Dan Curtis, the creator and producer of such out-of-the-ordinary TV classics as the willfully offbeat gothic soap opera Dark Shadows and the proto-X-Files series The Night Stalker remains best known for this TV movie based on 3 short stories from horror genre writer Richard Matheson. In the first story, "Julie," Karen Black plays a mousy college professor blackmailed by an obsessed student, and in "Millicent and Therese" she plays sisters consumed with an intense hatred of one another that comes to a head when their father dies. Both of these films conclude with Twilight Zone-ish twists and are more clever than gripping, kept alive mostly by Black's gleefully theatrical performances. With "Amelia," however, Black delivers an almost solo show, playing against the famous Zuni fetish doll, a wooden statue that comes to life when the a protective chain slips off the figure and releases the evil spirit.
