So I currently find myself in the position of honestly not having a clue as to what movie I should watch for my blog. I literally spent an hour coming through Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and other streaming sites just to get an idea. Then, this movie popped into my head, or rather one part of this movie, and I knew that my choice had been made. Now I had honestly never heard of this movie until several years ago, when I saw a clip of this movie on YouTube. That clip, which was from the portion of the movie titled “Amelia” was one of the most crazy, insane things that I had seen in quite a while. Several of my friends had seen this clip as well and asked if I had seen, or owned, the movie and I said that I managed to see the full movie but did not own it, as the DVD is out of print and any copy I found was too expensive to warrant purchasing. Still, I found the movie online so I was able to watch today’s movie, Trilogy Of Terror.
The plot: Trilogy of Terror is made up of three short film segments so I will keep the plots of each segment separated.
Julie – Chad and his friend Eddie are sitting on a picnic table on their college campus talking about the various girls that they see walking by when Chad sees his English teacher, Julie Eldridge, and starts wondering about her. After being distracted by her thigh when she sits on her desk in class, Chad strikes up a conversation with Julie after class in an attempt to ask her out but she turns him down, and Eddie tries to warn him away from messing with a teacher. That night, a friend tries to convince Julie to go out with her but she refuses and gets ready to go to bed, unaware that Chad is outside and watching her undress. The next day, Chad invites Julie to see a movie at the drive-in and she ends up agreeing. While watching the movie, Chad gets her a drink but spikes it before handing it to her and after she falls asleep, he drives her to a motel. After getting a room for the night, Chad takes Julie inside and proceeds to take pictures of her in compromising positions, then redresses her and puts her back in the car Chad take Julie home, telling her that she had fallen asleep during the movie, and he tries to ask her out again but she refuses, saying it was a mistake to go out the first time. The next day, Chad calls Julie and tells her that he is picking her up for a drive, then shows her the photos that he took of her, blackmailing her into staying in a relationship with him. The relationship continues for a month, until Julie tells Chad one night that the game is over. She revels to him that she had manipulated him into becoming interested in her but has grown bored of him, like she has done with the other students she has seduced. Chad starts choking and realizes that Julie had poisoned his drink and after he dies, she takes him back to his apartment and drags him to his darkroom, where she starts a fire and leaves him there. Chad’s death is reported as an accident and Julie takes a newspaper clipping of the death and tapes it to her scrapbook of similar deaths. When someone knocks on her door, she answers it to find Arthur Moore there needing tutoring in English, and she invites him inside, saying they will be good friends.
Millicent And Therese – After the death of her father, Millicent is watching old home movies and writes in her diary about her belief that her sister Therese is evil. When a family friend, Thomas Amman, shows up at the house, Millicent tells him of her suspicions and how Therese had seduced their father and, even though it was ruled an accident, she believes that Therese killed their mother. The next day she contacts her doctor, Dr. Ramsey, and tells him that Therese is becoming more violent and Ramsey agrees to stop by the next day. When Ramsey gets there, Therese is the one that greets him and attempts to seduce him but he leaves, saying he will call Millicent later and Therese yells at him that they don’t need his help, The next day, Millicent sees a little girl crying because Therese broke her doll and Millicent gets the idea to make a voodoo coll so she could use it to kill Therese. Millicent calls Ramsey and tells him she no longer needs his help, as she has a way to deal with Therese, then puts her plan into motion. The next day, Ramsey tries calling the house and when he gets no answer, he heads over there. where he finds Therese lying dead on her bedroom floor, with the voodoo doll next to her, and no sign of Millicent. Ramsey calls the authorities to report the death and when an ambulance shows up to take the body away, he tells reveals that he had been the family physician for years and that Millicent and Therese were actually the same girl, with Millicent being another personality Therese had developed to handle the guilt of seducing their father and killing their mother.
Amelia – Amelia returns to her high-rise apartment carrying a large box and when she gets inside, she opens it to reveal a wooden doll in the form of a misshapen aboriginal warrior with razor sharp teeth. After reading the scroll that comes with the doll, which calls it “He Who Kills” and says not to remove the gold chain from the doll as it keeps the Zuni spirit inside the doll, Amelia calls her mother and ends up getting into an argument about her cancelling their plans and her lifestyle. After finishing her call, Amelia examines the doll for a bit before going to take a bath but as she puts the doll down, she doesn’t notice the chain coming loose and falling off. After her bath, Amelia heads into the kitchen to start cooking dinner and notices that the doll is not on her living room table where she left it. Amelia starts looking around to try and find the doll, finding it’s spear behind the couch, when she hears a noise in the kitchen and when she investigates, she finds the carving knife she was using is missing. Amelia heads back into the living room when the lights suddenly go out and she is attacked by the doll, wielding the knife and slashing at her feet and ankles. Amelia manages to get away and tries calling the police but the doll chases after her. Amelia locks herself in the bathroom, and the doll attempts to stab her from underneath the door, then manages to open the door and renew it’s attack. Amelia wraps the doll in a towel and tries drowning it but it has no effect and it chases her into a closet. When the doll goes after her, Amelia traps it inside a suitcase but the doll uses the knife to cut a hole in the suitcase. When the doll’s head burst free of the hole, Amelia starts stabbing at it with a knife, seemingly killing it but as she goes to check, it leaps out and bites her on the hand. Amelia stumbles into the kitchen, with the creature now biting her neck, and she manages to pull it off her and throws it into the oven, where the doll begins screaming in pain as it burns to ashes. When the screaming stops, Amelia opens the oven to check when something causes her to scream and fall back. Some time later, Amelia calls her mother and apologizes for her her call earlier and invites her over for dinner. After hanging up, Amelia rips the bolts off her front door, then crouches down and starts stabbing the floor with a knife while smiling with razor sharp teeth, revealing that the Zuni spirit has no possessed her.
As far as made for TV movies go this wasn’t too bad but the “Amelia” story simply outshined the other two parts. Karen Black was fantastic in her roles of the central characters of each part., making each character rather unique and not appear like it is the same person over and over in each story. The stories themselves were ok, with “Amelia” being my favorite and honestly fitting the theme of the movie best. The other two stories, “Julie” and “Millicent And Therese”, felt more dramatic than actual terror. I honestly didn’t care for “Millicent and Therese” that much, as I don’t particularly care for using mental illness as an explanation for a horror theme. Honestly, I would have been just happy with the “Amelia” story being longer, as the scenes with Amelia fighting off the doll were fantastic in a ridiculous sort of way. So the movie on a whole is ok but the last 26 minutes with “Amelia” is the crowning part with it.
Rating: 3 out of 5
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