Hooray for Friday Night

 

First of all, I have to admit that I feel pretty dumb for not realizing that anthology movies are a pretty regular sub-genre of horror. I knew about the obvious ones like Trick 'r Treat, Tales from the Darkside, Tales of Halloween, Tales From the Hood and The Twilight Zone.  However, I did not realize until today that there are a lot more horror anthology series and sequels out there. It makes sense with the popularity of horror comic books in the 40's and 50's like EC's Tales From the Crypt which later became a movie and then a show and then a children's animated series and then a children's game show. Start them early!  With that being said, Trilogy of Terror was at best entertaining and at worst boring.  It seems to just be a vehicle for Karen Black to show off her acting skills which she does well.  A+ for that but  it still should have been called Trilogy of Average or Trilogy of Karen Black, am I right?  Whatever, I'm only funny after 10AM.  The film is divided into three sections which I will go into below.

The first segment "Julie" deals with a hot college professor (played by Karen Black) and her douchebag student Chad.  Chad, even in 1975 that name was douchey. After several attempts, Chad convinces Julie to go to a drive in movie with him where he gets two large root beers for a dollar.  A DOLLAR.  The drinks look pretty small for being large sizes but it's root beer, who the hell enjoys root beer?  The same weirdos that purchase black licorice no doubt.  Anyway, Chad roofies Julie's drink because his name is Chad and takes naked pictures of her at a hotel.  Although it is not explicitly shown or mentioned, he probably raped her too because his name is Chad.  He tries to blackmail Julie the next day and it turns out she was playing him form the very beginning and drugs him to death.  Although I enjoyed the shifting of the power dynamic, Julie must not be a very smart professor since she keeps a scrap book of every student she has done this too. Anybody finds that and she's done.  One of the students in her pictures had big long hair and for a minute I thought t was a woman and was almost impressed that they would hint at that.  This segment was interesting and I enjoyed the twist but I would not categorize it as a tale of terror. 

The second story "Millicent and Therese" was the weaker of the three.  Basically, Karen Black plays two sisters  and in the end we find out it was one person with a split personality. Nice try but Psycho had done that eleven years prior (spoiler alert).  Not only that but I saw this twist coming from a mile away and I thought there would e more to it.  The one saving grace I found for this story is that the doctor is played by George Gaynes.  Who is George Gaynes you ask?  None other than freaking Punky Brewster's adopted dad! I really miss that show and it's catchy theme song.  There's also a scene with a little girl crying over a broken doll and that girl's bangs are meeeeeesed up.  I was roasting her in my living room like "Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii."  Other than these two gems, this story felt flat and also lacked a terror element. 

"Amelia" is easily the strongest of the bunch and deals with a "Zuni hunting fetish doll" that is supposed to come to life.  As soon as I heard this,  I started wondering what kinda racist ass cliches we were about to experience. Luckily, they held back on the racism and instead we got a condensed version of Child's Play, right down to the burning of the doll as last attempt to kill it. Don Mancin and  the rest must have been at least partially inspired by this movie when he wrote Child's Play.  This story actually had suspense and terror in it, not knowing where the doll was or what it was going to do really made this segment stand out.  The realist in me kept wondering why anyone would make a doll with some dude's spirit trapped inside and who would sell this.  Also, the chain is supposed to  suppress the spirit in the doll yet it easily falls off when Amelia set the doll on the table.  She also had a really hard time killing or getting rid of the doll, insisting on running round her place instead of getting a hammer or cutting its head off or pulling it apart, LEAVING HER HOME.  If a doll thing was chasing me I would not run into every single room at my place barefoot and let it stab me.  I'm finding the first dumbbell or baseball bat I see and crushing the little bastard, at the very least covering his stupid face full of teeth.  Have an apple dummy.  In the end, somehow Amelia is alive talking to her naggy mother and as she turns to the camera we see she has a mouth full of sharp teeth.  What? Are we to interpret as the soul trapped in the doll went from the doll to a living person?  That sounds familiar, they had to have seen this right?