Summaries

Synopsis

"Julie"

Chad (Robert Burton) and Eddie Nells (James Storm) are college students at a local L.A. community college. They are checking chicks out when Julie Eldridge (Karen Black), a young literature teacher who dresses with baggy serious clothes, passes by. Suddenly Chad gets the weirdest idea, and wonders how she looks like under all those clothes. Eddie is appalled by the idea. During one class, Chad is distracted by Julie's thigh as she sits on her desk and daydreams about her. After Chad reveals his fantasies to Eddie, Eddie describes Julie as "ugly" and discourages Chad from becoming romantically involved with a teacher, but Chad tries to chat her up, saying that he's very interested in photography. Prof. Aldridge seems like a person who only thinks on her work, as her friend Ann Richards (Kathryn Reynolds) encourages her to go out on a double date with her, her boyfriend Steve and somebody else, but she refuses. Later that evening, when Julie is undressing in her apartment, Chad watches her through a window. The next day, Chad asks Julie out on a date. Julie initially refuses, but later accepts Chad's offer. Chad says that all the other girls are only a bunch of kids, not like her.

During the date at a drive-in theater, Julie is too afraid of the horror film. Chad spikes Julie's drink, rendering her unconscious. Chad drives her to a motel. After checking them in as husband and wife, with a know-it-all clerk (Orin Cannon), Chad photographs Julie in a variety of sexually provocative positions. Julie begins to regain consciousness, and Chad takes her home, explaining that she had just fallen asleep. However, after she has woken up, she doesn't want to let him in and doesn't want to go on a date with him again, which leads Chad really frustrated.

After developing the photographs in his darkroom, Chad shows the pictures to Julie after class one day. She is furious and threatens to call the police. Chad blackmails Julie into submitting to his romantic attentions as well as give him good grades for his term papers and if she refuses to cooperate, he will anonymously distribute the photos through the campus and her reputation and job will be in jeopardy. Julie reluctantly agrees. During a lesson, Chad writes a note to her inside a book telling her to go to his apartment to meet some friends of his. Julie has to agree. Afterwards, he is perceived as distraught by her friend Ann, but Julie won't tell about the situation. Chad doesn't really care about what she wants or doesn't want.

After several weeks of this, Chad forces Julie to come over to his apartment for dinner and with the intent to have sex with her. It is here where Julie announces, "The game is over." Julie reveals that it was actually she who had manipulated Chad in an elaborate role play of her own design. Suddenly breaking character, Julie asks Chad, "Did you really think that dull, little mind of yours could possibly have conceived any of the rather dramatic experiences we've shared? Why do you think you suddenly had the overwhelming desire to see what I looked like under 'all those clothes?' Don't feel bad... I always get bored after a while." Julie further tells Chad that despite the fact he did catch her off guard with drugging her that night and blackmailing her, Julie was rather amused by the elegance of this latest challenge of hers. Julie further tells him that she had planned to kill him that night of their first date but because she underestimated him, she decided to play along with his games until the time was right and that time is... right now. Chad realizes (too late) that Julie has poisoned his drink, then falls to the floor and dies. Julie drags his body into the darkroom where she sets fire to the offending photographs. Chad's death is later reported in local media as a house fire.

In the final scene, Julie adds the newspaper story to a scrapbook of articles depicting students who met similar fates. (It is strongly implied here that Julie is a serial killer whom targets and kills infatuated young men that zero in on her, and Chad was just her latest victim). There is a knock at the door, and Arthur Moore (Gregory Harrison), who is another student, appears in need of a tutor. Julie invites him in and says that they could be good friends.

"Millicent and Therese"

This tale of sibling rivalry focuses on sisters Millicent Larimore, a repressed and prudish brunette; and Therese Larimore, a worldly, seductive, and free-spirited blonde. Both roles are played by Karen Black.

Thomas Amman (John Karlen) wants to speak with Therese, but Millicent tells him that she's out partying. Amman inquiries further, and Millicent tells him that Therese was having an incestuous relationship with their father and then put extra pills in their mother's drink. Amman tells her to go to the police, but Millicent has nowhere to go and no job to support herself. Amman thinks it's Millicent who's crazy. Millicent also claims that she knows all about the death another man, and how he enjoys inflicting pain. Later, Millicent writes that Therese has violated her room in retaliation for her conversation with Thomas.

Dr. Ramsey (George Gaynes) meets with Millicent for their weekly therapy sessions and to find how she is getting along with Therese because she has to see to another patient who lives close by. He is impatient and hassled when he arrives and it's Therese who opens the door. Therese admits to having wrecked Millie's room and then tries to seduce him. Millicent is determined that Therese is evil, and tells Dr. Ramsey that his advice will no longer be required, and she starts plotting to kill her twin sister with voodoo. The next day, Dr. Ramsey visits the mansion again where he meets with the outgoing Therese where he tells Therese about Millicent's plans for her. Therese dismisses his concern about her sister's plans. That evening, Millicent plants a voodoo talisman in Therese's room to kill her.

