Evil Sister (1996) — Triskaidekafiles

EVIL SISTER

WRITER: Douglass Demarco

DIRECTOR: Douglass Demarco

STARRING: Kim Farina as Roxanne

Joanne Lee Rubino as Merrit

Sarah L. Komie as

Debbie Ha as Death Angel

Kurt Levee as Runnion

Joliebeth Cope as Michelle

Bob Dickinson as Tony

QUICK CUT: A woman is released from a mental institution after 15 years, and tries to adjust to the world around her.

THE MORGUE

Merrit - A woman in a loving relationship, although it is far from perfect. Her sister has been institutionalised for 15 years, but she is going to help her transition back into society.

Roxanne - Merrit’s sister, and for having been locked up for 15 years, she is terrible sultry and has a loit of skimpy clothes.

Tony - Merrit’s husband who works from home, and is the target of too many of Roxanne’s advances.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! I am back, and I return with something truly sleazy, but still nicely in my wheelhouse, Evil Sister. It's a little bit slashery with Satanic rites on the side, but also had me asking throughout watching, "Is this porn? Am I watching porn??" I really can't introduce this movie any better than that, so let's dive right in.

First of all, let me just thank the movie for spoiling the entire story with a quickly edited sequence of shots from the next ninety minutes, during the opening credits. You could almost just watch them and check out afterwards. But you would miss some choice bits of weird if you did, so stick with this.

After the movie finishes its speedrun, we get a proper introduction to Merrit and her husband Tony, getting ready to pick up her sister from the mental institution she's been spending the last 15 years in.

So they go to pick her up, and the doctor says she's made a remarkable recovery...yeah, I heard the same thing about Mike Strauber, and we all saw how well THAT turned out!

Roxanne seems perfectly fine though, so I am sure there will be zero proble.....oops, once they're out the door, one of the doctors gives a strange look, saying that "Her sister should know!" Know what? Oh, you are gonna love the answer, and I will yell about it when we get there, dear readers. But for now, just enjoy the ride.

Everything seems normal, until one day Roxanne comes downstairs in a skimpy bathing suit, and is clearly flirting with Tony, but he's not having any of it. Or maybe just having a little of it, but trying his best to avoid temptation.

Still he takes some time out from his work to ogle his curvy sister in law while she's sunbathing. She comes back inside and gets ready to go clubbing, which Merrit doesn't like. Look, you're her sister, not her mom!

And apparently 'getting ready to go out' involves making some dark concoction in your attic lair, and OH HOLY CRAP cutting out someone's heart and eating it!

Oh, and also, aside from the credits, this is the first, but far FAR from the last nudity in the movie.

Merrit gets worried as midnight comes and goes, and finally Rox stumbles home, drunk and with a man. And I'm not sure if it's acting or terrible, but she seems actually drunk, and there are a number of issues with the lines being flubbed and repeated.

She tries and brings up her concerns to Tony, but he tries to brush them off as just her being holed up in an institution for 15 years and she’s like, trying to make up for lost time. He continues to do this until it is far, far too late.

One day while Roxanne is out, so really any day of the week, Merrit decides to be a bad parent and raid her kid's room. Instead of drugs, she finds weird arcane wiccan bullshit. This prompts her to call the hospital, and talk to one of her doctors. Hey, maybe she learned it from watching you!

It's 'too dangerous' to talk then and there, and the doctor says she'll call back later and hnnnngh. I hate this forced dragging out bullshit trope. There is zero reason not to continue the conversation, aside from not wanting to explain the plot right now.

Meanwhile, Roxanne's partner in Satanism is roughly banging a guy in Merrit's house, while Tony and Roxanne watch. And more seduction is attempted.

Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light.

After Tony has a dream where he gets banged by Roxy right next to his wife, Merrit heads to the hospital to find out just what's going on with her sister.

What happened? Well, the doctor was having a rough night, so to seek advice, she conjured a spirit. By conducting a black mass. She outright says this is a parody of Cathlolic masses, Satanic even. What. The. Fuck. Can you imagine going to your doctor, and they told you they were practicing Satanic rituals? WHAT THE FUCK.

Urghhh. ANYways, the spirit told the doctor to stop because Succubus was near. Not A succubus. Succubus. So it's a proper name now.

But before she could do anything, she was knocked out, and Roxanne was standing over her, talking. Which she had not done in 15 years. So yeah, when Merrit says her sister isn't acting like she normally does, she means it!

This is my face trying to believe this story.

Also, there's something about Incubus and Tony being in danger, because plot reasons. Of course, as anyone who knows what a succubus is, Roxy is pretty much reading from the playbook.

