A band of musicians arrives at a seedy hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. As soon as the young rockers check in, they immediately begin seeing and hearing strange phenomenon. Mysteriously, the temperature in their hotel room escalates and they remove the ceiling tiles to let the heat out. One at time the people gaze into the ceiling duct, turn crazed, and flee the scene. It seems that each person witnessed the a ghostly entity who not only scared them to death but placed a curse on them as well. It is soon revealed that the malevolent spirit belongs to a young prostitute who was brutally killed and in that same hotel room. The murderer decapitated the young prostitute, and placed her head up in the air conditioning system above that same ceiling vent. The cursed and scared musicians quickly meet their deaths in mysterious ways. When the remaining youths realize what is happening to them, they seek the aid of a wise monk at a nearby Buddhist temple. The Monk tells them the only way to break the curse is too desecrate the grave yards and dig up the coffins of those people who have died a violent death. Furthermore, they must sleep in the coffins of the people they dug up in order to completely break the spell. The remaining musicians must use all their resources to beat the curse and uncover the mystery behind the prostitutes death in order to survive.

First time director Thiwa Meyathaisong’s low budget Thailand film THE SISTERS (original title Pee Chong Air), owes its very existence to the likes of superior Asian horror fare such as THE GRUDGE, JU-ON, and especially A TALE OF TWO SISTERS. Like many recent Thai/Korean horror efforts, THE SISTERS is supposedly based on a true incident (yeah right, and so was BLAIR WITCH PROJECT). Thiwa Meyathaisong demonstrates his flair for the horror genre by taking an acid trip approach; tossing the logic out the window is fine with me. Asian genre films have a habit of over-explaining things to the point of tedium, and I find this approach adds a layer of mystery to the whole affair. Meyathaisong also tries hard to make the film grim and depressing without splashing blood everywhere. He ensures that there is some genuine creepy dread to THE SISTERS. The photography is also brilliantly done and the color schemes enhance the look of the film. Ditto the soundtrack contributed to the dark and trippy tone of THE SISTERS.

Most Thai low budget features contain some truly horrid acting, and I’m happy to report that the cast of THE SISTERS is well above the usual standards. Like those others films mentioned earlier, THE SISTERS offers up most of its scares through jumps, cuts, and sound effects. We’ve seen all this before in many other Asian horror fare; you know the ones I’m talking about—how many ghostly Asian female teenagers with long flowing hair and wearing white contact lenses do we have to endure? Okay, original THE SISTERS is not. But despite all the redundancy, Meyathaisong manages to squeeze all the horror and intrigue from the elements we’ve all seen before. And he keeps the narrative flowing by incorporating flashbacks and implementing oddly artistic camera angles and lighting. The director consistently controls the suspense and pacing by subtly dropping clues about what is going to happen, yet never revealing the major secrets of THE SISTERS.

Media Blasters releases THE SISTERS uncut in its original widescreen ratio of 1.85.1, with 16x9 enhancement. The ghostly low budget cinematography occasionally appears grainy, but the ghostly imagery is wonderfully preserved in the transfer. The intentionally garish color schemes help to make THE SISTERS even more surreal and nightmarish. The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo in the original Thai language (with white English subtitles). The crisp, clear bizarre score combined with the ghostly sound effects give THE SISTERS much of its power. Media Blasters also includes an English dubbed soundtrack done by the company’s stock of anime voice artists. While I think the inclusion of an English dub track is not a bad thing, the one here is fairly terrible with the voice cast falling well short of what the filmmakers are trying to accomplish. The dubbing voices are so laughingly bad that you can’t help but laugh, which certainly detracts from the horrific elements. With the exception of the trailer, there are no other extras on this disc.

THE SISTERS is by no means a perfect horror film, but productionwise it breaks the boundaries set by its low budget. It is a genuinely creepy, genuinely bloody, and suspenseful motion picture. Okay it doesn’t have an original idea in it, but what horror film does? The only flaw with THE SISTERS is Meyathaisong’s habit of telegraphing all the carnage. Media Blaster’s DVD looks and sounds great, yet there is not a single film related extra on the disc—this latter fact is a big letdown since this film is so recent that there should be no reason why this might not have been a special edition DVD (as far as extras go).