Dark and brooding locations contrast nicely with the gallows humor and dread of the plucky (sort of) heroes and heroines of this Canadian twist on Very Bad Things vs John Hughes. The parents, not biological to half of the children, are evil. Yet the portrayal and dialogue is less funny and more harrowing than feels just right in a dark comedy like this. There is a level of menace, anger, and retribution that is just TOO palpably real to be slightly amusing. There is a character who pops in, without introduction and continues to show up, unannounced, uninvited and perplexingly devoid of plot motion. This lovely woman is a neighbor that the male hero obsesses over. Why? He needs a woman love interest? Maybe. She develops into a character with a nice dark streak that fits right into the menagerie well. The plot involves murder and the 'oh so comic misadventures that dead bodies can create' or something like that. Something about dead bodies and what to do with them is such a reliable plot device. Here it is handled pretty well. The characters are not made to be idiots (as would be typical in American cinema) but rather smart enough to have seen this sort of dilemma on a multitude of TV shows and now, faced with it in real life, have the added dimensions of fear and anxiety that make their decisions impulsive, ineffective and, subsequently need to be changed. I have always liked the old Hitchcock film, The Trouble With Harry, about the dead body and the number of people in the quaint village who are certain that they are responsible for the body becoming non-living. In some ways SIBLINGS is like that. WHY a 7? Totally sweet rental. For $2 and about 90 minutes of entertainment you could do much worse (Jim Carrey for example). It is offbeat, fresh, has some unexpected twists and dialogue. Wht the hell...Plus, it takes place over Christmas so it is a good antidote to all that saccharine craptacular product that is spewed out annually. That's my opinion.
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