TRILOGY OF TERROR
"Amelia"
(1975; d. Dan Curtis, tp. Richard Matheson)

Begins w/ title pushover (as in ameliorate: "to make better [cf contemporary Amelie]" at own expense) entering apartment/mind w/ primitive box (dream-material culled from previous/archetypal experience) containing Zuni "fetish" (replacement for own inner lack; at alphabetical other end of spectrum) doll (content of dream distilled to icon) of "He Who Kills" (1st line of film, signifying primacy of image): own regressive (as primitive) masculinity (wmn’s intuition of "masculine" agency in past/self), gift for anthropologist (researcher into forgotten times) boyfriend’s birthday (birth/emergence of own "masculine" aggression [Arthur/Amelia] for which doll sacral offering [double entendre of Matheson source-story title, "Prey"]).

Calls domineering mother (unseen: archetypal, learned womanhood, repressing her authentic self) to postpone dinner date ("communion"; weekly get-togethers constant intercourse w/ imprinted i.d.) in favor of "Art": redirecting allegiance to mythic masculine past (he also phoned: similarly unseen, internal) rather’n maternal potential in midst of Liberation ’70s, camera cutting to doll after long phone take (He literal break from continuous mother-past [Amelia recently moved out of house] to masculinized future, sublet apartment temporary, transitional personality).

Anger at mom prompts revivification of doll (uniting spirit + body reincorporating disowned part of self – "spirit," will) when confining chain around waist (umbilical tie, to later be reversed [in oven/womb]) shaken loose (long-held-in animus finally set free), hiding under couch until she nabs spear (latent; doll unseen till she gains phallus) then attacking on stealing carving knife (exchanging tools, he becoming "civilized" as she "primitive": imgs meeting ½way), getting to her no matter where she closets self (in bdrm, bthrm, cupboard + kitchen) or traps Him: insistence of the archetype when time has arrived.

After divesting Him of knife/phallus, gets chomped on wrist + throat by razor teeth (vagina dentata, wounds à la initiation ritual) till throwing Him in oven (burning up old/incubating new imgs) behind (as in back of mind) + being overcome by smoke (soul: by-product of immolating body, essence after img reduced); calls mom + invites her over, then nestles in corner w/ butcher knife + fangs (equally masculinized + feminized), waiting to kill off old, obsolete feminine img + assert new.