Screening at Kai Cinema: “Sisters”

Duration: 1h 33min

Genre: psychological thriller

“Sisters” is psychological thriller that weaves together themes of identity, trauma, and violence. The film follows a journalist who witnesses a murder and uncovers the dark past of a pair of twins, revealing a disturbing mix of brutality, medical experimentation, and fractured memory. At the same time, the film is surprisingly playful, visually inventive, and narratively bold, with the paranoia and social tension of the 1970s giving it a contemporary political resonance.

The film “Sisters” is one of the key psychological thrillers of the 1970s, shifting the genre’s focus from external threat to internal fragmentation. It blends giallo aesthetics, investigative drama, and identity psychology, creating an atmosphere that is both stylish and unsettling.

Director Brian De Palma’s signature style is clearly recognizable in “Sisters.” The film feels like a precursor to his later works (“Carrie,” “Blow Out,” “Dressed to Kill”). It can be considered De Palma’s first major step toward psychological thrillers and horror cinema, and it is here that the foundational elements of his distinctive style begin to emerge: split screen, subjective camera, tense montage, Hitchcockian influences, and a constant play with the boundaries between reality and illusion.

The score was composed by legendary Bernard Herrmann, who also wrote the music for Hitchcock’s "Psycho" and "Vertigo". His contribution gives the film the unmistakable sound of a classic thriller.

NB! The film does not have Estonian subtitles!

Country: USA, 1972
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning
Language: English