Trilogy of "Terror"

(1975) ***

(Click here for Octopunk's more informative review)

Heh.

So this is the latest installment in my anthology block, and it was one I was really looking forward to. Once Octo heard that I was planning on doing the anthology thing he asked me on four separate occasions if TofT was on my list, taking special note to point out that while the first two chapters weren't really all that scary, the third one gave him nightmares for weeks after he saw it as a child. This was his Thing Under the Bed. I've never been let down by anything recommended by Octo, so this a high priorty.

Julie & Millicent & Therese -- Yeah, they're two different chapters. College prof. turns the tables on her sexually domineering student. Two sisters one angel, one harlot muckitymuckitymuck.

Okay, on to the good part.

Amelia -- I saw Creepshow 2 when I was in the 5th grade and got some lasting scares from the chapter about the Indian statue that comes to life (not so much because of the Indian statue itself, but because of the thug-attack scene that set him off) and this was what I was expecting when Octo said "Indian statue" -- a gigantic warrior dude on a relentless revenge-killing warpath.

So when Amelia opens the box and takes out a one-foot tall statuette I thought to myself, "Obviously that thing is going to grow to life-size and when it does, damn is that thing going to be scary." Razor sharp teeth, maniacal eyes and a tangled mass of black hair --- all that and six freakin' feet tall to boot.

Even up to the point where it's disappeared and Amelia is searching under the couch for it, I was thinking, "Crap, while she's looking under the couch Giant-Indian-Monster is going to sneak up behind her with his bad-ass Zuni stealth and bash in her skull."

Then Amelia stands up -- "OUCH!"

"How'd they get the six-foot tall Zuni dude to hide under her tiny-ass couch like that?" I asked myself, "Maybe he made a dugout or something." The last shreds of my illusion were about to tear completely away.

Imagine, if you will, a Muppet doll. Now, by this I do not mean an actual Muppet, with all its articulation and expression. I mean like a doll based on a Muppet, the kind you'd buy at K-Mart, except made out of wood. Now imagine a production assistant tying a wire around it and yanking it across the camera frame super-fast. Imagine it again, in the grip of another P.A., jiggling all snarly and in-your-face directly into the camera lens. Add to this image a vocal track similar to a cross between Beavis when he's in Cornholio mode and the Hamburglar when he's having one of his "moods" and you've got, in its entirety, the villain.

By the time Amelia managed to trap the little critter in a suitcase, there were tears of joy trickling down my face.

"How old were you when you first saw this?" I asked Octo, honestly curious. "Shut up," he replied, "you're ruining one of the best scares from my childhood."

In Octo's defense the thing would be terrifying as a real entity: kind of like letting a rabid mongoose free in your car, except the mongoose has opposable thumbs and is holding a knife. If such a thing were chasing me down, of course I wouldn't be able to keep a thought straight in my head. One of my favorite moments in this chapter is when Amelia, trapped in the bathroom, is calling 911 and when asked what the problem is, replies, "There's a...just get me the police, please!" She realizes in that split second that her predicament isn't even close to believable. Hell, I was watching the whole thing unfold in front of me and I wasn't convinced for a second.

There is one truly eerie moment and it's at the very end of the chapter. I won't reveal what it is, but when I saw it I stopped laughing. I didn't stop thinking it was funny, but I did stop laughing.

Not bad fare, certainly fun to watch. I give it three stars, although I almost chipped off another 1/4 point because Karen Black is in all three chapters, and her eyes are too close together. It's weird, man.