The two came up with the idea for Trilogy of Terror and pitched it to ABC. Years later, Matheson found himself in frequent collaboration with director Dan Curtis ( The Night Stalker, Dark Shadows).
(Another classic episode, “Talky Tina,” about a doll who threatens her owner’s abusive stepfather, had no overt connection with Matheson.) Matheson tweaked the idea slightly for “The Invaders,” about an isolated, mute woman (Agnes Moorehead) who is terrorized by a tiny fleet of miniature alien explorers.
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Pitching a script titled “Devil Doll” to series creator Rod Serling, the draft was deemed too grim for 1960s broadcast standards. The concept for “Amelia” had been hatched over a decade earlier, when Matheson was working on The Twilight Zone. Channels 10 and 12 may have been on to something. Prior to her death in 2013, Black said she was approached by fans to talk about her fight with a killer doll more than all of her other roles combined when writer Richard Matheson went in for meetings, he was often approached by executives who admitted to wetting themselves watching the film as a child. In the more than 40 years since its original airing, “Amelia” has seared itself into the public consciousness, with viewers genuinely riveted by Black’s plight against the fanged terror. As he hacks and slashes at her feet and hides behind furniture, it’s not quite clear whether Black will conquer her tiny terror, go mad, or both. Alone in her apartment, Black finds that the doll is more spirited than your typical toy. In essentially a one-woman play, Black portrays a character hoping to impress her anthropologist boyfriend by gifting him with an African “Zuni fetish doll,” a fearsome-looking warrior cast in wood and grasping a spear. Actress Karen Black, who had earned an Oscar nomination for Five Easy Pieces, played multiple roles in the anthology, with the first two-about a seductive teacher and vengeful twin sister-little more than stock fare. And for two-thirds of its modest 90-minute slot, Trilogy of Terror bordered on the forgettable.
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In a culture that had recently been shaken by the 1973 release of The Exorcist and a resulting glut of occult fiction, it seemed unlikely that a modestly-budgeted network Movie of the Week could rattle station managers to the point that they were concerned for their viewers' welfare. In West Palm Beach, Channel 12 aired it in primetime, but made sure to offer a disclaimer that it might be disturbing for younger viewers. They would show another movie instead, and push Trilogy of Terror into the 11:30 p.m. The reason, according to the station, was that the movie was too unsettling for the 8:30 p.m. On March 4, 1975, ABC affiliate Channel 10 in Miami announced to viewers that the network’s debut of a made-for-TV suspense film titled Trilogy of Terror would not be airing as scheduled.
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