Depravity explored and savored. After 20 years Dressed to Kill, the erotic psychological/murder thriller, is as intense today as it was in 1980, the Decade of Decadence.

The story of a sexually repressed yet glamorous housewife, thrusts the viewer into a story of demented desires and actions. After a visit to an art museum, the housewife picks-up a lover, spends the afternoon with him and is brutally murdered by a psycho slasher. A surreal quality emanates from the icy yet hot sequence of events: in the opening, Kate, (housewife), has an erotic dream wherein the pick-up lover is also her murderer; absence of dialogue in key scenes amplifies the brutality; and the lushness of urban life is examined in a candid manner, ( the October 2001 issue of Elle magazine details the life of the "middle-class call girl" in the article, "Where the Boys Are").

Within the art museum "pick-up" sequence, in a place devoted to Beauty, Culture and Order, the viewer is placed in a voyeuresque position, participating in a Hunter/Hunted exchange. This "Hunt" theme is laced throughout the movie, one feels the tension and heat without being assaulted with gore and hyperbole. In that sense, it is a pleasure to view tales of mature and intellectual savagery.

Stripped to the Sadean core, Mercy, 1999, explores this same theme of erotic murder thriller- but from a Femme angle, (August 10, 2000-Tapestry). A savvy female cop is on the trail of a serial murderer who is also a member of an elite S&M group. Degenerate slices through Structure and Sophistication, Mercy is a brilliant work of art that scans a Zen like aesthetic.

The October 20, 2001 FX airing of Dressed to Kill was a slip in The Darkness that is Beautiful, Dangerous and Deadly.

And The Great Sabbat is near...Time to reap The Harvest and plan for the Future.

October 20, 2001