An ancient Aztec cloth with a curse accidentally finds its way into the possession of a young woman. She decides to make a dress from the cloth. Whoever wears this cloth/dress comes under its spell; all inhibitions and moral responsibilities are lost.
Mädchen Amick Corey Parker Daisy Hall R. Lee Ermey Natalie Schafer Jason Brooks William Berger Mary Frann Dee Wallace Anthony Perkins Lew Horn Stuart Fratkin Dan Leegant Jack McGee Ed Trotta David Carlile Felicia Lansbury Henry C. Brown Ellen Gerstein Ivan Gueron Juan Garcia Frank DiElsi Richard Penn Xavier Barquet Matthew Walker Robert Harvey Bill Madden
Vestito che uccide, Ma este harapok, Peligrosa de noche, Сегодня вечером я опасна, A Morte Veste Vermelho, Im Bann des Grauens, 我的危险夜
USAR
UK18
UK
USA
134th Review for The Collab Weekly Movie Watch
Sixth film by the man, the legend, the Hoop: Tobe Hooper. Featuring the always stunning Madchen Amick and a killer (pun intended) red dress that will possess their victims (actually one) into doing very deadly stuff...
...and was I the only one who kept being remembered of In Fabric? They don’t have much in common other than the basis of its premise, but for some reason I kept thinking about this film I haven’t thought about in years.
Anyways…
This was pretty okay. For such a premise, it could/should have been campier. Madchen is good, but there were so many goofy scenes, like the ending, where she played it a little too…
If nothing else this movie taught me what cottage fries are.. I had never heard of them before?? I love learning about potatoes!!
15th Tobe Hooper (after The Funhouse, Dance of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Lifeforce, Eaten Alive, Poltergeist, 'The Eye' from Body Bags, Salem's Lot, Crocodile, Night Terrors, Dijinn, The Toolbox Murders and The Mangler)
“Scary to think what’s bottled up inside us just waiting to get out”
Amy (Mädchen Amick)
Cinderella, you SHALL go to the ball. Forced to care for her ailing grandmother, exploited by her self-righteous aunt and materialistic cousin, Amy's a wallflower until she meets her fairy godmother. Except it’s an Aztec sacrificial robe and she doesn’t get some virginal dress fit for a princess. Her sexy little number is the colour of passion, bright red with lipstick and high heels…
How come nobody told me that Tobe Hooper churned out one of the low-key gayest horror movies of the 90s? I know this is based on a Cornell Woolrich novella, but it plays out more like a perverted take on Teen Witch or any number of other Disney Channel teen girl empowerment movies. only with Mädchen Amick fighting with Dee Wallace over control of a deadly dress made from an Aztec mummy's burial shroud. Between giving Anthony Perkins and Natalie Schafer roles and at times exposing and lingering on more male flesh than female (including a shower murder), I can only really wonder just how much of the camp value is intentional.
Scholarly commentary by Hooper fan and genre filmmaker Michael Varrati did have some enjoyable tidbits. This flick was based on a novella by Cornell Woolrich and was also adapted into a short for that late nineties erotic series The Hunger, which I'd almost forgotten about. I'll make time for any commentary about a Hooper film and I'm blown away that we got two tracks for this and The Mangler recently.
Viewed with the Collab.
R Lee Ermy is in a bunch of low budget 90s noirs/eroticas, ain't he? Thissun lacks the pizzaz of Love is a Gun, for example, but it is still well directed, well written, and smattered with that appeasing 80s/90s late-night TV aesthetic. Mädchen Amick is presumably the other reason people will seek this out, adjacent to her time (or just before her time) in Twin Peaks. She's got all the traits (and acting suitability) of a final girl, whose arc perhaps ends with a slight whimper. Credit to the writing with how the cursed totem ends in different hands, and I thoroughly enjoy the minor use of the theater program as a setting. The cliffhanger feels overdone, but again, fits the bill for what type of movie we're in for.
3 Shelleys out of 5
"I'm Dangerous Tonight" is a 1990 supernatural horror film directed by Tobe Hooper. Within the supernatural element, it directly focuses on possession, as the characters in the film trade off a cursed Aztec robe that holds the properties of enraging any person who puts it on. After removing it, the direct person forgets the prior events, showing that they were in a trance while the destruction was done. The beginning of the story seems harmless enough as Madchen Amick, who was Shelly Johnson of "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991) fame, stars as college student Amy. Relatively shy and innocent by design, she lives with her aunt, cousin, and grandmother as she lost her parents prior. There is a bit of a Cinderella…
Tobe Hooper directs this wack Fear Street knockoff where Shelly from Twin Peaks finds a haunted mummy dress that makes her. . . dangerous. After slipping on the evil gown, she becomes a wild delinquent who ditches her bedridden grandma to dance seductively at a college formal. Lots of amazing early '90s baggy fall fashions and a supporting turn from Anthony Perkins as a cursed object occult expert push the movie over the top. The plot gets kinda muddled halfway through, the pacing feels slack, and Hooper doesn't go ape enough with the premise. But if you can find the tape, I'm Dangerous Tonight is a fun enough way to kill 90 minutes and fill in more esoteric patches of the Texan horror maestro's filmography.
Imagining Madchen Amick's wickedly seductive dance sequence with Stevie Wonder's "The Woman in Red" on the soundtrack instead of that more generic music. I smell a fan edit coming. Wouldn't be surprised if that's already on YouTube, but I honestly haven't checked.
Well, the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre finally gets his Cinderella story. Certainly among Hooper's loopier and more forgotten assignments. All the colors of giallo are here looking splendid in this eye popping restoration from Kino Lorber. It's a lightweight nineties cable flick so horror fans should temper expectations. Perkins really isn't in this much either, but still manages to make the innocuous dialogue sound perversely inappropriate.
Watched after the Collab
> Apparently this is my 8th Tobe Hooper and my 7th Tobe Hooper to receive 2 stars. The consistency is amazing.
> I tried to remember Madchen Amick's character's name in Twin Peaks (it's been too long since I've seen Twin Peaks) and I guessed Amy. Then Eddie popped up and said AMY to Madchen Amick. What providence.
> Eddie assigned Amy both a 1,200 page book to read (and the associated college report to write for the both of them) (when did she have time to read this) and props to find as a "break" between reading right off the bat. So he can fuck off and be Mercutio of all people in Romeo & Juliet. Was really hoping…
A standard but watchable made-for-TV horror film made for USA network, based on a Cornell Woolrich story. The premise is not original - a cloak used in an ancient sacrificial ritual that somehow resurfaces centuries later - releases the wearer's darkest hidden impulses which are usually violent. The catch here is it gets a second life as a slinky strapless red dress. So the killers are all sexy babes who lure men to a grisly death.
Although it sounds like a feminist theme, it's really not. And with the chief protagonist Amy (Mädchen Amick from Twin Peaks), she's basically a good girl so it undoes her repression and makes her super horny rather than violent. With college…
boxd.it/i6968
Tobe Hooper Time! After all, it's Hooptober9
This little made-for-cable item that Hooper knocked off for the USA Network....is not The Master's best work. Still, it is watchable and some gold can be mined here and there. IDT fits into that very specific subgenre of Cursed Garments. A shining example of this category would be Peter Strickland's In Fabric (2018). A slightly lesser case would be Slaxx (2020).
Honestly, it was hard to see the fingerprints of the director who gave us Texas Chainsaw Massacre in this film. Can't even imagine that this is the guy who did Eaten Alive (1976). Still, Hooper was working under network constraints. He also did that (and excelled) with 1979's miniseries Salem's Lot,…
