Sisters (1973)

During the finale of Brian De Palma’s “Sisters,” a bloody schizoid mind fuck love letter to Hitchcock, my jaw hung open. This riffs on Siamese sisters -- one alive, the other not quite, and both played by Margot Kidder –- and doesn’t just drive off the cliff. It launches off the road at rocket speed and explodes in a splatter of gore and brain pulp. We follow, as with any good Hitchcock film, a guy (Lisle Wilson) and a gal (Kidder) attracted to each other after a bizarre appearance on a TV game show that has unsuspecting men watching woman strip bare, with the latter in on the gag. The couple’s date goes bad fast: Her ex-husband (William Finley) prowls crazy and stalks the couple to her apartment, where things get icky and –- no spoiler –- bloody. De Palma then switches gears to a writer (Jennifer Salt) who sees the crazy deeds, before slamming back into drive, then reverse, then circles, burning out the engine for a finale that hit me far different than any plot synopsis I read. I loved every whacked red-soaked second. I still don’t know how to grasp it all, but obsess nonetheless. That’s addictive filmmaking. A 

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” is lightning caught in a whisky bottle, a miracle film of casting, script, time, and eerie black and white cinematography that can never be duplicated despite all the remake plans. Bette Davis and Jane Crawford play aging sisters living together in Hollywood Hell, their fame as movie stars forgotten. Jane (Davis) was the vaudeville child star clipped by Blanche (Crawford) who became the Hollywood starlet. Now Jane is a psychotic alcoholic permanently and by choice 6 years old. She walks around in children’s clothing, hair in curls, and giggles like a demon kindergartner. Her only kicks: Torturing Blanche, now paralyzed and virtual prisoner. The twists in director Richard Aldridge’s flick are sick and quick: Jane cooks up pets and rats to drive mad and starve Blanche, but when panic hits, “child” Jane runs to Blanche for help. The film and the actresses pull no punches: Davis and Crawford famously loathed each other and the seething torches every frame right up to an uncertain and shocking finale that will send you right back to the start. Davis is spectacularly grotesque, while Crawford is marvelously panicked. A+