Trilogy of Terror (1968)

Director: Ozualdo Ribeiro Candeias, Luiz Sérgio Person, José Mojica Marins

Year: 1968

Country: Brazil

Alternate Titles: Trilogia de Terror

Genre: Anthology

Plot:

Presented by Brazilian film director/actor José Mojica Marins, the film consists of 3 stories adapted from the Brazilian TV series Além, Muito Além do Além (Beyond, Much Beyond the Beyond).

Review:

The Deal-Living in a small village, a woman becomes increasingly concerned about the behavior of her daughter and turns to a local for help in fixing it, only to have her hands full when she realizes what's going on. This was nonsensical and a general waste of time. The storyline here is about as good as you can make out what happens since it's next to impossible to decipher what's going on with long spells of the film going by without explaining anything that happens. The excessively overlong running time for something like this is completely unnecessary, as the excessive running time is mostly made up by the use of way too many characters involved here, which makes it nearly impossible to tell what's going on, or being far more concerned with the outlandish visuals present, which are quite wild, admittedly. Offering up scenes of topless bearded women, characters with animalistic tendencies, or other such fare, this is admittedly bizarre and offbeat, but it's not genre-related enough to be of much use here.

Procession of Dead-After playing around a remote mine, a villager uncovers the desiccated corpse of a soldier from years ago, which starts to spread rumors through the town of a deadly figure haunting the area. This was a generally fun segment that has quite a lot to like about it. The classic setup here involves the villager setting up the discovery of the body in a remote part of the countryside, which manages to bring about some atmospheric scenes of the villagers incurring the wrath of the ghostly army patrolling the area. This offers up some fantastic elements here and has a generally classic setup, but it gets undone by some rushed antics at the end, where it seems to just conclude rather than build to a logical conclusion. It's the main issue here, and thankfully isn't that bad of one.

Macabre Nightmare-Plagued by vivid and disturbing nightmares, a man with the constant fear of being buried alive manages to inadvertently trigger the incident into reality and must try to save face before time runs out. This was a spectacular segment that has quite a lot to like about it. The central setup is the only downgrade here since it's all pretty much a given what's going to happen due to the opening setup giving away what's going to happen here. That doesn't change the fact that, by being the one with the most straightforward and clear-cut story, it can go through a series of fantastic setpieces emphasizing that particular phobia, from the healing ceremony he witnesses involving people being whipped, the traumatic rape that eventually triggers everything, and the harrowing finale seeing it come to fruition. It's all fun enough and has enough of a life to it that it really does become the highlight here and serves the film well.

Overview: ***/5

An intriguing if somewhat flawed anthology feature, there are some likable elements to most of the segments featured here, even though it falls due to the prominent issues featured within. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of the approach taken here, are hardcore anthology films, or follow the creative crew, while most others out there should heed caution.