Horror Film Review: Trilogy of Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1975’s Trilogy of Terror is a true classic, a rare made-for-television horror film that could have just as easily and effectively been released in theaters.

As one can surmise from the title, it features three stories. Each story is directed by Dan Curtis and written by Richard Matheson. Each story also features Karen Black in the lead role, giving Black a chance to play not just one but four very different characters over the course of one film. One of the things that makes this film work so well is Karen Black’s totally committed performance. Sadly, Karen Black later expressed some regret about having appeared in the film because it led to her being typecast as a horror actress, which she definitely hadn’t been before. (One need only watch Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, or Family Plot to see what a good actress she was. Even in something like Easy Rider, where she had only a small role and very few lines, her talent is obvious.) As a result, Black was no longer considered for the big studio films that she had appeared in previously and instead, she spent the remained of her career appearing in low-budget horror films. That’s a shame because Trilogy of Terror really does show what a strong actress Black was.

The first segment features Black as Julie, a seemingly uptight teacher who somewhat surprisingly agrees to go out on a date with Chad (Robert Burton), a sleazy college student. Chad drugs Julie’s drink during their date and later undresses her and takes pictures which he then uses in an attempt to blackmail Julie into basically being his sex slave. Julie, however, turns out to have a big secret of her own and Chad discovers too late that he was the one who was being manipulated. This segment was the least interesting of the three stories but the ending was very satisfying. Anyone who has ever dated a “nice guy” who turned out to actually be a jerk will enjoy Julie’s revenge.

The second segment is enjoyably sordid, an over-the-top soap opera that I can’t talk too much about without spoiling the plot. Black plays Millicent, a repressed brunette, who is hatefully obsessed with her twin sister, blonde Theresa (Black again). Millicent fears that Therese is planning to corrupt and destroy her boyfriend, Thomas (John Karlen). Millicent explains to her therapist (George Gaynes) all of the terrible things that Therese has done. Of course, the truth turns out to be much more complicated. This story was entertaining and featured a surprisingly effective twist.

The third segment is the one that everyone remembers. Amelia (Karen Black) lives alone in a high-rise apartment and has recently purchased, as a present for her anthropologist boyfriend, a wooden fetish doll in the form of a misshapen aboriginal warrior with pointed teeth and a spear. The doll comes with a scroll that explains that the doll is inhabited by the spirit of a Zuni hunter and that the only thing keeping the doll from coming to life is the gold chain adorning the doll. Of course, the chain eventually falls off and Amelia finds herself being pursued through her apartment by a viscous doll that is obsessed with killing her. This is the simplest and the scariest of the Trilogy of Terror’s three stories. It’s easy to say that it’s just a doll until it pops out of nowhere and stabs Amelia in the ankle. This story ends on a properly dark note and that final image of Karen Black is haunting.

For a fifty year-old film, Trilogy of Terror holds up remarkably well. Watch it and witness just how good an actress Karen Black truly was.

Trilogy of Terror (1975, dir by Dan Curtis. DP: Paul Lohmann)

Horror on the Lens: Trilogy of Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the Lens we have a made-for-TV movie that was produced and directed by Dan Curtis.

Trilogy of Terror, which aired in 1975, is an anthology film, featuring three segments that were each based on a short story from Richard Matheson. What makes this particular film special is that each segment features Karen Black playing a radically different character from the previous segment. The film really is a showcase for this underrated actress, though Black herself later said that the film ruined her career because it typecast her as a horror actress.

The third segment is the one that gets all the attention. That’s the one with the killer doll. I like all of the segments, though. The first one is often considered to be the weakest but anyone who has ever been through a similar situation will appreciate it as tale of revenge. The second segment has a playful vibe that I liked. And yes, the third segment is genuinely frightening.

From 1975, here is Trilogy of Terror:

Jaws Meets Mad Max: Razorback (1984, directed by Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Deep in the Australian outback, a young child named Scotty goes missing. His grandfather, Jake (Bill Kerr), swears that a giant boar (“a razorback”) broke into his house and ran off with his grandson. The locals don’t think it was a boar. They don’t even think it was a dingo. Instead, they charge Jake with killing his grandson but, because there’s not evidence to convict him, Jake goes free.

