Cover Art

Credits

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey / Dan Curtis Starring: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Kent Smith, Elisha Cook Jr., Claude, Akins, Charles McGraw, Larry Linville / Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, Richard Anderson, John Carradine, Wally Cox, Margaret Hamilton, Jo Ann Pflug Screenplay: Richard Matheson Music: Robert Cobert Country: USA Year: 1972 / 1973

With no messing around (this is a TV production after all) we're thrown straight into the action of The Night Stalker just as the first victim, a nighshift change girl, is picked up by the neck and thrown onto a garbage pile (yep, we're still talking TV). Next we're introduced to Kolchak's boss, the vitriolic newspaper editor Anthony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), a man who's never afraid to give Kolchak a piece of his mind usually as loudly as possible. At first Kolchak is reluctant to accept the case only for things to immediately get strange. The story proceeds at breakneck speed from both the visual perspectives of victims combined with voice-over narration from Kolchak who's trying to make as much sense from the situation as possible. Before you can say body on the beach Kolchak finds himself looking at one with wounds that weren't self-inflicted but no visible footprints around it. A blood supply goes missing from a hospital but a press conference called to address the matter is only an exercise in containment with government and law officials calling for a complete media blackout. Of course, this situation only encourages Kolchak and that's despite even louder calls from his boss to also drop the story. Meanwhile the bodies keep piling up including that of a canine a victim defiantly sets on the red-eyed man in black who kills it before launching an attack on it's owner. Kolchak knows he's onto something but has to seek assistance from his librarian buddy just one of the offbeat characters he deals with in order to get a story. In this case Kolchak is encouraged to read a vampire reference book. As skeptical as possible Kolchak's assemblage of facts as he knows them tells him something otherworldly is going down and he naturally continues the chase. Another more traumatic blood bank scene later and Kolchak is arming supporters with wooden stakes and standing outside a suburban Las Vegas house that more than slightly resembles the Bates Psycho house.

The inevitable difficult confrontation with the undead resident, Janos Skorzeny, occurs just before dawn but with the story neatly wrapped you might reasonably expect a happy ending for Kolchak and his proposal of marriage to his beautiful blonde girlfriend played by soap star (literally) of the time, Carol Lynley. This is The Night Stalker though and the Las Vegas police department and other areas of officialdom including his place of employment have other ideas for Carl. Unceremoniously ran out of town separately from his girlfriend who apparently recieves the same treatment we're back to square one except with the veracity of the tape confirmed and a serious anti-hero on our hands.

That the initial Night Stalker movie became a massive US ratings record setter was no mistake. Talent positively drips from the production on both sides of the camera from premier American horror screenwriter Richard Matheson's script of the original Jeff Rice story that mixed up detective fiction and horror in a way that was later aped by the likes of Tarantino, to a supporting cast of outstanding character actors (from Ralph Meeker to Elisha Cook Jr.) all firmly guided by expatriate-British director John Llewellyn Moxey (Horror Hotel). The die was cast and it's no wonder The Night Strangler appeared the next year with a few minor refinements (no impossibly beautiful gal pal) including the new setting of Seattle.