Just as last week there were no vampires in “Planet of the Vampires,” this week there is no sci-fi in “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Or, for that matter, will there be very much terror, although our topic will be “Trilogy of Terror,” a 1975 made-for-television ABC Movie of the Week.
Roy Bjellquist and I will look back with amusement at our younger selves, and the universal boyhood apprehension of walking across a darkened bedroom, only to be ambushed by a raging Zuni fetish doll. Karen Black is at the heart of these blackened tales, the kinds of stories that, with a little more refinement, might have turned up on “The Twilight Zone” or “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” It’s no coincidence that the screenplay was adapted from three stories by Richard Matheson, the guy who first envisioned a gremlin standing on an airplane wing outside William Shatner’s window.
FUN FACT: The original Zuni fetish doll sold at auction last year for over $200,000. I’m hoping that’s considered valuable enough that he’s now locked up in some vault somewhere, minimizing the threat of my getting stabbed in the ankles on nocturnal trips to the bathroom.
Share your Karen Black-related neuroses in the comments section of the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Our group-therapy will commence, live-streamed on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT.