Trilogy of Terror '75

Trilogy of Terror is quite the showcase for Karen Black. Sure, we know her body of work often has Black portraying various degrees of kooky, pulling out of her acting bag of tricks the varying eccentricities often applied to scene-stealing characterizations in movies like Five Easy Pieces and Nashville. In this anthology, she runs the gamut from a seemingly mousy, prim and proper teacher who we at first believe is drugged and blackmailed by a jerk in her class (he's one of her prize pupils but also a skirt-chaser, sitting outside with a pal scanning the campus for a new conquest, focusing his attention on Black's nerdy Lit professor) to a bland, neurotic spinster warning a man (played by Dark Shadows' own John Karlin) that her sister (his lover) is evil and a danger to him (she is just looking out for his own well being, fully convinced that Millicent is a threat to all). Here's the thing: we see in this film that Black isn't the kind of actress who is boxed into one particular kind of character. She has layers,is multifaceted, and has range. Sure, some consider her a laughingstock due to a back-end career of questionable movies that might have damaged her credibility, but I think she made enough great ones to compensate. Enough of that, onto Trilogy of Terror...

Director Dan Curtis sure turns her loose and lets her work her magic. In "Millicent and Therese", spinster Millicent tries to tell anyone who'd listen that vivacious, promiscuous bimbo Therese is full of demons, now out of control since their father had died, a threat to all who enter her orbit. The family doctor (George Gaynes of Police Academy fame drops by at Therese's behest to talk and Millicent is at the door, full of naughty spirit, all Playboy-bunnied up, blond wig, short skirt, platform shoes, just bluntly addressing him; when he doesn't take to her advances she questions his sexuality, if he's a virgin! When Therese decides to use her sister's own "witchcraft" against her, the tragic truth revealed. It has one of those twists commonplace now because of the overuse of the "personality conflict" theme, going all the way back to Psycho, but this tale allows Black to unveil two distinctly different kinds of personalities, Curtis not trying to use a style that gets in the way of her performance.

I think even in the case of "Amelia", the tale about a woman's fight for survival with what seems like a less than threatening Zuni doll (years before Chucky would terrorize folks) her character purchased for an anthropology professor's birthday (they are lovers), we see Black in a phone conversation with her mother (this is all Black; Curtis never has us hear anyone's voice on the other line, this demanding that the actress must convince us of how browbeaten Amelia is by an overbearing mother, constantly needing attention, complaining when her daughter has other plans...), and the back-and-forth, an exhausting affair for Amelia. A chain around the neck of this "fetish" doll, once removed, releases the doll to hunt and kill because of the spirit that was held at bay. Black and director Curtis are burdened with the task of actually making the doll look menacing, and thanks to their concentrated efforts, they actually pull it off. The little shit's ferocious, it's miniature blade sharp and dangerous enough to inflict wounds that cause alarm to Amelia, forcing her into tough spots, confined, with seemingly no exit strategy. There's this final moment at the end where Black literally has to convince us she's possessed by the hunter's spirit; it is scenes like that which I live for. The crouch down, the knife repeatedly sticking into the floor, the reveal of the teeth, the proper posture: it's all technique and skill. God, I love this woman.

Julie is perhaps the tale that gets the shaft because of how colorful and flashy the final two tales are. She actually plays a character with a change in behavior, this time a manipulative, cunning, and conniving serial killer masquerading as a teacher who seems unimposing, unassuming, very subdued, and rather keeping to herself. She has a friend she rooms with who tries to talk her out of being a homebody, inserting herself into the dating scene, not knowing that Julie has facets to her personality quite hidden. We really only see the dark half emerge when she informs the latest boytoy before he is to be victimized, unaware he's another in a long line of male prey. I love when an actress plays two sides to a coin, a character that we think is one way, only to be presented with a whole different person, a disguise removed, seeing her as she really is.

70s is the decade of great television horror. Trilogy of Terror thrives specifically on the Zuni doll tale, but the other two aren't shabby, either. Anthologies in general are a mixed bag, typically containing a solid tale with a couple decent ones; Trilogy of Terror is unusual in that it features Black in all three, and no one character is the same. A startling feat, as far as I'm concerned.