SISTERS (1973)
Starring Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt
De Palma had made a few forgettable films before making this, a decent horror film that made the whole industry stand up and take notice. It led to his selection as the director of the near classic "Carrie."
Kidder plays a woman suspected of murdering a lover. When nosy reporter Salt investigates she learns that Kidder is a Siamese twin, and that her sister may have been involved in the murder. The film is helped mightily by a mesmerizing score from the great Bernard Herrmann, whom De Palma was able to lure out of retirement for this picture. His music makes the movie.
Like "Dressed to
Kill," this film's first third is its best part, with filmmaking that
honestly comes close to what the master Hitchcock would have done with the same
material. There's a subtle tension that builds up as a game show participant
goes on a date with a model (Kidder) who's being stalked by someone she says is
her ex-husband. No one is murdered for the first part of the film, there's
nothing explicit that should make you feel uneasy, but you do. Much of it has to
do with Herrmann's music, but De Palma also exhibits an awesome Hitchcockian
style during the opening moments of the film that account for much of this
portion of the movie's success.
Things go down hill, however. A lot of De Palma's movies suffer from weak characters, and this film is no exception. Salt's reporter is shallow and Kidder's supposedly evil character isn't particularly fleshed out. But De Palma does deliver some more great style toward the end of the film, including some wild dream sequences. There's also some of his trademark split screen work that would later be exhibited to greater effect in "Carrie." Naturally, there's plenty of references to "Rear Window" and "Psycho." All in all, a damn fine, early 1970s American horror film.
I don't consider it De Palma's best. He would do better with "Carrie" and then "Dressed to Kill." But it's still an American horror classic, and it's the movie that made De Palma a name suspense director.