It was announced back in February that “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” supermodel Charisma Carpenter would be toplining the new thriller Deadly Sibling Rivalry, directed by Hanelle Culpepper and written by Steve Peterson and John Murlowski.
The pic will follow an identical twin who secretly steals her sister’s identity in an attempt to start over with a new life and keep her sister out of her way. She stops at nothing to seek revenge on a sister that has always had the seemingly better life…
Horror fans hankering for a double dose of Charisma Carpenter rest assured, Deadly Sibling Rivalry will deliver. That’s the word from the actress herself, who plays twins Callie and Janna in the horror thriller. Currently in Australia for the Supanova Pop Culture Expo, the former “Buffy” and “Angel” star said the film is for people with sibling issues.
“I think it will appeal to anyone who hates their sister,” she said.
“I don’t have one, so I don’t know, but it was so much fun to play Callie and then to play her counterpart, particularly because I identified with both characters.
“I can be uptight and very business-minded like Janna, but very sassy like Callie too.”
Carpenter finished work on Deadly Sibiling Rivalry last month and said although she enjoyed working with a female director in Hanelle Culpepper, the shoot was “very short.”
“There wasn’t enough time to do it,” she said.
“It was a very short shoot and I just really could have got into the characters more and more and more.
“But Hanelle was wonderful; it was very different working with a female director.
“You don’t see a lot of women in that position number one and I admired her very much.”
The plot follows Callie and Janna, two twins who have always been competitive and vying for the love of their father. After an accident, Janna is put in a coma and Callie takes over her identity to get revenge on the sister she sees as always having had the easy route. The story also involves rock climbing, which Carpenter said was a real challenge despite having “done it before.”
“I’d been shooting another project straight before that so I hadn’t worked out in, like, a few weeks,” she said.
“I hadn’t been to the gym and I had to do all this rock climbing and I was so sore.
“The next day I had to drive to Arizona, which is a nine hour drive, and I was in pain everywhere.
“I had these heat packs on each shoulder, on my lower back, it was a painful drive.”
Carpenter said Deadly Sibling Rivalry isn’t “genre specific” but falls more comfortably into thriller territory.
