Leslie and Joan Stanton (Leslie and Joan Simon) are sisters that live together in San Francisco. When they were young the girls’ father owned a funeral parlor. The girls want to continue in their father’s footsteps put lack the finances to get started. To that end they worked out a way to get the money they need. Both girls are criminally insane and decide that the best way to get money is to marry well off men and then kill them for their inheritance. They each take turns marrying men and, on the honeymoon, usually kill each other’s husbands.
While preparing to dispose of their latest victim, the girls receive a surprise visit from their nymphomaniac aunt, Ingrid Stanton (Irmgard Millard). “Auntie” is divorcing her husband and wants to stay with the girls for the weekend so she can sign some paperwork on Monday. Leslie, being the nicer of the two, agrees to let her stay. The girls try to hide the dead man from their aunt but eventually she sees it. Joan, who doesn’t like Auntie anyway, had no choice but to slaughter her aunt.
“Cemetery Sisters” was released in 1987 and was written and directed by Nick Millard. It is an S.O.V. (shot on video) low-budget horror movie. The movie stars real life sisters Joan and Leslie Simon.
The movie was shot in Nick Millard's home. He was also married to Irmgard Millard who plays the aunt. The girl who plays young Joan in the flashback sequences is Nick’s daughter. The acting is cringe worthy, especially Irmgard’s performance as a nympho. The others are not much better.
Many people like Millard’s style of bad movie making. I found it to be tedious and boring. The movie was less than an hour long, but it felt like it went on for days. Even the gory scenes were mostly quick cuts or off screen. The flashback sequences were numerous and occurred every time Joan brushed her hair. The film includes a movie-within-a-movie. The scenes used are from Millard’s films “Criminally Insane” and “Satan’s Black Wedding”. All they do is pad out the film. The editing is choppy and with the extra padding the film seemed scattered.
I didn’t have a really big problem with most of the horrible acting or the low production values. I’m used to movies like that. Here, however, there were just too many flaws for me to overlook. A bad movie can sometimes still keep my attention. Here I ended up more interested in the movie-within-a-move than in the main feature.