The next morning, Dr. Ramsey arrives at the house and after not finding anyone around, enters Therese's bedroom where he finds her dead on the bedroom floor with the doll next to her. Millicent is nowhere to be found. Dr. Ramsey calls the police and the coroner where they take Therese's body away. It is here that Dr. Ramsey reveals in his statement to the coroner and police that, as the family doctor to the estate, "Therese" is in fact "Millicent" (both women are one and the same as suspected). Therese suffered from multiple personality disorder... brought on by the fact that Therese slept with her father and subsequently killed her mother in which she spent time in a lunatic asylum. "Millicent" was an alternate personality with a repressed sexuality to cope with the horror of her actions. The recent death of the father unhinged her further. The "murder" of Therese was actually a form of suicide by Therese Millicent Larimore.

"Amelia"

Amelia (Karen Black) is seen entering her high rise apartment building, carrying a package which looks like a small trunk. When she gets to her apartment, she unwraps the package to reveal a menacing doll, a little over a foot tall. She speaks in a monologue, to herself, revealing that the doll is named "He Who Kills", and that is an African hunting fetish she bought for someone named Arthur Breslau. She also comments aloud "God, are you ugly!". She then makes a phone call to her mother that greatly upsets her. We only hear Amelia's side of the conversation, but it's clear that her mother is a negative, manipulative person who does not approve of Amelia being independent and alone. At one point, she mentions that the apartment she's staying in is a sublease, and the occupants will be home in six more months. Amelia tries to explain that she's been seeing Arthur and it's his birthday, so she'd like to spend the evening with him. The doll's box contains a scroll that mentions that the gold chain around its waist is in place to keep the spirit of a real Zuni hunter trapped inside the doll; if the chain should be removed, the spirit will be unleashed. Amelia's mother hangs up on her, and Amelia becomes even more upset. She slams the doll down on her coffee table and walks away, but she doesn't notice that the gold chain has slipped off.

Amelia runs water for a bath and calls her boyfriend Arthur, breaking her plans with him. Unhappy about having her evening ruined, Amelia goes to the kitchen and prepares a steak for broiling, taking a kitchen knife from the rack to trim the fat away. She walks into the living room and discovers the doll is missing from the table where she left it. Searching for it under the sofa, she finds the spear it was holding in its hand, but the doll itself is nowhere to be found. After hearing a sound from the kitchen, Amelia goes in to discover the kitchen knife she had been using a moment before is now missing.

When she goes back into the living room, the doll rushes at her and starts stabbing at her ankles and feet with the kitchen knife, making ferocious sounds while it attacks her. Terrified, Amelia tries to get away from it, but it chases her around her apartment. She runs into the bedroom and tries to call the police, but before she can make contact, the bedroom door swings open, the doll (Walter Edmiston's voice) hanging off of the doorknob. The chase continues as it climbs the bed to get to Amelia, who runs into the bathroom and slams the door. The doll tries to stab her feet by sliding the knife under the door. With the door locked, Amelia thinks she is safe, but the doll manages to pick the lock and the door flies open; Amelia reacts and throws a towel over the doll, temporarily immobilizing it. She picks it up and pushes it under the water, but she realizes she can't drown a doll, and she leaves it thrashing in the water.

The doll reappears, climbing out of the bathtub with the knife clutched between its teeth. It chases Amelia into the living room, where she hides in a closet, and she uses a handy suitcase to entrap the doll. Amelia runs into the kitchen and gets a screwdriver; the doll has bent the deadbolt on her front door, blocking her escape. Before she can pry off the deadbolt, she notices the doll is using the steak knife to saw its way out of the suitcase. She tries to disarm it by grabbing the knife, but she gets both hands cut. Before she can do anything else, it escapes and comes for her once again. The fight continues in the kitchen, where she manages to disarm the doll finally, but it simply bites Amelia, latching onto her neck. She pries it off and hurls it into the oven, shutting the door. The doll screams and then bursts into flames, the oven filling with black smoke as it burns, and eventually the screams die down. Feeling as if she has won, Amelia opens the oven and suddenly screams.

A little later, Amelia goes to the phone and dials her mother, speaking in a strangely calm voice. She tells her mother that she wants to spend the evening together, and invites her to come by the apartment right away. When she hangs up, she goes to the deadbolt and now rips it completely off with her bare hands. Backing into a corner, we see that she is now holding a large butcher knife. She crouches down and begins stabbing the floor... waiting for her mother to show up so she can presumably attack and kill her with the knife. Amelia grins... revealing the ferocious teeth of the doll, whose evil spirit apparently has now possessed Amelia when she opened the oven.