This sequel to the beloved Trilogy of Terror is a complete misfire, a lousy and even desperate attempt to recapture the elements that made the original film work. This time we have a mediocre, occasionally inept actress named Lysette Anthony playing different roles in the three stories, instead of the brilliant Karen Black. In the first one she plays a rich trophy wife who bumps off her husband with the aid of her boyfriend. The story is lame, but will probably give you the creeps if you are at all claustrophobic. The second story involves a woman who tries to bring her son back from the dead and apparently succeeds. This story is so poorly executed, from the laughably bad acting from the actor playing the son to the horrible final shot, it's just not worth commenting on. The worst story is the last, which is ironic b/c it's a sequel to the best story from the first film. In that one, Black played a young woman who is terrorized in her apartment by an African Zuni fetish doll. In the new one, the filmmakers have thrown all plausibility to the wind to get another young woman in the same situation. (I love it when the woman and the security guard suspect a killer is in the multi-story building and the guard insists she stay in the lab with the door locked while he checks the place out, even though the door to the lab has a flimsy glass window on it). The story then serves as a strict remake of the first one, with Anthony trapping the doll in a case, cutting herself while trying to grab the knife when the doll saws away at the case, and then becoming possessed by the spirit in the doll at the end. Really, just a complete waste of time. Watch the original instead.
Review of Trilogy of Terror II
