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Anna (Mina Walker) and Beth (Joan Glackin) are pretty much the epitomy
of loving sisters and are inseparable most of the time, even though Anna's
blind and Beth deaf-mute. They still manage to communicate via a special
form of sign language that also involves touch rather nicely, and it's
really as if one's the other's ears and eyes, respectively. They live with
their father (Jordan Lage), a doctor, rather secluded at the outskirts of
your typical American rural town, and on the surface, everything seems
perfect. Thing is, of late, father's acting more and more erratic, and
gets especially upset when the girls ask what happened to their mother.
That gradually makes the girls question everything, including the
medication the father gives them. Then Beth falls ill, and against Anna's
protests dad insists to take her to his clinic - and a few days later she
returns with one of her arms amputated. This is where the girls know they
can't trust their father anymore and have to act - and yet they can't even
begin to grasp what's really behind their dad's behaviour ... An
enjoyably creepy thriller, this one is really all about build-up, as it
very gradually destroys the "perfect world" it has created in
the first act, and only by the by lets the audience (and the girls of
course) in on the cracks this world is having, that were always there
beyond the surface and only now slowly come to the surface. And the film's
structured cleverly enough never to give its game away, likewise the
directorial effort that's heavy on atmosphere but keeps one in the dark
until late. And very grounded performances of all of the involved really
make this work as a pretty awesome piece of genre cinema.
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