“Amelia jerked back, pulling up her legs. A shadowy form was scurrying across the carpet toward the bed. She gaped at it. It isn’t true, she thought. She stiffened at the tugging on her bedspread. It was climbing up to get her. No, she thought; it isn’t true. She couldn’t move. She stared at the edge of the mattress. Something that looked like a tiny head appeared.” — Richard Matheson’s Prey
Freaked out? Of course you are. You might even have unintentionally lifted your feet off the ground like I did reading that passage from Richard Matheson’s short story Prey.
If you find them scary on the page, wait until you see them brought to life in Trilogy of Terror, a made-for TV movie that aired in 1975 as part of the Movie of the Week series.
The three-part anthology remains one of the scariest TV horror films ever made with one of the most terrifying creatures in any film – the disturbing Zuni fetish doll that people continue to talk about today.
My sister first saw the film as a kid, yet she still brings up the creepy “doll” and how it scared her. (Heck, it freaked me out for years before I even saw the movie.)
Just look at him. With two rows of sharp teeth, wild black hair and a contorted face, the diminutive doll is the stuff of nightmares as actress Karen Black learned in the last short in the anthology. It comes with the very pretty name of Amelia but don’t let that fool you – there’s nothing pleasing about this episode. (The three parts are named for women, and Black plays all four females – one story has two sisters – with a unique blend of innocence, shyness, sexiness, confidence and terror.
Trilogy of Terror was directed by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows) and clocks in at a taut 72 minutes total for the three shorts.
William F. Nolan adapted the first two Matheson stories for the film.
Julie was based on The Likeness of Julie from Matheson’s 1962 anthology Alone at Night.
Millicent and Therese was based on Matheson’s Needle in the Heart, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (October 1969).
Matheson adapted Amelia from his short story Prey which first appeared in a 1969 issue of Playboy magazine.
The stories deal with surprisingly risqué plots especially for the times. In Julie, a college student (played by Black’s real-life husband Robert Burton) takes his literature professor out, drugs and rapes her, then blackmails her. Yes, it’s very uncomfortable and even unnecessary. They didn’t need to go so far for the film’s dramatic and sinister turn to work. Look for a fresh-faced Gregory Harrison at the end.
Millicent and Therese are two very different sisters – one prim, one lewd – whose diverse personalities cause violent conflicts. Black has a heyday with the two personalities. Look for handsome, young John Karlen (Dark Shadows, Cagney & Lacey) and a very serious George Gaynes (Tootsie, Police Academy films) in this story.
Then there’s Amelia, a woman who is trying to break free of her controlling mother.
While the first two short films are interesting and have a twist (Julie has a killer of one), Amelia is unforgettable.
* * * * *
Amelia arrives home to her high-rise sublet apartment with a long brown box wrapped with twine. If it wasn’t such a dingy color, it almost looks like a flower box. She smiles as she opens it despite unveiling a creepy statue-like figure with a spear. It has a cryptic scroll that explains how “He Who Kills” (great name) has an evil spirit trapped inside it by a tiny golden chain. (Don’t let that chain come off – or else!)
“Boy, are you ugly … Even your mother wouldn’t love you,” Amelia says to the doll. Those words will tug at the viewer a few minutes later during a phone call with her mother when we understand her own mother issues.
The Zuni fetish doll is a birthday present sure to please her new boyfriend, an anthropology professor. But first she calls her overbearing mother to say she can’t make their weekly Friday get together because of his birthday. Although we only hear one side of the conversation, it’s clear that mom is not happy.
Mother, we see each other 2-3 times a week.
Mother, I’m not sick.
Mother, there’s a man.
Mother, I’m not being cruel.
Mother, please stop treating me like a child!
In just a few minutes, Amelia is unraveling and moved to tears. But that’s not enough for her mother, who hangs up on her. A dejected Amelia sets the doll on a coffee table to bathe.
Returning fresh in a white robe and bare feet, she looks especially vulnerable and notices the doll is gone.
“What ‘cha do, fall off the table?” she asks looking around, then sees the chain on the table. This is where I would have been running from the room, but she is weirdly calm.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” she says – and darn if it doesn’t listen as we hear the pitter-patter of tiny footsteps scurrying about. Instead of leaving, she slowly walks through an increasingly dark apartment talking to herself.
“Don’t get spooky on me Amelia,” she says.
“C’mon Amelia.”
Even when a light goes out, she doesn’t panic – until the first slash of her leg. Then she shrieks in excruciating pain from the tiny spear hacking at her ankles.
This is where all hell breaks loose.
For the next 10 minutes, there will be ear-piercing screams (from her) and terrifying garbled sounds (from it). The attacks are relentless and vicious, filmed at a chaotic pace with frenzied editing. We can’t quite see everything that is happening because of the blurry images, but the ungodly sounds are unsettling enough.
The attacks move to different rooms as Amelia runs into her bedroom, then bathroom and closet but that little menace has a way of slashing under the door with a large knife, getting past locked doors and cutting its way even through a suitcase.
It’s one of the most terrifying – and exhausting – sequences I’ve ever watched and it goes right up to the final seconds with a nightmarish ending that will stick with you.
Attacks by tiny things have always freaked me out (like in the 1936 film The Devil-Doll). You can see the big monsters coming, but not the littles. The next time you feel a weird sensation around your ankles, you should probably look down.
Trilogy of Terror may have turned 50 in 2025, but it hasn’t lost its bite.
– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member and board chair of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
