Dressed to KillThe brilliance of Brian De...

Dressed to Kill

The brilliance of Brian De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill” is apparent within seconds of its opening gliding shot. This variation on themes of sex, voyeurism, guilt and murder, in “Psycho” and “Vertigo,” is a sustained work of terror--elegant, sensual, erotic, bloody, a directorial tour de force. Echoes of Hitchcock are everywhere. De Palma never lets up. To his view of city life as a sleek-surfaced, unhelpful maze of chrome and glass, he adds an unlikely element: humor along with eroticism and terror, as seen on Angie Dickinson’s face (above). (KTTV Tuesday at 8 p.m.)