Trilogy of Terror (1975)

 

Trilogy of Terror (1975)

 

This is considered by many the scariest TV movie in history, and it has earned that reputation, but it’s also far-from perfect.

 

It was Produced and Directed by Dan Curtis, most famous as the Creator of the Gothic Soap Opera “Dark Shadows” (first aired 1966). It’s an Anthology film based on short stories by the Legendary Richard Matherson, famous for novels like “I Am Legend” (1954), screenplays for TV’s “Twilight Zone” (first aired 1959), and “Star Trek” (first aired 1966) and most of Director Roger Corman’s adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe (first film 1960). Curtis and Matherson had previously collaborated on the enormously successful TV movie “The Night Stalker” (1972). Oddly, Matherson only wrote the script for one of the three segments, and that’s that one that everyone remembers. The other two scripts were penned by William F. Nolan, a Novelist and Screenwriter of no small reputation, but certainly not in Matheson’s league.

 

Eschewing the use of a framing story that most Anthology Films rely on, the gimmick tying all three tales together is Actress Karen Black played all the Leads in the otherwise disconnected tales. Black rocks the house, having great fun with the very different Characters.

 

Black was an actress of great stature at the time of this film, having earned an Oscar nomination for “Five Easy Pieces” (1970), which also garnered her a Golden Globe Win, she’d won another Golden Glove Win and Nomination for different projects. But she was also hard to cast because, as the NY Times wrote, “She brought surprising depth of empathy and vulnerability to a range of not-very-bright characters.” If a smart script needed a dumb-girl, Black was the go-to, but dumb-girls get little respect in most smart scripts. In “Five Easy Pieces” she gave stronger performance as Character Rayette Dipesto than Actress Susan Anspach playing the film’s more respectable Heroine Catherine Van Oost; but more respectable is more respectable and that is something that Casting Directors remember. But these Casting Directors should’ve listened to her co-Star, who later Directed her, Jack Nicholson, when he called her “the most lucid actress I’ve ever worked with. You tell her where it’s at and she grabs it.”

 

Black had, at first, been resistant to the project and took it only because her then-husband, Actor Robert Burton, would be co-starring. She feared type-casting, and later complained that was exactly what she got out of it, "I think this little movie took my life and put it on a path that it didn't even belong in." But by the 2000s when, largely because of this film, her Cult Status was secure, she was enjoying more work than most other Actresses her age, she spoke better of the film, even though she admitted, “But I'm not interested in blood.” She liked SF much better but did far less of that.

 

Importantly, Black was first and foremost a dedicated and prolific Actress, doing a lot of marginal films because she seemed incapable of not working. Some years she starred in as many as seven different films, and by the end of her fifty-plus-year career racked up 210 on-screen credits.

 

The first tale, “Julie” based on the short-story "The Likeness of Julie" (1962) has its fans, and Black is a joy to watch. A twisted spoof on Sexual politics that I’d prefer to not describe in too much detail; let’s just say it starts with a young, handsome, and loathsome Sexual Predator (her husband Burton) getting everything he wanted through unforgivable misdeeds, and then paying a high price for it.

 

As for the next segment, “Millicent & Therese,” it’s based on the short story "Needle in the Heart" (1969). Regarding this one, let me put it this way: I’ve seen this film three times, when it was first aired, during the 1990s on VHS, and recently in preparation for this essay. Before the third viewing, for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything about this segment, and after watching it the third time, I recognized why it was so forgettable. It’s about twin sisters, a Spinster and a Slut, who have a hostile relationship, it also has an allegedly “surprise” ending. You can guess the rest of the plot yourself.

 

It’s the third and final segment, “Amelia,” based on the story “Prey” (1969), that everyone always talks about. It was the one that Matheson penned the screenplay, featured the most developed Character for Black to play, and a Monster that is beloved of all Horror fans of my generation, the Zuni Hunter Fetish Doll. That prop sold in auction in 2019 for $217,600, which was some kind of record. Also, the final image will burn into your Dreams.

 

Character Amelia lives alone and though she has a boyfriend, Arthur, one senses tension with this man we never see. She arrives home from work one day and there’s a gift from her boyfriend. Opening the package, it proves not Romantic, but a really the hideous, above-mentioned, Fetish Doll, perhaps chosen because Artur Teaches Anthropology at City College. There’s a scroll too, “he who kills...he is a deadly hunter." The spirit within the Doll is supposed to be restrained by the golden chain around it. We all know that chain will fall off, right?

 

Amelia says to the doll, "Even your mother wouldn't love you."

 

As it turns out, Amelia’s mother is pretty over-bearing. Like Arthur, Mom doesn’t appear, we only know of the two through Amelia’s half of telephone conversations. Mom expresses her resentment that Amelia wants to cancel their usual Friday-night dinner because its Arthur’s for his Birthday. Notably, Actress Black Wrote, or at least Improvised, most her dialogue for that scene.

 

Mom leaves Amelia upset and badly torn, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the Doll comes alive and hunts her down.

 

The Doll was designed by Erik M. Von Buelow and memorably creepy, but it was also a Practical Effect in a low-budget movie, so pretty awkward when expected to move. The power of this segment, the cat-and-mouse between Amelia and that Nasty Little Thing, mostly rests in the amazing physicality of Actress Black’s performance. Critic Jeremiah Kipp wrote, "Black … [is] the kind of extreme actress who not only acts with her eyes and face, but with her neck, her fingertips, her elbows, wrists, and torso. Gusto is not the word." We always know what the Doll’s doing because terrified Amelia is reacting it. Also, Director Curtis carefully Composed and Edited each frame flawlessly. Curtis is better known as Producer than a Director despite Directing almost everything he Producer, so really, should best be described as an even more extreme workaholic than Actress Black. Here he was working with Cinematographer Paul Lohmann and Editor Les Green, and this segment probably counts a near-career-best. During this short, but epic, battle, Amelia really fights back, attempting to drown the Monster, bash it with a lamp, lock it in a suitcase, burn it in an oven, but the Doll proves indominable.

 

When these came out, the Prolific Curtis was then approaching the peak of his career. “Dark Shadows” had locked him into Gothic Horror for a decade and he both achieved much within it, and actively trying to escape that. He finally did escape with the two much-admired WWII mini-series “Winds of War” (1983) and “War and Remembrance” (1988), but he was also was in his fifties by then, and a decline in his work soon followed.

 

Curtis Produced, Directed, and co-Wrote a sequel, “Trilogy of Terror II” (1996) which again included scripts by both Matheson and Nolan, but the Actress linking them was now Lysette Anthony. I haven’t seen it, but it is not much beloved.

 

Trailer:

Trilogy Of Terror Trailer 1975 (youtube.com)