DevSis-icon

Before the nature of mod­ern film dis­tri­b­u­tion crowded out the regional inde­pen­dents, there were film­mak­ers who built entire careers direct­ing inde­pen­dent films in their own home states.  William Grefe is a strong exam­ple: work­ing pri­mar­ily in Florida, he cranked out an array of drive-in sta­ples in a vari­ety of gen­res.  The Devil’s Sisters comes from early in his career direct and shows he was already com­fort­able with deliv­er­ing the exploita­tive goods nec­es­sary for a regional film career in the pre-Sundance era.

The film’s plot­line, derived from a real news story, is set in Mexico with Davie, Florida sub­sti­tuted (fairly effec­tively) for its south of the bor­der locales.  The local police are called into a vil­lage where an exhausted, bat­tered young woman named Teresa (Sharon Saxon) waits for them.  Local cop Antonio (Fred Pinero) dis­misses her as a pros­ti­tute but the defen­sive town­folk insist he and his supe­ri­ors hear her tale of woe. It is revealed that Antonio was once her boyfriend and when he got too aggres­sive with her, she fled to the city look­ing for work.

Unfortunately, Teresa descends from the fry­ing pan into the fire.  She is forced into to pros­ti­tu­tion by manip­u­la­tive madam Rita (Anita Crystal) and her rape-happy hench­men.  When Rita finds out that Antonio — who hap­pens to be a cus­tomer — knows who Teresa is, she is shipped off to a farm of “lost women” run by Rita’s sis­ter, Carmen (Velia Martinez).  All the women there are treated like ani­mals with only death or slav­ery in their future.  The only way out is an escape but any des­per­ate attempt will involve suf­fer­ing on both sides.

Despite work­ing under the con­straints of pre-ratings code film cen­sor­ship, The Devil’s Sisters still man­ages to pack a sleazy wal­lop.  The script, penned by Grefe with John Nicholas, wastes no time in rolling out the story’s sor­did ele­ments and con­tin­ues upping the ante, cul­mi­nat­ing in a third act that is bru­tal as it is tense.  It’s also care­ful to seed the sto­ry­line with details that will please exploita­tion buff, like the horse stable-style accom­mo­da­tions the lost women stay in and a tor­ture known as the “royal mar­riage bed.”

As direc­tor, Grefe invests the film with a straight­for­ward sense of mise en scene that pushes the melo­drama to the fore and makes effec­tive use of black-and-white pho­tog­ra­phy to achieve a noirish effect.  The per­for­mances are prob­a­bly the weak­est link here — vir­tu­ally all the bit roles get either wooden or hammy per­for­mances — but Martinez and Crystal make an effec­tive evil-sister duo and Saxon digs into her character’s ever-increasing level of suf­fer­ing with gusto.

The over­all effect The Devil’s Sisters achieves is like an early ‘60s roughie crossed with a par­tic­u­larly over­heated telen­ov­ela — and if that descrip­tion piques your inter­est, you’re very likely to enjoy it.  Grefe would go onto big­ger, splashier exploita­tion hits in the ‘70s like Stanley and Mako: The Jaws Of Death but his work here shows he knew how to make an eco­nom­i­cal, effec­tive b-movie with­out the resources of a major studio.