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Why you Should Watch ‘Trilogy of Terror’

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Today is the birthday of actress and bombshell Karen Black.  She passed in 2013 but would have been 78 today.  She was surely a beauty of the seventies and eighties, and a scream queen of her time as many of the roles she chose were in the horror genre.  However, she didn’t always play the victim which was a new concept in the genre at the time.  An example of this is in the TV movie Trilogy of Terror.


In 1975 ABC Movie of the Week Black starred as each of the stories protagonist.  While the term “Movie of the Week” sounds cheesy to today’s standards, this anthology of horror films still mostly stand up today, especially if you can suspend your disbelief due to the lack of special effects which only one of the stories relies upon.  Two of the three stories rely upon story and acting ability, both of which are executed extremely well.  All three are written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dan Curtis.

Each story in Trilogy of Terror is titled after Black’s character, Julie, Millicent and Therese in which she plays twin sisters, and finally Amelia.  Known for her long legs and beauty she was not afraid to play ugly or mousy in these films.  This is especially true in Julie where she plays a homely college teacher cloaked in layers of clothing with no makeup, her long hair up in a messy bun, and thick rimmed glasses.  It’s hard to make a bombshell like Karen Black not attractive, but their attempt made her look “normal” at best.  It’s hard to see past this woman’s beauty.  In this story she is the object of one of her student’s sudden affections.  His affections turn into a pursuit as the plot continues, and the cat and mouse game begins.

In the latter two segments Black is mainly playing off of herself with very few co-stars and even none at all.  This truly portrays her talent to dominate the screen and keep the audience captivated.

In Millicent and Therese Black portrays twin sisters who couldn’t be more different from one another.  One is modest and responsible while the other is more wild and irrational as well as with an interest in the occult.  Millicent is tired of her sister’s actions and irresponsible ways and decides to take matters into her own hands when no one will help her, not even the family physician.  Using her sister’s interest in the occult she gets her revenge.

Twin sisters Millicent and Therese in ‘Trilogy of Terror’

Lastly the third installment, Amelia, is the most horrific in nature, but probably holds up the least to today’s standards.  In this installment of the Amelia buys a Zuni fetish doll for her boyfriend.  The doll reportedly contains the soul of a Zuni hunter named ‘He Who Kills.’  The chain around the Zuni fetish doll keeps the soul inside of the figure, but if it’s broken it is released.  You can assume what happens next.


Each of the three story lines in Trilogy of Terror have a twist which I’m sure seemed shocking at the time for TV audiences, but are still entertaining today.  Each are well written, the characters are all very different from one another despite all of them being played by Black, and she is fully committed to each of the roles.  She doesn’t phone it in for a minute.  I highly recommend you check out this little known gem of a movie.

 

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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