Hooptober XII | 28/31 | Tobe Hooper
An 18-wheeler arrives at a storage facility at the Tiverton College Museum and drops off a package for Dr. Jonas Wilson. The package is an Aztec sacrificial altar, engraved with snakes, skulls, and depictions of sacrifice. Dr. Wilson consults his papers and struggles to move the carved skull. Then, the snake’s mouth opens and sand pours out as the top of the altar rises. Inside is a mummified human body wearing an untarnished red cloak. Dr. Wilson removes the cloak and puts it on himself. The security guard, Frank, hears rumbling and steps out to see all the artifacts in shambles. Dr. Wilson raises an axe and murders Frank.
The following day, Professor Gordon Buchanan gives a lecture on animism—namely, the belief that particular inanimate objects are actually alive and possess a will of their own. He also makes a show of breaking several objects, as if this refutes the belief. In honor of the late Dr. Wilson, the class will write a paper on animism. In the class is Amy, who judiciously takes notes. She gets paired with Eddie for the project, but Eddie is playing Mercutio in the school play and cannot set aside time to read the 1200-page tome that Dr. Wilson wrote. But Amy readily volunteers to read it. Still, Vic, who is directing the play, enlists Amy to find props.
After an evening of caring for her ailing grandmother and sewing a dress for her aunt, Amy goes to the estate sale for the late Dr. Wilson to find props for the play. She buys a trunk, and inside, finds the red cloak. When she picks it up, she has visions of Dr. Wilson killing Frank, then coming home and killing his wife before committing suicide. She shrugs it off and heads to school. Once at the rehearsal, Eddie finds the red cloak and decides it’s his costume. He goes into a rage and attacks his scene partner, Barry, with a sword. He threatens to remove one of Barry’s eyes, but the cloak falls off of him and he comes to.
That night, Amy is distracted by the cloak, compelled to touch it. Her cousin, Gloria, and Gloria’s boyfriend, Mason, come in, and Amy dons a flirtatious tone. Late into the night, Amy wakes, compelled to make a dress from the cloak. A school dance is coming up. When she wears the dress, what will it do to her?
It's scary to think what's bottled inside us, waiting to get out.
This movie is fine. It’s hard to evaluate, as it doesn’t do anything too exciting. It’s a made-for-TV horror movie, after all. Some of the set pieces are pretty contrived, and it loses the thread (HA!) towards the end, but it’s entertaining enough throughout
Stray Thoughts / Spoilers
- Amy is totally fine with buying a murder robe from an estate sale, despite giving her nightmarish visions.
- Mädchen Amick won’t win any awards for her performance, but when it comes to acting out the cloak’s will, she knows just what to do.
- I love the license-free MIDI music they use at the dance.
- The grandmother’s wheelchair scene freaked me out!
- Gloria says the movie’s title when she steals the dress.
- “This is it, babe! Joe Mantana commercials, Miller Light, the big time!”
- No, Gloria, not the razor blade!
- Cottage fries?! Sounds gross!
- There’s the manic Anthony Perkins I love.
- Three quarts of ice cream and two bottles of vodka — the girl dinner final boss.
- Another movie with Anthony Perkins in which someone in a dress charges out of an upstairs bedroom with a knife.
- “It corrupts like a drug! It corrupts everything it touches!”
- So, Amy is SOO pure of heart that she can wear the red dress to no effect?
- Oooh, there’s the Mädchen Amick I saw in Riverdale.