1/12/07: Twin Falls Idaho (1999)We were out in Times Square at the end of December, and came across a big promotional picture of a two-headed dog. We were as baffled as that time we staggered out of a bar and found all the shuttered 42nd Street grindhouses brightly lit and advertising trashy horror films. That turned out to be for the filming of
The Last Action Hero. The two-headed dog was just part of a larger display for the incoming Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum. Still, it was a nice brief throwback to the old days of flea circuses and other Times Square oddities.
This got us thinking about the TV show that everyone saw over the holidays about that two-headed girl. Few things would make people stop flicking through channels like the sight of
Abigail and Brittany Hansel. We'd been inspired to knock out an easy posting here by reprinting our old review of a documentary about conjoined twins
Lori & Dori Schappell—aka, a much less likable two-bodied girl.
And then
Alarming News screwed that up by writing
really kind things about that same review. We didn’t even think
the article was available on the internet. So now we’re stuck with having to write a real entry about
Twin Falls Idaho.
This humble indie launched the careers of screenwriters Michael and Mark Polish, also starring here as Siamese twins.
Michael directs,
Mark takes a producer’s credit, and they really are twins, so things probably get confusing on the set. They also got screwed over on directing
Hollywoodland because they insisted on Kyle MacLachlan playing George Reeves.
Hollywoodland turned out to be a fine film, but it would’ve been even more right-minded if the Polish brothers had gotten the script.
Twin Falls Idaho is mostly a character study of two straight-laced conjoined twins and the drug-addled dame who screws up their pleasant life. The Falls Brothers are doing okay in their creepy hotel room, even if they only get to go out on Halloween. They’re basically waiting to die. One brother’s just serving as a life-support unit for the other. Then they call up a hooker for their birthday, and she happens to know a doctor who makes creepy hotel room-calls.
From there,
Twin Falls Idaho makes a good case for how it’s better to be a reclusive freak than to hang out with really hip artists. That documentary about Lori & Dori makes a similar point about how it’s better to be a reclusive freak than to hang out with Leftist morons.
Abigail and Brittany seem to be well adjusted, though. They’ll hopefully be spared a fate like the Falls brothers. The movie ends on a touching note, but what was once a dapper young man ends up looking like a grunge musician who doesn’t know the ’90s are nearly over. It’s touching and sad.
Make it your own: Check out
the DVD art.
Twin Falls Idaho isn't an exploitation film, but the marketing crew at Sony did their best to make it one.
