⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Mentally ill siblings are the worst, I can vouch for that message, I know just how awful I am. A lot of people don’t know this about me but I had a twin brother named Rüdiger. He perished in his late twenties when the treehouse at my parent’s place mysteriously caught on fire. All I’m saying is it’s hard to be an unstable twin and it’s easy to set old wood on fire. With this in mind, I can sympathize with the plot of this flick. Julia is a pleasant young teacher at a school for the deaf. Her life seems to be going pretty well but when her deformed (some undiagnosed skin disease is fucking her up something fierce) and deranged twin sister (she’s always been a violent pain in the ass) escapes from the nuthouse she’s been calling home for years, Julia’s life takes a turn for the worse. Looks like Nutty McGee has a special plan for Julia on their upcoming birthday. Their past is full of Nutty torturing her sis and when Julia goes to visit after their uncle Father James reached out, Julia gets a guarantee that her birthday will be one to remember from her mentally and physically deteriorating sister. Granted, I’m probably sympathizing with the wrong person here but that’s never stopped my enjoyment of a film… just look at my firm support of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter 5: The Pink Hero Rises. So, Psycho Sister (Mary, if you would like me to stop insulting the mentally ill) and her trusty Rottweiler begin terrorizing Julia and have no issue murdering the hell out of her friends and acquaintances. Hell, even an adorable deaf kid gets his ass killed offscreen… that’s a movie that knows its priorities. It also leads to an unexpectedly heartbreaking scene in the classroom where the movie pays more heartfelt detail to a character’s death than most 80’s stalk and slash flicks. Julia’s doctor boyfriend Sam (a magnificently mustached Michael MacRae) believes his lady that something strange is going down but proves to be about as useless as everyone else in Julia’s life and the revelation of another killer adds an unnecessary bit of drag that feels just a tad too silly. There’s a disturbing birthday party (80’s horror flicks were always inviting corpses to birthday parties) that stretches on well past the point of being welcome but some of the cheap violence is effective nonetheless. It’s worth a watch for the opening acts which pull off a nice balancing act of tension, characterization and death. It feels way more American than Italian but never comes off as awkward in its psycho-thriller progression over the expected giallo tendencies... except when it finally loses its fucking mind. It may run out of steam but the dog puppet is hilarious and it’s mostly an interesting time no matter which twin you’re rooting for. You should be rooting for Julia… I feel like I should clarify that… in honor of Rüdiger and the tragic accident that befell him… an accident I had no part in whatsoever… the judge said so.
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