Genres:
Horror
Thriller
Release Date: 08/29/2006
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DDM2.0
Run Time: 79 min
Flags: Mild Violence, Adult Situations, Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: MPI Home Video
In this made-for-TV
horror showcase,
Karen Black plays four separate roles in three successive tales written or based on the works of venerable genre writer
Richard Matheson. In "Julie,"
Black portrays a prim college literature instructor who engages in a debauched affair with one of her students after he drugs, date-rapes, and blackmails her into submission; here and in the other stories, however, things aren't what they seem. "Millicent and Therese" features the actress in two roles as good sister/bad sister twins who use witchcraft to settle their sexual and moral differences. In the final and most famous segment, "Amelia,"
Black plays a spinster with an insufferable mother who sublets a high-rise apartment in the city in order to find romantic freedom. When she purchases a Zuni fetish warrior doll as a present for her anthropology-professor beau, it comes to life and chases her around the flat with considerable tenacity. A failed pilot for a
horror anthology series,
Trilogy of Terror first appeared on
ABC in 1975 and subsequently gained a devoted cult following.
Black originally didn't want to participate, but agreed after her husband,
Robert Burton, was cast in the role of the date-raping blackmailer. Although the actress has appeared in numerous subsequent
horror films, it was her indelible quadruple roles here that inspired cult New York
rockers the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. The film also allegedly inspired the 1984
horror-blaxploitation flick
Black Devil Doll From Hell. A belated sequel,
Trilogy of Terror 2, also from former
Dark Shadows director
Dan Curtis, followed in 1996.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
As much a camp classic as
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, this
horror anthology paved the way for actress
Karen Black's precipitous '80s and '90s career decline and terrified an entire generation of TV kids with the devilish antics of the Zuni fetish warrior doll -- certainly the most hilarious/horrific bit of puppetry ever to grace either the silver or small screen. Yet only the final ten minutes of this flick feature the diminutive African warrior. The more lasting pleasure is
Black's simultaneously genius and goofy acting and the
exploitation thrills of the thematically interlocking story lines. It's easy to dismiss the first and second segments, both written by
William F. Nolan, and praise the third, written by
Richard Matheson, veteran of countless
horror novels and
Twilight Zone episodes. Yet all three stories are based on
Matheson's work, and they all play with virgin/whore archetypes in ways that allow
Black to make good use of her early training in
exploitation films. With impossible cheekbones and pouty lips that anticipated the exaggerated glamour of comic actress
Jennifer Coolidge,
Black's got sin written all over her face. Yet she spends most of
Trilogy of Terror hiding behind a succession of glasses, severe hairstyles, and schoolmarm clothing. That makes it all the more campily wondrous when she does get to break out of her sexual shackles: for the implied gang-bang and gothic degradation of "Julie"; for the blue eye shadow flirtatiousness and bewigged vamping of "Millicent and Therese"; and for the shockeroo finale of the incomparable "Amelia," which finds
Black borrowing a gesture or two from her pal, the Zuni fetish doll. The little warrior himself became a permanent
horror icon, but the image of
Black literally becoming the doll both proved her considerable acting chops and destroyed any chance that she'd ever be taken seriously again. That's quite an accomplishment for a TV movie.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
;)