So, how are we going to solve all of this? By conducting another black mass! Yeah, sure, solve Satanism with more Satanism. Seems legit.

Merrit heads home to get what she needs before performing the black mass tomorrow, but her husband interrupts her with sexytime. I say it may already be too late for him...

Six minutes of sex later...the doctor arrives home to find a big thuggish brute there, who promptly kills her before she can offer any more help and teach the black mass.

Merrit somehow ends up at Runnion's, a mystic of some kind, who gives her advice. And that the movie is clearly ripping off from Poltergeist.

And this guy’slights keep flickering. Runnion needs to pay his electric bill. Ahem. Anyways, the instant he hears Succubus, he says Merrit has to leave, and there is no help for her. She rudely insists, and he agrees, heading to the bathroom.

He gives her a potion that might - MIGHT! - cure Roxy, but with the downside of returning her to her state of insanity, and a book on black masses. As Merrit leaves, Runnion reminds her to not come back. EVER. Boy it sure would be nice if the movie bothered to explain anything.

Merrit finally reads the news the doctor was murdered, Roxanne arrives, and drugs her sister’s tea. Well, someone was gonna get dosed eventually, and I guess Roxanne just got to it first.

After she's drugged, Roxanne brings in one of her friends to screw Merrit like crazy, because we haven't seen people having sex for a whole six minutes.

Later, Roxy tries AGAIN to seduce Tony, but gets interrupted when his friend Mike shows up. Tony tries to explain, but his friend, ogling the hot redhead, is NOT helping.

Merrit decides to come clean about what happened the other day, tells Tony, and he reacts much like you would expect a husband when he hears his wife screwed another man. And trying to place the blame on Roxanne casting a spell doesn't help any. So Tony decides to leaves her.

After a good day out together, Merrit comes clean to Roxy about going to see Runnion and how she was gonna give her a potion to cure her of being Succubus. They both laugh it off, but surprise! Roxanne's minion pays Runnion a visit and kills him. And then herself?

Roxanne returns home, finds out Tony has returned and is having sex with Merrit since he’s a good guy and forgave her. This upsets Rox's plans, and she goes full on witch to end this.

She creates a pill and drops it in Merrit's morning tea, then heads back out to try and seduce Tony. Because it it a day ending in Y.

Merrit comes home, looks for Tony, and eventually finds him upstairs being ridden by her sister. And that is it, enough is enough! Merrit has had it with these mother fucking succubi in her mother fucking house!!

She slams into the kitchen so hard the movie goes widescreen, she grabs a knife, and heads upstairs.stabbing at the pair. Merrit stabs so hard, she causes flashbacks through the movie. It's like rewatching the credits all over again!

But the movie resumes normal aspect ratio, when Roxy walks into the room, instead of being on the bed, and is surprised to see Merrit murdering her husband.

There is murder going on here? I am shocked! SHOCKED I say!

No matter how loudly she cries that Roxy put a spell on her, no one will believe that, and oh how the turns have tabled, when Roxanne takes her sister to the institution to be hospitalised.

...And hit on the doctor, because succubus.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s not a great video transfer, but everything is clear enough, just low quality.

Audio: Slightly better than the audio, but not great.

Body Count: Pretty much just a few random people. A few extra bodies would’ve elevated this movie, I think.

1 - Sacrificed girl obviously dies, right? 18 minutes in

2 - Michelle gets murdered by some dude

3 - Runnion gets killed.

4 - Roxanne's pal kills herslf

5 - Merritt kills her husband

Best Corpse: The poor sacrificed girl, it’s the most in your face and notable death.

Blood Type - C+: A few decent deaths, a bit of blood. Not bad, could be better.

Sex Appeal: Hoo! Lots and lots of nudity!

Drink Up! Every time you recognise a scene from the opening credits.

Movie Review: Hmm. This isn’t mind blowing, but the broad strokes are okay. It does breeze by a lot of plot points, and could use a little…more, of pretty much everything. It needs a little more plot, fleshing out the details, maybe a few more deaths to sell the danger, maybe a bit more logic thought through… And none of that needs to take away from the copious amounts of sex. For a sleazy sexy thriller, it certainly could have been a lot MORE hollow. Three out of five black masses.

Entertainment Value: Pretty much the most entertaining thing in this movie is Runnion. And not because he’s a dwarf or little person. His rough personality, his in your face attitude and not wanting to deal with ANY of this is a hoot. He needed to be in this more. As it is, if you’re into checking out a hot redhead in increasingly smaller outfits with increasingly larger hair, you might be entertained by that. There’s nothing TERRIBLE here, but nothing either good and entertaining or so bad it’s entertaining either. But it’s not an utter waste of time. Three out of five succubi.