We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 18, 2016

From the outside, all sorts of show business careers may seem like unending parades of glamour and untold success, but meet all but a precious few who have had showbiz wealth pretty much handed to them and you’ll hear a constant refrain that “overnight success” is a myth, and that there are often years (even decades) of hard work before anything significant is achieved, at least in terms of those oft mentioned edifices of the American Dream, fame and fortune. Say what you will about Twisted Sister (and opinions about the band are in no short supply), they evinced a stick-to-it-iveness that is in one way their most defining feature. We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! reveals the almost petulant persistence the band members showed over a long and at times seemingly ineffective grind toward stardom.

One of the brickbats typically thrown at the band is that for all their supposed “shock” value (the description on the back cover of this release touts their genre as “shock metal”), they have not been the most radical or innovative metal band of any sort, though they have consistently shown competency and (some would argue) mastery of their niche while also indulging in inarguably entertaining live performances. This equally entertaining documentary offers the backstory of the band, elements which will probably be more or less well known to the band’s fanbase already, but which are laid out here in a compelling fashion that features lots of at times rather funny and even heartfelt interviews.

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer (largely) in 1.78:1. As tends to be the case with retrospective documentaries such as this which are often cobbled together from archival video which is in less than optimal condition, there's a pretty heterogeneous look to this piece. Contemporary interview segments are sharp and appealing, with excellent black levels and abundant detail. The archival footage is all over the place, and some of it is in pretty bad shape (see screenshot 5). A number of "slides" (see screenshot 2) tend to be a bit sharper than some of the archival video, but even here there's fairly wide variability. Still photos typically look quite good.

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While there are snippets of music galore running throughout We Are Twisted F***ing Sister!, this is in essence a talking heads piece, and so the difference between the included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks is not as consistently wide as some might expect (or at least hope). The musical elements are opened up, sometimes rather nicely so in terms of low end, but the interview sequences sound largely the same. Fidelity is fine and there are no issues of any kind to report.

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Philosophy and Attitude (1080i; 13:12)


• Stage Craziness (1080i; 15:56)


• The Clubs (1080i; 33:09)


• The Fans (1080i; 14:46)


• Music and the Music Business (1080i; 15:04)


• Personal Stories (1080i; 19:20)


• In the UK (1080i; 10:09)


• Afterword (1080i; 14:58)


• Summing Up (1080i; 10:10)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080i; 2:23)


• Commentary with Director Andrew Horn

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I must confess Twisted Sister has always been one of those "meh" bands for me—they're almost always fine to listen to, but they wouldn't be my first choice even if forced to stay within harder rock boundaries. Perhaps surprisingly, then, I was quite taken with We Are Twisted F***ing Sister!. The documentary is pretty standard in terms of format and even editing choices, but the story of the band is one of hard work and a refusal to give up in the face of looming odds that is often strangely moving. Technical merits are generally strong (at least given an understanding of the shape of the archival video), and We are Twisted F***ing Sister! comes Recommended.