Rouge comme la Mort

The Animism professor at Tiverton College finds a sacrificial cloak hidden in an ancient Aztec altar and goes on a homicidal rampage before committing suicide. Soon after, a campus co-ed (TWIN PEAKS' Madchen Amick) buys the ceremonial cloth at an estate sale and turns it into a ravishing red cocktail dress that removes sexual inhibition and triggers another murder wave before being stolen from the morgue...

The intriguing premise was adapted from a short story by Cornell Woolrich and the movie has horror director Tobe Hooper as an asset but, all the same, it's rather tame and doesn't reely warrant an R rating. Anthony Perkins guest-stars as a quirky professor with an inordinate interest in the apparently inexplicable and Natalie Shafer ("Lovey" on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) pops up as a wheelchair-bound mute a la William Castle's HOMICIDAL. Not bad, I suppose, but it could have been more with added gore.