TRILOGY OF TERROR

Trilogy of Terror Movie Review

The title pretty much says it all here--this is a collection of three stories of terror. All written by Richard Matheson, the stories were made into a movie that aired on broadcast television as part of the ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week. 

1970's awesomeness

All three stories featured Karen Black, likely best known to Rob Zombie and horror fans as Mother Firefly from House of 1,000 Corpses, and to Mike Patton fans for her duel role in Firecracker.

"Yes, I starred in a movie, too!"

In the first story, Black plays Julie, an English teacher with a student who has a deadly crush on her. He convinces her to go on a date, and once out, he drugs her. From there, he manipulates her, only to find out later the mouse may actually be the cat. While not really pushing up too closely to horror, this was a nice way to start off. 

"How you doin?"

In the second story, Black plays twin sisters Millicent and Therese--the former is a bit of a prude, while the latter is more, shall we say, outgoing. Millicent tells the family therapist Theresa has had sex with their father, and, believing her to be evil, plans to kill her. The weakest of the installments, I found this one kind of hard to get through. There is a twist, but you'll likely see it coming. 

No, thanks. There's at least two people sitting there already

The third and final installment is what we all watch this movie for. Here, Black plays Amelia, a woman who has just purchased a doll possessed with the spirit of a Zuni warrior. There's a gold chain wrapped around the doll, and as long as the chain stays intact, the doll is harmless. 

What could go wrong?

Being a made for television movie, this stuff was pretty terrifying for the time--in fact, most will put it on their list of scariest TV movies. For me, it's not the Zuni that makes the segment scary--the voice takes away that element for me. What really makes this one is Black's performance. You can feel the terror she's experiencing as she tries to figure out what to do with this monster. The closing scene (allegedly Black's idea) is fantastic as well. 

Don't smile, don't smile, don't smile

All these years later, Trilogy of Terror lives in the minds of elder horror fans (ones even older than me) as something that frightened them in their youth, and it's easy to see why. Amelia is something to be seen for sure, and if the other two segments were as strong, this movie would have a much higher score. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

Trilogy of Terror TV Spot