Two years later, a nosy American reporter named Beth Winters (Judy Morris) mysteriously vanishes shortly after arriving in the Outback to do a story on how kangaroos are being hunted to the point of extinction. Women and children are vanishing in the Outback? This sounds like a job for Lee Majors but the best this movie can do is Gregory Harrison. Harrison plays Beth’s husband, Carl, who comes to Australia to search for her. At first, he thinks that she may have been kidnapped by the moronic Baker brothers (Chris Haywood and David Argue) but then he meets Jake and a comely pig expert named Sarah (Arkie Whiteley). Jake tells Carl about the razorback and later comes across Beth’s wedding ring in a pile of boar shit.

Razorback was probably pitched as being “Jaws meets Mad Max.” Just as in Jaws, the authorities refuse to accept that people are being eaten by a giant boar and it is up to an inexperienced American, an old timer, and a scientist to try to stop it. Also, like in Jaws, the boar is that star of the show even though it does not get much screen time. When the boar does appear, it bears a distinct resemblance to Motorhead’s War-Pig. Just as in Mad Max, every Australian in Razorback drives like a maniac. Whenever the Baker brothers tear across the screen in their truck, it’s easy to imagine Max Rockatansky and Goose in hot pursuit.

Along with the boar, the other star of the film is the Australian outback itself, which the film treats as almost being an alien landscape:

If Razorback makes the Australian outback look like an 80s new wave music video, that might be because it was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who started his career directing videos for Duran Duran. Before one boar attack, Duran Duran’s New Moon On Monday is even heard playing on a radio. (Ironically, New Moon On Monday was one of the few early Duran Duran videos that Mulcahy did not direct.) Both the boar and the film look great but all of the humans get overshadowed by the visuals. Not that it matters, since they’re only there to serve as razorback food.

Despite the strong visuals and the amazingly cool monster, Razorback got only lukewarm reviews when it was first released. Critics aside, it was a hit in Australia, where it won Australian Film awards for both editing and cinematography. (Cinematographer Dean Semler later won an Oscar for his work on Dances with Wolves.) It only found cult success in the United States. One admirer was Steven Spielberg, who reportedly called Mulcahy to ask how he achieved some the film’s visual effects. Two years after the release of Razorback, Mulcahy directed his best-known film, Highlander.

Flaws and all, Razorback is the best movie ever made about a wild boar eating people in Australia.

A Movie A Day #47: Body Chemistry II: Voice of a Stranger (1992, directed by Adam Simon)

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

body-chemistry-ii-the-voice-of-a-stranger-movie-poster-1992-1020211070 Dr. Claire Archer is back!

Having gotten away with murder at the end of the first Body Chemistry, Claire (played again by Lisa Pescia) is now working as a radio psychologist, taking the 9 pm to 1 am slot at a station managed by a sleazy chain smoker named Big Chuck (played by real-life sleazy chain smoker Morton Downey, Jr.). Claire invites her listeners to call with their deepest desires. “Without pain, you’re not truly alive.”

One night, “John” calls. When Claire looks at the list of callers and sees, “John likes rough sex,” she immediately put him on the air. John is actually Dan (Gregory Harrison). Dan is dating Claire’s call screener, Brenda (Robin Riker), who cannot recognize her own boyfriend’s voice over the telephone. Dan is a former high school football star who left town and became a cop in Los Angeles. When his violent impulses became impossible to control, Dan was kicked off the force and he returned home. Dan wants to suppress his dark side but Claire has other ideas.

Body Chemistry II is a marginal improvement over the first Body Chemistry, because Dan is a more sympathetic ~~victim~~ character than Marc Singer was in the first film and Body Chemistry II puts Lisa Pescia’s vampy performance front and center. Though both films tell the same basic story, Body Chemistry II is stylistically a very different film. Body Chemistry II takes it cue from film noir, which means a lot of dark rooms with Venetian blinds. Dan’s flashbacks and nightmares also add some surreal moments to Body Chemistry II, distinguishing it from the more straight forward first film.

Though there would be two more Body Chemistry sequels, this would be the last time that Lisa Pescia would play Dr. Archer. Keep an eye out for Clint Howard, Jeremy Piven, and director John Landis, all of whom show up in small roles.

For tomorrow’s movie a day, Shari Shattuck takes over the role of Claire Archer in Body Chemistry III: Point of Seduction.