Cemetery Sisters

Released by: Slasher Video
Released on: July 23, 2013.
Director: Nick Millard
Cast: Joan Simon, Leslie Simon, Albert Eskinazi, Irmgard Millard
Year: 1987
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The Movie:

One of a few puzzlingly horrible but somehow completely hypnotic shot on video horror movies churned out by Nick Millard (better known to fans of dirty movies as Nick Phillips), 1987's Cemetery Sisters stars real life sisters Joan and Leslie Simon as fictional sisters named… Joan and Leslie. They're a fairly mysterious but also unusually fun loving pair who has a secret: they yearn for one thing in life and that's to have their own mortuary.

From here on out, this review contains spoilers. Deal with it.

See, we learn through some very bizarre flashbacks (in which one of the sisters is actually played by a young actor who looks like a boy but isn't and who stuffs her face full of popcorn while watching Millard's 1975 films Criminally Insane and Satan's Black Wedding in a theater) that Joan and Leslie grew up in a mortuary where they enjoyed the quiet and the calm. Joan in particular loved helping her father embalm corpses and evidently the two of them would like to get back in on the family business they once knew. For some reason, Joan compulsively brushes her hair throughout the movie.

So they put into motion a devious plan to make that happen in which they take out classified ads and place solicitations on video dating agencies to lure men into their horribly coiffed clutches so that they can rush them into marriage, murder them, and inherit their money. We see this in the opening scene where Leslie brings home a man (played by Millard himself) to be murdered near the fireplace. After that, Joan meets a guy named George and the girls murder him at the side of the road after their quickie wedding in Las Vegas (in which we see the first of many instances of the same 'Vegas sign' montage used throughout the movie). After that? It's time for Leslie to marry a guy named Boyd who is kind enough but they kill him as he's eating his breakfast in bed. Poor bugger. He thinks he just scored big time - BREAKFAST IN FUCKING BED? YES! But he gets stabbed and before they can get rid of his corpse, Aunt Ingrid (played by Nick's wife, Irmgard Millard) shows up.

This is where the plot thickens. See, the girls don't really like Aunt Ingrid and it's easy to see why. She says she needs a place to stay while she takes care of some business and the girls don't really want her around, because… corpse. But she makes her way in and then starts strutting around in skanky outfits and making reasonably lurid phone calls to different dudes. If that weren't enough, when Leslie won't let her into the room where the body is stashed, Ingrid gets persistent figuring that there's a stud in there for her to boff. She tells her niece not to worry, because 'Auntie believes in sharing.'

It all hits the fan when Joan decides to embalm Boyd's corpse. She gets a call while Auntie Ingrid and Leslie are out of the house, turns out it's a prospective husband/victim named Marvin. Before she can get back to business, Ingrid shows up and spots the body, at which point she's murdered too. Marvin is actually a bit of a douchebag what with his giant moustache and his penchant for guns. He looks a lot like Barry J. Gillis, actor, from Things. But that's not the point. He gets murdered too, at least once the whole marriage thing is taken care of. And then once that happens we assume that the girls are set, as they drive to the cemetery and discuss the mortuary they're now going to operate as they twirl and dance, hand in hand, around the tombstones, past the shrubbery, and permanently into the nightmares of movie fans the world over.

Holy mother of God, this movie is amazing. It doesn't make a damn lick of sense and it's just barely an hour long but it seems to just keep going and going and going and it's wonderful and horrible and nonsensical but at the same time could not have ever been made any other way. Even less logical than the mighty Death Nurse, it's really tough to get your head around just why exactly it exists in the first place but if you dig on Millard's definitely unique style of SOV madness, step up and feast until you can feast no longer.

A serious contender for the worst slasher movie ever made, the movie is not well edited nor is it well shot. It's horribly acted and the plot is repetitive at the best of times, failing to ever completely exploit its basic premise or provide any sense of dread or legitimate tension. And yet, Joan and Leslie are somehow able to pull us into their nightmarish landscape of horrid eighties fashion, droning Casio tones and vapid line readings. Part of this is probably the train wreck factor. It's human nature to stare at accident scenes or leer at photos of disasters and this is the cinematic (and I use that term loosely) equivalent of such base involuntary reaction. Maybe because the real life Joan and Leslie play the fake Joan and Leslie without ever seeming to actually try to act, it somehow becomes all the more natural, fluid and convincing - except that none of this is ever in the least bit convincing in the first place.

Want some interesting trivia? This movie was produced by Nick Millard's mother, Frances. In fact, a lot of his movies were produced by here. But it seems that production wasn't her only ambition in the film industry. Because according to the IMDB, in the early 2000s under the screen name Gigi, Frances Millard was the star attraction in a bunch of 'granny porn.'

