BY TODD GARBARINI
My
seventh grade English teacher was an interesting character. From 1981 to 1982 he
encouraged us to write our own stories and introduced us to collections of macabre
short stories in paperback format (he even read us a story that he wrote
himself, about a man who cooks and eats his wife!) The names Richard Matheson,
George Clayton Johnson, Charles Beaumont and the like became household names to
me, just a few years before I dove head first into Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone as these masters of
storytelling frequently adapted these stories from Alfred Hitchcock paperback collections
into episodes of that extraordinary series. They were classy, spooky, and
bereft of violence and gore and sent a chill down one’s spine.
If
you mention the character names of Julie, Millicent, Therese, and Amelia to
die-hard horror film fans over the age of forty, they will no doubt recognize
them as the characters portrayed by the late actress Karen Black in what is
unquestionably one of her most famous horror outings, Dan Curtis’s made-for-TV
movie Trilogy of Terror. Originally
aired on the ABC Movie of the Week on Tuesday, March 4, 1975, the film was
presented with the warning, “Due to mature subject matter, parental discretion
advised.â€
Just
as the title tells us, there are three stories, or segments. The first is
“Julie,†adapted by author William F. Nolan from the short story “The Likeness
of Julie†by the late-great author Richard Matheson which first appeared in the
Ballantine Books collection Alone by
Night: Tales of Unlimited Horror in 1962. A college student, Chad Foster (Robert
Burton, Karen Black’s then-husband whose casting in the film compelled Ms.
Black to sign on to the three-segment project) cannot help but notice his English
teacher’s thigh, and wonders what she must look like under the minimal war
paint and her plain-Jane clothes. He watches her through a window as she undresses
and then gets the idea to ask her out on a date but Julie initially refuses,
then later accepts. They go to a drive-in movie and Chad spikes Julie’s drink
which puts her to sleep. Chad drives her to a motel and photographs her in
various sexually suggestive positions. He develops the photos in a darkroom and
shows her the photos. Julie is furious, and the story ends with a strange
twist. “Julie†is elliptical in a way, the structure calling to mind John
Fowles’s The Collector (1963). Actor
Gregory Harrison has a small cameo in this segment.
The
second story, “Millicent and Thereseâ€, adapted also by Mr. Nolan from Mr.
Matheson’s story “Needle in the Heart†which was originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in October
1969, is arguably the weakest of the three. Millicent is a sexually repressed
woman with dark hair who fights with her twin sister Therese who is sexually
free and blonde. Millicent truly believes that Therese is evil and creates a
voodoo doll with the desire to kill her. Dr. Ramsey (George Gaines of Punky Brewster), Millicent’s
psychiatrist, does his best to help her, although the ending can be sensed from
a mile away. In lieu of “Millicent and Thereseâ€, I would have liked to
have seen a version of Mr. Matheson’s “The Children of Noah†appear in this
collection, a short story that I read in that classroom in 1982. It left quite
an impression on me.
The
third and final segment is called “Amelia†and is based upon Mr. Matheson’s
short story “Preyâ€, originally published in the April 1969 issue of Playboy
Magazine. Mr. Matheson wrote the teleplay adaptation of his own source material
and it is this segment that has given Trilogy
of Terror its notoriety as being one of the scariest TV-movies of all-time.
Ms. Black plays the titular woman, Amelia, who has finally gotten away from her
physically overbearing mother. After spending a few hours shopping, Amelia
returns to her new apartment with a package containing a horrifically scary
wooden doll of an aboriginal warrior that possesses sharp teeth, a spear and a gold
chain that, according to the paper that accompanies it, must remain intact on
the doll in order to prevent it from coming to life. It is just the sort of
thing that any single woman would want to bring into their home.
Amelia’s
mother still holds a sway over her and a one-sided telephone conversation
reveals that despite moving out, Amelia still feels guilty about her renewed
independence. Unfortunately, the chain on the Zuni hunter doll falls off, and
Amelia becomes embroiled in a life and death struggle against the crazed
spirit. Director Curtis employs many effective cinematic devices that make this
episode truly frightening, including low-to-the-ground P.O.V. shots of the doll
chasing Amelia, screaming and brandishing its spear. The creepy ending and
terrifying final shot make this segment the hands-down winner in a rather
uneven overall film. Try to imagine seeing this segment in 1975. The violence
and bloodletting alone was unprecedented for its time. The nightmares that this
segment must have induced in children no doubt still linger to this day.
Mr.
Matheson, who is most famous for his short story “Duel†which appeared in the
April 1971 issue of Playboy Magazine and inspired the television movie of the
same name, directed by Steven Spielberg, collaborated again with Mr. Curtis in
1976 on Dead of Night (1977), another
creepy TV-movie that consists of three segments.
Robert
Cobert brings his own special brand of musical spookiness to the film. He and
Mr. Curtis certainly made quite a team! Perhaps not on the order of Hitchcock
and Herrmann, but very close.
Trilogy of Terror was released on VHS in 1984 by MPI/ABC
Video Enterprises, Inc., then on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1999 and on
VHS in 2000. MPI Home Video later released a special edition DVD in 2006 which
included an interesting running commentary with actress Black. The newest
incarnation of the film is now on Blu-ray in a gorgeous 4K restoration and
comes with the following extras:
NEW
Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith
NEW
Interview with Composer Bob Cobert
Audio
Commentary with Karen Black and writer William F. Nolan
"Richard
Matheson: Terror Scribe" Featurette
"Three
Colors Black" Featurette
Limited
Edition Booklet essay by Film critic and author Simon Abrams
Newly
Commissioned Art by Jacob Phillips
Limited
Edition O-Card Slipcase
It’s definitely worth the upgrade,
although while I love the new cover art, it gives away the frightening ending
of “Ameliaâ€!
I have my fingers crossed that Kino
Lorber gets their hands on Dead of Night
as the final story in that collection is very frightening!
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