Cemetery Sisters

Cemetery Sisters (1987)

* (out of 4)

Real-life sisters Joan and Leslie Simon plays sisters named Joan and Leslie. The two have a great scheme going because they marry men only to brutally murder them and then take their month.

At just 59 minutes this Nick Millard film is pretty much everything you'd expect from the director. It has the slightest of plots. It features some bad acting. Some rather poor editing. The budget is obviously extremely low and there's not too much logic going on. Millard got lucky with 1975's CRIMINALLY INSANE, which throughout the rest of his career he'd take footage of that film and edit it into newly shot stuff. It really says something that this movie lasts 59 minutes and about eight or nine minutes is footage from another movie.

Why that footage is used here doesn't make too much sense other than stretching out the running time. I personally respect Millard and the way he made his movies. Yes they're pretty bad but at least he enjoyed filmmaking and actually went out there and made movies. This film here suffers because there's really no plot and the same thing just kept happening over and over. The sisters meet men. They murder them. They collect money. They move onto the next. Logically, how could one man after another get brutally murdered and suspicion never fall on the sisters?

I have an undying fascination for writer/director Nick Millard, and I have no idea why. The stuff he makes doesn't really fall under the term cinema, it's more like some kind of weird hypnosis therapy. Particularly his shot-on-video output from the 1980s is worth a watch, because it's quite possible the most unique collection of films (well, video tapes) you'll ever see. There's nothing remotely interesting, redeeming or well-crafted about these things, and yet they're incredibly easy to watch all the way through. "Cemetery Sisters" is certainly no exception.

Even to Millard's standards, this movie doesn't make a lick of sense. The story (I'm in a kind mood) is about two unconventional-looking sisters who seduce men (how?), marry them, then kill them to collect their life insurance money. I know Millard wasn't making these movies for college professors, but how would this work? Your husbands keep disappearing mysteriously and you just keep collecting, without any kind of investigation? These women aren't exactly Dexter, they stab these guys with a kitchen knife and then sorta kinda clean up the blood if they feel like it. Nobody thinks it's weird these guys all die right after they've made the titular sisters their sole beneficiaries? None of these people have any relatives that might get a tad bit suspicious? Oh, my head, my poor head...

Usually Millard's shot-on-video movies are padded out with scenes from his earlier stuff from the 70s, mostly "Criminally Insane" (by far his best movie). This one relies mostly on "Satan's Black Wedding", in one of many flashbacks young Joan (played by Millard's daughter) goes to the movies and they show like five straight minutes. Than she goes again and it's five straight minutes from "Criminally Insane", including that one bedroom scene that I've now seen in five different movies (and counting). This might be a good moment to mention that this movie is only 58 minutes long, because Nick Millard always just does the absolute bare minimum. Seriously, why do I like this guy? There's no rationality behind this, is there? Maybe it's the epic hair-brushing scene, that's also there to eat up several more minutes of the running time.

Somewhat surprisingly, this movie also has some stuff that is way above the usual Millard standards. The two leads, real-life sisters Leslie and Joan Simon, are really quite good for amateur actors. The editing is also slightly more dynamic than usual, shots just go on for too long instead of way too long. I'm also glad Millard overcomes his lazyness here and there to leave his house once in a while, because after watching "Doctor Bloodbath" and the two "Death Nurse" movies I had gotten pretty sick of his living room. It's just a bunch of roads and ugly scenery, but good enough for me. And it's always nice to see Millard regulars pop up: Millard himself is the first victim, partner-in-crime Albert Eskinazi also gets to die very early. Then again, I don't think you deserve much better when you propose with the line "I've been alone now for eight years after my wife died of cancer...will you marry me?". You sure know how to make a gal feel special, Albert! Millard's wife also shows up late in the movie as their nympho aunt, who somehow senses Leslie has a man in her room and quips how "auntie believes in sharing". Said man has just been stabbed to death, but I'm not sure that would stop her.

This movie was the holy grail for Millard completists (is that even a thing?) for quite a while, because it seemed to have vanished from the Earth. That's mainly because it was so bad even video stores didn't want it: Millard distributed it through mail-order for a very brief period. Luckily the man himself has dug up the master...print (tape?) and now it has actually made it to DVD. That may ruin the mystery and mystique of this project, but then again: you can watch any Nick Millard movie ten times and you still have no idea what you're watching. With that said, I'm actually very glad it's out.

I'll leave you with my absolute favorite exchange from the movie:

Leslie: "George had 100 shares in IBM"

Joan: "They're at 117"

Leslie (presses calculator buttons): "That's 11.700!"

I know math isn't everyone's thing but...geez, how much effort does that take?

This is standard Nick Millard. Shot on video and released in 1988, the movie follows two sisters who marry men for their money, kill them and them collect the inheritance.

Every thing you expect from a Nick Millard movie is here, bad acting, bad direction, bad photography(or in this case videography), stock footage from his other films and bad special effects.

Although this film is bad it seems as if he took more time to make it. It's made much better then some of his other shot on video movies,it's lit better and the two main actresses can actually act. So check it out if you are interested, but be warned, it can be dull at some points.