hexafu

1973, USA

Alternative title: Blood Sisters

In Brian De Palma’s horror debut, Margot Kidder plays Danielle, one half of a pair of French Canadian twins, who submerges herself in pills and alcohol to escape from a terrible secret.

After ending the night with a man she just met, he wakes up to hear her arguing with her siste Dominique, who wants to spend the day – their shared birthday – without male accompaniment.

He attempts to reconcile this by bringing them a joint birthday cake, and when he returns with it, he is viciously stabbed and killed by a maniacal, spasming woman who is the spitting image of Danielle, minus the coquettish charm.

The murder is overseen through a window by Grace Collier, a journalist working for the Staten Island paper.

She desperately wants a real story to write about, but when she gets the police involved, they find no evidence that a crime has taken place.

As Grace continues to investigate on her own, she is sucked into a bizarre story of Siamese twins – one passive and charming, the other belligerent – who were the subject of a botched separation attempt that left Dominique dead long ago.

Danielle suffered an accompanying split in personality, taking on the role of her dangerous sister, a role that will soon be filled by Grace herself.