Who is the most frightening movie villain of all time?
The question gets asked endlessly, and everyone has an answer: Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface.
But to a five-year-old boy watching Trilogy of Terror on ABC, there could only be one answer.
The Zuni Fetish Doll.
That little freak scared the hell out of me.
Trilogy of Terror was a 1975 television anthology starring Karen Black in three different stories. The one everybody remembers is the final segment, "Amelia," in which Black's character brings home a small wooden Zuni warrior doll as a gift. The little bastard comes to life and spends much of the story racing around her apartment trying to kill her.
It was terrifying.
The fact that the doll was tiny somehow made things worse. A full-sized monster had to come through the door. The Zuni doll could be anywhere.
Under the bed.
Behind a chair.
Under the couch.
I am not exaggerating when I say that movie affected my willingness to reach underneath a couch until I was about 27 years old.
Anyone who remembers Trilogy of Terror probably remembers the ending. Karen Black crouched on the floor, transformed, grinning horribly as she repeatedly drove a large knife into the floor.
That's the image the movie leaves you with.
Karen Black died today.
She appeared in well over 100 films during an extraordinary career that included Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Great Gatsby and Nashville. I can never forget the final scene of Five Easy Pieces, when she comes out of the diner and discovers what has happened.
Later in her career she became a familiar presence in low-budget and independent horror, but she had already earned a permanent place in the genre through movies such as Burnt Offerings and Trilogy of Terror. Decades later she appeared in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses.
But I'll always associate Karen Black with that little wooden monster.
It's strange how childhood fear works. You eventually understand that it's a prop. You learn about actors and directors and special effects. You can watch the movie as an adult and see exactly how everything was accomplished.
None of that entirely matters.
Somewhere in my brain, the Zuni Fetish Doll is still under the couch.
And I'm still not reaching under there.
