Fluentiama
Perfect cast and a good story
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Yash Wade
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
lost-in-limbo
Amy, a college psych student comes across a red garment in a chest she just bought to use in a play. She keeps it and makes it into a party dress. However the first time she puts it on, it influences her and changes the way she acts. By bringing out her darker side. Soon everyone seems to want a piece of this garment. From her college professor she finds out it's an Aztec cloak that was used in sacrificial ceremonies.I'll go to say that I never even heard of this Tobe Hooper supernatural thriller opus. Striking and strange, but the one-idea premise and languidly cut n' dry script doesn't really build upon its interesting background and teetering imagination enough. Maybe this is due to its restrictions of being a cheaply produced made-for-TV production, but I seem to doubt it as it could be associated to material being adapted from a short story. On the other hand it's probably best to not really delve deep into it though, because of uneven logic and it borderlines on tacky. The plot does have a 'Cinderella' touch to it, and seems to have that everything, but the kitchen sink drama quality to it. All the characters that come and go are stereotypically painted, but the performers were better than the material. The gorgeously fixating Madchen Amick confidently grows from her sweet performance as Amy. Anthony Perkins keeps it professional and likes to just pop up randomly as the suspicious college professor. Dee Wallace Stone is great in her minor role that reeks of attitude. R. Lee Ermey in a small role engages with his sombre detective. Corey Parker makes for a likable love-interest for Amick. Also appearing are Natalie Schaffer, William Berger and Jack McGee.You can really see Hooper's able illustrative style shining through this work. He subtly mixes the eerie violence together with sexual seductiveness. Sure it can become silly and lousy with its jolts, but still it stays dangerously ominous and tautly handled with its imagery. It might not have the biting flair of some his previous early work ('The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Eaten Alive' and 'The Funhouse') though. He milks it out slowly, letting the atmosphere unfold and the possessive force evolve. For a TV production the film is smoothly shot, very well lit and effectively scored.A modest TV feature, which has some obvious and stodgy patterns.
Michael
This is an unanticipatedly imaginative TV terror movie revision of Cinderella, all the more effective for being guided by the same directorial hand that gave us the unrelenting physical horrors of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Eaten Alive' in his 70s heyday.Amick (of Twin Peaks domestic violence 'Shelley' fame), in a standout performance is the lowly collegiate struggling to juggle her studies with the demands of caring for both her home and her decrepit grandmother, whilst her Aunt and cousin live it up night after night. Cue a reversal of fortune when she lands the job of props mistress in a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and falls under the spell of a sensuous red cloth which, as spooky professor Perkins points out, is an original Aztec witchcraft cloak; and which she transforms into a dress, with murderous results.Clearly a waste of time for the underwritten Perkins and sad to see such a talented and perennially underused actor ill and jaded in a career on the wane, although far worse was yet to come (ie 'In The Deep Woods'). The film is also bereft of the sort of shock value that one would need to swallow the tall tale being presented at face value. Still, it does sort of work on a surprisingly engrossing level of creepy subtleness, and this is aided by a slinky visual quality and the billowing symbolism of the red dress; captured on film stock in what must have been one of the very last TV movies to be shot this way.
brandonsites1981
Disappointing, but entertaining adaption about a cursed red cloak that turns whoever is wearing it into a blood thirsty killer. A young woman who gets the cloak from her aunt turns it into a dress and of course goes on a killing spree. Made for USA television and then given a video release afterwards, this film features a pretty solid cast and some effective jolt scenes. Rated R.
fgunther
OK, to explain how hokey this film is, I've got to include a couple of **spoilers**. When our heroine goes home to her obviously sleazy aunt, who tells her there's no money left in her dead parents' estate, and then tells her to sew a new dress for her in two days - the story was done much better in Cinderella. You just know she's gonna wreak awful vengeance on her evil relatives, as soon as the red cloak takes over. Note to director: this was done much better by Jim Carrey in "Mask".And the "red cloak". A cheesy piece of red rayon, supposedly used by Inca priests? With great magical powers? Where'd they get this prop? Salvation Army?There were some fine actors, eg, Madchen Amick and Anthony Perkins, doing their best with this, and the opening scene wasn't too bad. But, much as I wanted to find good things about this film, it was really disappointing. I gave it a 1.
