My Sister, the Psychopath

"My Sister, the Psychopath": Exploitation Film or Feminist Investigation?

While not an avant-garde film, "My Sister, the Psychopath" is in various ways "in-between" one thing and another. The scenario borrows hints and touches from a number of genres and styles (suspense, psychological thriller, noir, supernatural tale, fairy tales and children's stories, gothic romance, camp, soap opera, as well as realist drama) without allowing you to feel that you are solidly on the familiar territory of any of them. Admittedly, this approach may be a hard sell in an environment where the market niche of a film is important to pin down. The prevailing comic tone, counterbalanced by an impression that neither of the parallel plotlines (in this pilot-treatment of what could become a much longer story) promises a satisfactory comedic resolution, is another area in which the film is 'neither flesh, nor fowl, nor good red herring.'

The most important aspect of the film's ambivalent or "in-between" quality, though, comes from an explosive mixture of, on the one hand, elements typical of a schlock or exploitation film, and on the other hand a crypto-feminist exploration of roles, romantic expectations, and boundaries. The suggestion that there is a feminist aspect to the content of the film, beyond the circumstance that it was co-directed, co-written, and co-produced in part by women, may require a word of explanation. Though the film does not make any overt ethical or political statement, it draws attention to the received gender roles, social scripts guiding behavior, and power relationships that shape, govern, and restrict female desire and its permissible forms of expression. The feminist aspect of our film, then, is not a stance or a message, but rather a matter of where the attention is directed and of what questions are raised. In our story, both sisters improvise to adapt their own immediate, inchoate, unprocessed impulses, feelings, and fantasies to the materials and opportunities at hand: the stories and genres available to structure experience and the people available to audition for roles in those stories. They try to shape what they find to work with into a passable likeness of what gratification or fulfillment could look like.

The sisters' different strategies for taking control of a situation, and the contrast between the two when it comes to taking the initiative or adopting a passive role, gives another glimpse of underlying feminist concerns. Laura, the reserved sister who is only beginning to learn how to bridge the distance between real life and the world of private fantasy, explores her feelings by inventing characters and situations that are meaningful to her, scripting and directing a theater of sorts using her dolls and dollhouse. Yet her complete control of these scenes is not good preparation for her actual interactions with Sam and Kyle, and she is completely at a loss when the people whom she has mistaken for her characters wander off script. Conversely, Helena, who has the self-assurance and charisma to call the tune in any interaction that she wishes to create, daydreams about being bound. Her form of play betrays a curiosity about surrendering the control that comes so easily to her in favor of a make-believe vulnerability. Meanwhile, the film's imagery warns of a danger that her confidence could entice her out beyond her depth.

By comparison to the undercurrents and intimations roiling in our film, the marketplace tends to bet on material that is more straightforward and clear-cut, less mixed, confused, and ambiguous, more easily recognizable as to what kind of story is being told and what our reactions at each point are supposed to be. "My Sister, the Psychopath" attempts to take advantage of our accustomed reflexes and reactions in response to familiar stories in order to mix signals and to disorient the viewer. If a viewer were to find herself uncertain about the heading under which to file the film's plot and situations, or were to hesitate in deciding whether the film is misogynist, or whether it unfolds as a moralizing cautionary tale, or whether it does something quite different from either of these, then it would be a sign that our film has had a degree of success in jamming together recognizable elements, borrowed from proven approaches and formulas, into a new form not previously seen in the movies.

-- J. Eric Marler, Collaborating Director / Co-Writer / Producer, "My Sister, the Psychopath"