Trilogy of Terror (1975)
Directed by Dan Curtis
A horror anthology containing three stories: a female college professor is aggressively pursued by one of her students; a prudish brunette determines that her free-spirited blonde sister is evil; and a woman's night turns upside down after she purchases an ancient Zuni fetish doll.
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What critics compared Trilogy of Terror to
In the pantheon of cinematic devil dolls, Annabelle plays a game of inches, changing her position on the shelf or methodically rocking back and forth in a creaky chair, but never full-on running through the house wielding a weapon like the diminutive kewpie doll of Dan Curtis’s 1975 cult classic “Trilogy of Terror,” or Chucky of the “Child’s Play” franchise (who would sure make a swell beau for Annabelle if he weren’t already taken).
She’s no knife-wielding Chucky, from the Child’s Play series, or Richard Matheson’s great Zuni fetish doll from the 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror.
Annabelle's problems are legion but let's start with the bait-and-switch hook that promises Child's Play or the third movement of Trilogy of Terror and instead delivers a shadowy gargoyle who doesn't even have the courtesy to possess Annabelle; he just puppeteers her when the mood strikes.
The filmmakers try to generate some tension with a leering doll that's no match for Trilogy of Terror's Zuni doll, a guest appearance by the title apparition in Mama, and even the Pixar ball being rolled across a floor, but the return on investment is minimal — the concession prices will scare more people than any of these devices.
Fortunately, an impressive escalation of absurdities punctuate the climax, crafting a rather enjoyable derivation of countless prior works – from the unmentionable “Dolly Dearest” and “Dolls” to the moderately effective “Trilogy of Terror” and the long-lived series of “Puppet Master” and “Child’s Play.”
Shudder’s The Mortuary Collection is the rare modern horror anthology that attempts to bring in stylish, campy fun like the classics of the genre such as Creepshow and Trilogy of Terror .
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Some of Matheson's TV fables ? the Twilight Zone story about the gremlin on the airplane wing, the Trilogy of Terror jape about a Zuni fetish doll chasing Karen Black around her apartment ?