A man (Lisle Wilson) showcased on a hidden camera show called Peeping Toms goes on a date with the French Canadian model (Margot Kidder) who made him her unwitting “victim” on TV. At dinner, they’re hassled by her creepy ex-husband (Bill Finley), who shares an unsettling splitting image with John Waters. Wilson takes her home.

In the morning, he learns that Kidder apparently has a twin sister who isn’t right in the head. Her nosy neighbor, a bleeding heart journalist played by Jennifer Salt, witnesses a murder in the apartment while staring out her window. By the time the cops arrive, Kidder and Finley have cleaned up and loaded the body into a sleeper sofa. Undeterred, Salt investigates with the help of a private detective played by the great Charles Durning.

Directed by Brian DePalma from a script co-written with Louisa Rose, this was the first “Brian DePalma film” DePalma made following the better part of a decade honing his skills on quirky, unseen comedies with titles like Hi, Mom! or Get To Know Your Rabbit.

Sisters is a balls-out horror-thriller, an unapologetic tribute to Alfred Hitchcock – namely Psycho and Rear Window – which DePalma grafted onto a Life Magazine story he’d come across on conjoined female twins in Russia who had completely polar personalities.

The debate on whether this and subsequent thrillers from the director of Scarface and The Untouchables are homage, or pale imitation of Hitchcock totally misses the point. DePalma’s visual audacity and inventiveness – at least with this film – when utilizing a so-so cast, tight schedule and little money, should be considered an accomplishment, if not a classic. No filmmaker in a hurry to squeeze off an imitation could come up with some of this stuff:

The opening shot is a trick. We segueway from Wilson peeping at Kidder to a TV studio audience peeping at Wilson peeping at Kidder. And of course, we’re “peeping” at all of them.

There’s a nine minute split-screen sequence in which Kidder and Finley race to dispose of evidence in one frame, while Salt can arrive with the cops in the opposing frame.

The climax finds Salt the guest of Finley’s sanitarium. Under heavy sedation, she is thrown into a surreal dream and forced to experience the plight of the twins from a first-person point of view. The movie goes off the rails for a bit here, but you have to give DePalma props. He was out to make something much more than a buck with a standard slasher flick.

The film’s final shot – in which Durning watches the abandoned sofa with a pair of binoculars, waiting to see if anyone retrieves it – is eerie and brings us full circle to what DePalma is saying with this film: be careful when playing peeping tom.

The tense and memorable musical score was written by Bernard Hermann, Hitchcock’s longtime composer.