Video/Audio/Extras:

Cemetery Sisters was shot on VHS and so it looks like a VHS tape - which is fine and all, just know that going in so you're aware ahead of time that it's going to look pretty lousy. Completely out of place and random inserts from Criminally Insane and Satan's Black Wedding were shot on film but were obviously transferred to tape when spliced into this puppy. So with that said, the image here is only going to look so good - expect it to be soft, expect colors to fade a bit, and expect detail to waver accordingly - but overall the whole thing is perfectly watchable. It's been 'digitally remastered from the original ¾” tape' so it's not likely going ever look any better. There aren't any compression issues to note nor are there any problems with tape roll or tracking lines. The source used for the transfer was obviously in pretty good shape and the movie winds up looking about as good as you can realistically expect it to.

The English language Dolby Digital Mono sound mix is on par with the video transfer in that it's probably about as good as it's going to get. Some background hiss is present and levels occasionally shuffle around a bit but the horrible score comes through loud and clear, so there's that. Generally the dialogue is pretty clear and there aren't any major problems here, but again, keep in mind that the source for this release is what it is and as such, isn't on par with anything aside from the tape on which it was originally made. There are no subtitles or alternate language options provided.

The extras start off with a commentary with Director Nick Millard, Producer Irmi Millard and Slasher // Video owner Jesus Terí¡n. This is a fun talk in which Millard basically hits the ground running, noting how lucky he was to work with Joan and Leslie and how the movie was meant as a black comedy not to be taken too seriously. Nick talks about his cameo in the opening scene, the camaraderie that the movie has thanks to the casting of the real life sisters, and how some movies tend to age better than others. Terí¡n notes that he tried to find the sisters but he wasn't able to locate them, and Millard suggest he try Facebook. It's a very low key, relaxed and informal talk but Millard has a lot to say about the project, be it how he prefers to cast actors with 'real looking faces' as opposed to Hollywood pretty boys to the influence of Rossellini on his work. He notes that most of the movie was shot in Monterey in California, how he'd like to go back to being fourteen years old to shoot commercial movies (“pin up films or something like that”), using their own house and the lovely sunsets they could see from there, and of course, Irmi's performance as the weird aunt. There are some spots where they clam up and just sort of giggle at the movie but Millard notes the use of a bicycle pump in the embalming scene, that he cast his youngest daughter as 'young Joan' in the movie, the weird soundtrack, and the use of footage from his older movies, including the credits (“nobody reads these things anyway”) in this SOV epic.

Up next is an 'homage short film' entitled Death Sisters in which a modern day Nick and Irmi sit on the couch and talk before… murder! In true Nick Millard fashion, this one recycles footage from Cemetery Sisters. It's amusing enough. Look for the DVD copy of Death Nurse II placed conveniently on the coffee table.

Nick and Irmi also appear on camera for a twenty-five minute question and answer session at the kitchen table sitting around some original artwork for the movie and what we can assume is the master tape. Nick does most of the talking here as he explains how he got into the film industry and how he went about writing the picture using the newspaper as inspiration and casting Joan and Leslie as Joan and Leslie from a local theater. Nick talks about shooting and editing on video, the artwork, how the movie was originally distributed on VHS, the different characters that pop up in the movie including Irmi's role as the aunt, the actual production schedule and location shooting for the feature, and more. It covers a lot of the same ground as the commentary does but it's still a lot of fun. The Millard's are just really likeable people and Nick's a great storyteller with a very sharp memory - that makes this completely worth watching. Stick it out to the end for Nick's comments about the prices being raised at the buffet!

From there, we get a nifty three minute gallery showcasing The Art of Jazmin Martinez (who did the cover art for this release) and a Cemetery Sisters still gallery that's as much a Slasher // Video promo piece as it is a collection of Cemetery Sisters ephemera. Rounding out the extras are a The Art of Jazmin Martinez still gallery (she did the cover art), a Cemetery Sisters Photo Gallery, a trailer for the feature, trailers for a few other Slasher // Video releases, menus, chapter selection and more. There's also an amusing Easter Egg on the disc worth checking out.

The Final Word:

Yeah fine, a third of the movie is taken up by footage of other movies that you've probably already seen, and sure, there's no conflict here and the whole thing is repetitive, obviously padded and horribly made. And yet, Cemetery Sisters has its own sense of terrible charm. It's an atrocious movie, an abysmal camcorder disaster completely undeserving of the special edition status lauded on it by Slasher // Video, and yet, for some of us, it's an essential part of our collection. As of right now, this little bitch is limited to 200 pieces and available through Slasher's Amazon store. Get it now, so you can live to regret it over and over and over again.