out to get them. As a series of events occur that seem to confirm their fears, the pair become more and more fearful, and decide to fight back using their magical powers.

The Good Sisters is a strange film. Content to move at a slow - some might say sluggish - burn for the first hour, it suddenly bursts into life with a gory mutilation and psuedo-incestuous nude rituals, as if director JimmyO Burril had suddenly remembered that he was making an exploitation movie. It's a little too late in proceedings though, as the bulk of the film is given over to a weak study in paranoia - Burril is, sadly, no Polanski in this regard, and rather than create mood and tension, he allows some poor actors to ramble on while the sisters often look more bored than crazed.

Stars Rochon and Burril both give solid performances, but the rest of the cast are at best passable, and while the movie is well shot, the snails pace of the story really lets it down. While the final twenty minutes or so are impressive, the first two acts are pretty dull.

The version under review is the unrated 'psycho-sexual director's cut', though what is new is anyone's guess - I didn't see anything too extreme, and to be honest, I expected more from "one of the most hauntingly erotic films to bewitch the horror genre in ages" (as one cover blurb proclaims) than two topless scenes, even if one of them did feature the sisters (inexplicitly) frigging each other.

LES DE MONZE

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