Sisters

A hideous lump of scar tissue on Kidder's thigh testifies to some kind of Siamese twin separation. The half of sister that 'disappeared' was, of course, off her head and a potential murderer. But has she really disappeared? This slick horror was greeted at the time as, among other superlatives, 'absolutely superb' and 'brimful of ideas' by TO. In retrospect, it does indeed appear as a highly efficient gut-ripper, with far more suggestion than De Palma's later work of the loose-end flux of real life going on in the background. There is, however, much early evidence of his rampant misogyny, his increasingly blatant stealings from Hitchcock, and most unforgivable of all, his clear distaste for the people he creates. De Palma's father was a surgeon, which may explain such greedy sadism. CPea.