Trilogy of Terror
You know how nobody ever talks about the first two stories in this movie and they only focus on the final story where Karen Black is menaced by a Zuni fetish doll? There's a reason for that. The first two stories (also starring Black, she plays 4 different characters throughout the movie) aren't bad, but there's really nothing that makes them stand out. The one with the Zuni fetish doll, on the other hand, is pretty great and very different from the other two.
All three stories are by the late Richard Matheson (the first two adapted by William F. Nolan, the third by Matheson himself) and all three play like Twilight Zone episodes (a show for which Matheson wrote many of the best episodes). Each one has a final twist, but where the first two aren't terribly surprising or scary the third story ends with an image that may well haunt your dreams.
Black is great, and seems to be having fun getting to play so many disparate characters. The third story is based on a fairly goofy conceit (person vs doll doesn't seem like the most difficult of struggles for the person, but it's kept horror filmmakers in business for many years) but its relentless pace and Black's committed performance elevate it to something special. The other two stories are much more low-key, but she gets to vamp it up a little in each which keeps them entertaining. There's no framing story so you can watch it in bite-size pieces like the tasty Halloween treat it is.
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