No idea how to ever begin looking for this movie. So, I turn to all of you! Here goes: Back in 1980 or 1981 (I was around 5) I remember seeing a movie on TV that scarred the hell out of me. Me and my brother and 3 sisters were over a neighbor’s house at night with our parents watching whatever was on TV while the grownup were in the other room. One of those Saturday night or Sunday night movies was playing on one of the networks (ah, pre-cable days). The movie featured a young woman, brown hair, who had somehow come across this small doll that looked like an island warrior. At some point the doll comes to life and begins chasing the woman through her apartment. I can remember vividly this small doll running after her through a hall with the camera on it, the doll moving really fast (maybe the camera sped up to hide the crappy stop frame motions?), all this after it had leaped from under her bed. So basically the doll spent the movie hunting the woman through her apartment before finally being outsmarted by her (who may at this point have been reduced to her underwear with a typical B movie plot twist). I have no idea what the movie was. I may be able to recall more specifics if that would help. As an aside, the movie seemed to come to mind a lot, but again, I’ve never had a way of searching for it, given the few coherent details I can give of it. My brother and sisters are no help with it. I remember my brother having a doll/figure that somewhat resembled the one in the movie. Picture a native/island warrior made from chunks of coconut, all painted up, and with that stiff coconut fur exposed. I was the youngest of the 5 and so for quite a bit after seeing that movie I was terrorized with my brother’s figure. Mostly my shrink has gotten me through it, mostly. (Just kidding). Anyway, any help to track down info on this movie would be appreciated.
Sounds like one of the segments of Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black. A Zuni fetish doll comes to life and begins chasing her through her apartment until she traps it in her oven, then turns the oven on and it burns up. There is another twist, however…
When she opens the oven door the spirit of the doll posseses her. The last scene is her sitting inside her apartment, holding a knife and waiting for someone (her boyfriend?) to come in.
One of the funniest TV movies ever, by the way: Karen Black, in all her voluptuous horror, being chased around by a tiny little troll doll that screams “yanni yanni yanni yanni” while brandishing a teeny-tiny little knife.
The oven scene! Haha! LurkMeister- reading that in your post caused me to remember it! And Eve : I can remember the yanni, yanni too! Damn, amazing how much I can remember now that I’ve read your posts (Beadalin too). This is definitely the movie I was thinking of. I should buy 4 copies as gag Christmas gifts for my brother and sisters!
Note that when Karen Black receives the Devil Doll (from whom, by the way? An ex-boyfriend? A disgruntled cow-orker?), she puts it down on the coffee table, and right away, the magic necklace falls off, bringing it to life.
It looks to me like a class-action lawsuit in the making against the Zuni Devil Doll Toy Company. You know this can’t be the only time this happened. All over the world, Zuni Devil Dolls were losing their necklaces and coming to life. Obviously a Lucy Ricardo on the assembly line somewhere. Do you ever remember hearing about a recall for a particular model number?
And can you believe this is the only one of the three segments of the movie that I can remember? I can still picture Karen Black sitting crosslegged on the floor, a maniacal look on her face, sticking a knife in the floor over and over and over, waiting for her apartment door to open…
LurkMeister Holy Moly! I remember that scene too with her stabbing the floor over and over! This is just too weird. I saw this film only once when I was about 5 or so (I was born in 1975, but moved to the town with the neighbors whose house I watched it at in 1979). How is it a single viewing of a film could have lasted like such in my brain? I emailed my sister the link from your first post asking if she knew the movie, and if so where she saw it. She asked if it was the one she saw at the neighbors on Halloween. And she’s only 2 years older than me! Was my memory right about the doll running through a hall and the scene being spead up? Or that the doll seemed to moved really fast, and side to side?
I was an adult and for some reason that segment scared me! And I’m pretty sure it was her mother she called to come over. And had taken the doorknob off of the inside of the front door, so Mom wouldn’t be able to get away.
There’s been other mention of this show on the Dope. It’s amazing how this show has stuck with people.
TRILOGY OF TERROR, by the same guy who did “Dark Shadows,” Dan Curtis, and starred Karen Black in all three segments.
Nobody remembers the other two segments, but “Prey” sticks with EVERYONE. And that knife wasn’t so tiny; it was a steak knife from Karen Black’s kitchen.
And nobody bought it for her. She bought it at some odd little store to give to her new boyfriend. She never got the chance.
Naturally, in the nineties, I think, they made a sequel: Trilogy Of Terror II, which included a sequel with the little fetish doll loose in a museum. Couldn’t touch the original, though.
And now I have a picture in my head of Lucille Ball with her mouth stuffed full of murderous fetish dolls…
I seem to recall seeing that segment on its own one night in 1973 or 1974, as one of the episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. Nobody ever mentions that, though, just as nobody ever talks about “Happy Days” having its pilot aired as a segment of Love, American Style.
Maybe the doll was just a big fan.
Nope. Not ever. I suspect this is what you’re thinking of. There was another vignette entitled “Doll of Death,” but I don’t recall exactly what that one was about.
Don’t know about “Doll of Death” either, but NIGHT GALLERY’s “The Doll” scared the living poop out of Lil’ FriarTed back in the day! Of course, it didn’t help that my Grandmom collected dolls!
Whereas on the other hand, The Zuni Fetish Doll only fun-scared me.
I think they now make Zuni Fetish Doll action figures or bobbleheads.