De Palma's latest effort, Dressed to Kill, borrows liberally from his previous films: the "surprise" ending, a shock that turns out to be merely a nightmare, recalls Carrie; the element of voyeurism derives from Hi Mom! and Home Movies. But these are nothing compared to what De Palma steals from Hitchcock. Adding a little nudity and sex, he makes off with more or less everything from Psycho, right down to the shower scene and the psychopathic killer who dresses in women's clothing.

What De Palma leaves behind is Hitchcock's cynical Catholicism. His point of view, as both a writer and a director, is simply amoral; he dispatches his characters in spectacularly gory fashion with no justification other than sheer delight in the kinetic possibilities of killing on screen. The violence in his movies—with the important exception of Carrie—is commited for esthetic reasons alone…. De Palma makes...