Everybody knows how popular Twisted Sister was back in the mid-80s when MTV constantly aired the video-clips for the huge hits “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. That was the time when “Stay Hungry” became a multiplatinum seller and subsequently Twisted Sister superstars and iconic 80s arena rock band. But as it happens quite often, success didn’t last long and once again the motto “it’s hard to reach the top but it’s even harder to stay there” was verified. The thing is that in the case of Twisted Sister one cannot even imagine how hard it was to not only reach the top but to even secure a record deal. You see, it took 8 long, hard working years before Sister signed their first record contract and certainly other bands would have quit a long time ago…but not Twisted Sister! This was a band that had under their belt more than 3.250 shows in the clubs of Tri-State area; the majority of which were sold out (bear in mind that most of those clubs had a capacity of 2.000-3000 people)! Their fan base was hard core and followed them everywhere.
This exact and unheralded period is the epicenter of the sensational documentary “We Are Twisted Fucking Sister” by Andrew Horn. It features interviews and comments by the entire band and people who played a significant (or not so significant for that matter) role in the development of the Twisted Sister story back in the 70s and early 80s. The live excerpts and the rare photographic archival material takes us back to the time when Jay Jay French started a glam rock band that would later be transformed to a hard n’ heavy juggernaut with the addition of the legendary Dee Snider and he rest of the guys.
What I really enjoyed was the fact that Horn included interviews by fans of Twisted Sister that were there back in the day thus adding a more accurate picture of what went on in the clubs while those live excerpts by the club days are really priceless although we could have used some more precise info about them. Nevertheless, the documentary comes to an end after 135 minutes and just when Twisted Sister managed to sign a deal with Atlantic Records. We hope that the classic 1983-1987 period would also be highlighted in a follow-up DVD.
Long Live Twisted Fucking Sister!
