WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
I have to give one hundred percent of the credit for the creation of this article to the Shudder streaming service. I had never heard of this film before let alone there being a remake of said film. So without further ado, let’s see which one is better. Honestly, this will be enlightening for me and you.
Openness and Honesty
In the original film, we know that Danielle has a sister but not until she is overheard ‘arguing’ with her in the spare room the morning of their birthday. However, from the outset Angelic is very open with Dylan about the fact that she has a sister.
Not Such an Accident
It seems that there is a lot more to Grace Collier’s character in the remake of Sisters. The fact that she is already looking into Dr. Philip Lacan leads her to being in the predicament of seeing Dylan Wallace murdered by Angelic/Annabelle instead of accidentally seeing it through her own window from across the streets as she does in the original film. The issue this brings however is that she does not know where the murder has actually taken place – whereas in the original she knows exactly which apartment Danielle lives in.
Interestingly, Dylan lives long enough for him to reach out of the window and look towards Grace for help.
Homage to the Original
In the original film, Philip’s body is hidden from the police inside Danielle’s fold-out sofa. In the remake however, when the police check Angelic’s apartment following Grace’s report of seeing Dylan murdered, they check her pull out sofa and find nothing.
In addition to this, when Grace follows Emil and Danielle to a mental hospital he tries to discredit her by telling everyone else she is a patient there and her real name is Margaret. I feel this is made homage to in the remake by the fact that Grace’s mother, who was in a mental hospital, was named Margaret.
No One Cares About Dylan
Well, so it seems for the majority of the film. Grace is so set on bringing Dr Lacan down that she continues investigating him directly and using the murder to get people to talk to her but she doesn’t seem to be looking into the murder itself, whereas this is the main plot of the original film. Of course, Grace’s friend breaks into Angelic’s apartment and discovers where Dylan is hidden but passed that this story line doesn’t seem to be as important as it was in the original film.
A Different Twist
In the original film, I actually find what is considered to be the ‘twist’ at the end to be pretty predictable. The fact that we never see Dominque automatically made me think that the sister had died when they were separated and it was actually Danielle who committed the murder having become schizophrenic and had become Dominque. Surprise, surprise, I was right. However, the twist in the remake is a little weirder. It seems that in end Grace either is Annabelle or at least comes to believe that she is.
In Conclusion
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think either of these films was fantastic. Watching the original I had to keep rewinding because I thought I had missed something and I was becoming extremely confused – especially towards the end. Of course, if the original film isn’t great sometimes it doesn’t leave the remake with a lot to work with and for me that’s the case here. I think if the murder of Dylan hadn’t become such a surplus part of the story, the remake possibly would have been better than the original (wow, that feels weird to say).
