Sisters

source: Sisters

Sisters

A reporter witnesses a murder in a neighbor's apartment but there's no evidence of the crime when the police arrive. This cheesy thriller launched De Palma's quest to become the successor to Alfred Hitchcock. Based on the evidence here, instead of Master of Suspense, he could more aptly be called Master of Incompetence. The script starts off as an amateurish mystery but winds up as an incomprehensible mess featuring an extended delusional sequence. Although he borrows elements from Hitchcock's "Rear Window," "Psycho," and "Spellbound," De Palma doesn't have even a fraction of the master's talent for telling a good story. A decent cast is wasted.

Nancy Drew (Jennifer Salt) would kill to get off of Staten Island and become the maverick of NYC journalism. The only problem is that all she has done to this point with her 'little job" is write about rampant police corruption, isolating herself even further from the big city. What she needs is a break, and witnessing a murder, (especially a DePalma split-screen murder) appears to be her ticket, if she can get anyone to listen. The journey she takes as means of recognition meanders through the horrors of medical science gone awry, culminating in a payoff that puts this film atop DePalma's list of credits. Nancy Drew on Acid!