TRILOGY OF TERROR 2 (1996) ** ½

Dan Curtis returned two decades later with this sequel to his classic horror anthology, Trilogy of Terror.  It’s kind of a downgrade in every department.  Instead of Karen Black appearing in each of the stories, we get Krull’s Lysette Anthony (who was also in Curtis’ short-lived Dark Shadows reboot from the ‘90s).  I’m not saying she’s bad or anything, it’s just that she doesn’t disappear into her characters the way Black did.  Also, whereas the first movie’s stories were a tight 24 minutes each, these tales clock in at an even half-hour.  That means the set-ups take a lot longer and pacing is often sluggish.  Still, as anthology sequels go, it’s surprisingly decent.  Heck, it even threatens to be fun on a few occasions.

In “The Graveyard Rats” (**), Anthony plays a cheating wife of a paralyzed millionaire.  Although he treats her cruelly, he somehow manages to keep her in his will.  Eventually, she and her new lover plot to kill him, not realizing the key to his fortune lies inside of his coffin. 

This tale takes a long time unfurling its premise.  Once it finally picks up a little steam, it’s undermined by some terrible rat effects that look like rubbery hand puppets.  Anthony’s fate is also predictable, and the whole conclusion is more than a tad underwhelming. 

“Bobby” (** ½) finds Anthony as a grieving mother who uses black magic to bring her dead son back to life.  At first, he seems normal and the two get along just fine.  Then again, anyone who saw Deathdream or Pet Sematary knows when your dead kid comes back to life, it usually doesn’t turn out so well. 

Bobby plays kind of like a variation on the first movie’s tale, Amelia as it’s essentially about a woman trapped in her home while a pint-sized murderous munchkin terrorizes her.  Despite the predictable nature of the story, it’s not entirely without merit.  Curtis delivers some atmospheric moments and gives us at least one genuine jump scare.  That said, like The Graveyard Rats, it goes on much too long.

“He Who Kills” (** ½) is the final tale.  While Bobby felt like a spiritual successor to Amelia, this is a direct sequel; picking up hours after the events of that story.  It starts with the crime scene where cops find Amelia (famously played by Karen Black in original) and her mother dead in her apartment, with the charred remains of the Zuni fetish doll not too far away.  They send it off to the crime lab where a forensics expert (Anthony) examines it, and before long, the doll comes to life and tries to make her his next victim. 

This is basically a remake of Amelia, just with a different prologue and a new location.  Curtis even goes so far as to copy many of the same shots from the original and recreates a few of that film’s most famous moments (like the briefcase scene).  Although I kind of wish there’d been a little bit more to it, it’s definitely watchable and moderately entertaining.  The tongue-in-cheek humor also helps.  (One character is seen reading a Dark Shadows comic book.)