Trilogie de la terreur II

And with a cast that includes Lysette (Any relation to Josette?) Anthony, who is and always shall be a major babe, and Geraint Wyn (Who seems to do his best work at Knight.) why shouldn't he? I saw much that was borrowed from the Dan Curtis hit Dark Shadows in this made for TV flick ... The photography, the music certainly, and the ocean shots from the second tale. And these all work right well in this movie. The plots, as a whole, and the acting in particular, work well enough to be enjoyable. True, certain themes like the killer doll have been done to death over the years, but Curtis still knows how to put a twist to the devil of a tail.

After twenty years, made-for-TV horror maestro, Dan Curtis finally made his sequel, TRILOGY OF TERROR 2.

STORY 1- THE GRAVEYARD RATS: Laura (Lysette Anthony), afraid of being cut out of her zillionaire husband's (Matt Clark) will for infidelity, decides to kill the old boy. With help from her soulless lover, Ben (Geraint Wyn Davies), it's not long before hubby's in the ground. The murdering pair discover that something important was buried with the departed. Something without which, Laura and her piggish paramour are doomed to a middle class lifestyle. Of course, the remedy involves some serious digging! At night! Enter the titular, rubbery rodents of recompense. Co-stars Geoffrey Lewis as the gravedigger.

STORY 2: BOBBY- A distraught mother (Anthony) resorts to occult means in order to resurrect her dead son, Bobby (Blake Heron). Mom's efforts pay off, and her son returns. Sort of. At first, all seems well with this joyous reunion. However, as the evening progresses, Bobby begins acting strange. Ultimately, mom learns that she probably should have left things as they were (Think: THE MONKEY'S PAW with a wicked twist). This segment is a remake of the original BOBBY from Curtis' horror anthology, DEAD OF NIGHT. Personally, while both versions are good, I prefer the original.

STORY 3: HE WHO KILLS- Set immediately after the events of PART 3 of TRILOGY OF TERROR (1975), police are stumped by the bloody murders in the apartment. They find the Zuni Fetish doll, and take it to Dr. Simpson (Anthony) for her insights. She restores the doll as best as she can, and runs her tests. When Simpson returns to the lab after dinner, the doll is missing, resulting in a deadly game of "hunt the humans"! A decent follow-up to the first Zuni story, its one weakness is in showing too much of the crazed doll. Less is truly more, which is what made the first one so effective. In spite of this, as well as the direct recycling of the "suitcase scene" from the original, it's not bad.

CONCLUSION: Not a masterpiece, but worth watching, especially for horror anthology fanatics...

When you compare this movie to its predecessor, which got released 11 years before this one, you'll have to conclude that this movie is not a better than its predecessor because of the reason that it's stories all are slightly weaker ones.

Again, just like its predecessor, this movie tells 3 different, unrelated stories that somehow all involve the supernatural. What they have in common is that in all 3 stories the main characters is being played by the same actress. In "Trilogy of Terror" this was Karen Black, in "Trilogy of Terror II" its Lysette Anthony. She of course is not as great as Karen Black, though its fun to see her playing 3 totally different characters in each story.

This is more an horror movie than its predecessor was. All of the stories this time feature horror elements. Again, the last story of the movie features the Zuni doll, which also was the highlight of the first movie. Perhaps this is also the reason why it's named "Trilogy of Terror II"? Fore otherwise this movie of course has little to nothing to do with the first movie that got made 11 years(!) before this one.

None of the stories are extremely well written or anything and they all got based on different short stories. The movie is longer than "Trilogy of Terror" and every story this time is about 30 minutes long instead of 20-something minutes. That doesn't really mean though that the stories are well layered or anything like that. At times they are even a bit dragging, which causes them to be a bit uneven in parts. The build up to the eventual horror often takes too long, which makes the movie itself needlessly long as well.

Of course these type of movies are never dull for the lovers of the genre. Dan Curtis is obviously a director with a love for the genre and that passion really shows on the screen at certain points.

6/10

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Also made for TV, Trilogy of Terror II tries to capture some of the same creep factor of the original, but its big showstopping sequel to the infamous doll sequence is more or less a lazy remake of the original segment with much less engaging characters.

This isn't actress Lysette Anthony's fault. She plays each role she's given realistically and compellingly from cold trophy wife to grieving mother, but the stories are an uneven bunch and the best one, Bobby, is also a nearly shot for shot remake of Dan Curtis' work in another anthology called Dead of Night, but less effective this time around. The child actor playing the title character is much more hammy than the more realistic performance in the 70's version.

Production values are nice and Anthony is pleasant to watch even if she's not the powerhouse that Karen Black was. It's just unfortunate that the two best segments in the film are basically remakes of other segments from other movies.

Dan Curtis returns to Trilogy of Terror 20 years after he terrorized Karen Black with that creepy doll, but Black's absence this time is obvious and Lysette Anthony is competent but can't quite fill Black's shoes.

Once again, Curtis gives us three tales of terror - one features an adulterous wife who gets her just desserts after plotting to kill her husband, another has her playing a grieving mother who brings her child back to life via witchcraft with some deadly consequences, and the final story has her as a museum researcher who gets terrorized by the same scary doll from the original film.

None of the stories are as terrifying as the final story of the original film, but they're all well told and entertaining enough for 90 minutes.