Today’s movie, The Night Stalker, is about a veteran reporter who has come to believe a vampire is behind a series of gruesome murders plaguing Los Vegas. His dogged investigation encounters resistance from his editor as well as from the authorities who don’t believe such a thing is possible.
Reviews:
It is very much an early 1970s TV movie. The budget was clearly very limited – there is hardly any set design, or lighting design, or any design of any kind. The violence is mostly off-screen. There are a few tussles and quite a few cops shooting blanks at the killer (they don’t even bother with squibs), but nothing particularly visually interesting. The plot plays pretty fast and loose with anything close to how things would actually go. Even though the police and politicians hate Kolchak they keep inviting them to their private meetings to discuss the case and then ask everyone to keep quiet about it. As if a reporter, especially one as nutty as Kolchack, will keep quiet about a serial killer.
I did enjoy that it was shot in Las Vegas and there are a lot of exterior scenes. I love getting glimpses of a city from years gone by. Every time they drove by the Stardust Casino I wondered if Lefty Rosenthal (portrayed by Robert DeNiro in Casino) was there.
Despite all of this, I really rather enjoyed it. McGavin is a lot of fun to watch and it all plays out with this goofy kind of joy to it.
A reviewer at letterboxd writes:
This is unquestionably everything I want from a film, a pulpy 70s detective-type story set in the seedy underbelly of a big city, playing the mystery angle completely straight all the while speculating on a underlying supernatural cause. It’s fantastic, exactly what a good story should be, I immediately want 20 or so of these and luckily they exist. Even beyond the basic premise and writing it’s hard not to admire how good this film looks, the midnight POV driving shots through Vegas, the aggressive jazz during the poolside fight, the silent creeping through the old house, there’s something unsettling about this whole thing and it’s magnetic, I’m instantly obsessed. I actually want to use this story as a foundation for something I’m writing, I want to study this as a grounded mystery in a world firmly off the ground. This is the Rosetta stone to understanding some of the best media of the last fifty years, I can’t stress enough how much I love this film.
Roy Webber, author of The Dinosaur Films of Ray Harryhausen and occasional content contributor to Svengoolie, writes:
A very familiar made-for-TV vampire movie, by Dan Curtis of DARK SHADOWS fame. Great action and a few genuine chills, though it cannot totally escape a low-budget tinge which shows up here and there. This movie and its follow-up, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, helped launch a one season NIGHT STALKER series from 1974-1975 with Darrin McGavin again as the investigative reporter; it still airs on the MeTV network Saturday nights at midnight. Barry Atwater, the vampire, played the Vulcan Surak in the Season 3 STAR TREK TOS episode “The Savage Curtain”.
This is a strange film, enjoyable but strange. It’s a kind of chimera, on one hand you have the hoary tale of a pugnacious reporter hot on the trail of a big story and on the other hand you have, well, a vampire. It works, make no mistake, but the transition from vampiric theory to vampiric certainty on the part of Kolchak (Darin McGavin) is rather sudden and is brought to an enjoyable apex when he argues with the authorities in no uncertain terms that they must be dealing with a vampire. It’s as if he had encountered one before, as if THEY are the crazy ones for not considering this possibility in the first place. That oddness adds an interesting flavor to the film and it must have appealed to the audiences of the day as it was wildly popular and spawned a sequel, which will be presented here at a later date, as well as a television show.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Notable actors: Darin McGavin, Claude Akins, Barry Atwater
Spoilers!
Synopsis: A veteran reporter Kolchak, trying to rebuild his career after being fired from numerous former positions, latches on to the case of a woman viciously murdered on the Strip in Los Vegas. The authorities are clueless as to why her throat is torn as if by an animal and there is no blood on the scene or in her body. The reporter has a theory that they are dealing with a killer who thinks he is a vampire.
The murders continue, violently and without the presence of blood. The reporter pushes his theory on his editor and the authorities who dismiss him as a crank. His job is threatened and the authorities warn him they are running out of patience with him and his crackpot notions of vampirism.
After a blood bank is robbed, the authorities encounter a suspect who tosses the apprehending officers aside like rag dolls. Several shots are fired but the robber brushes them off and makes his escape. Based on the man’s prodigious strength and immunity to gunfire, along with the urging of his girlfriend, Kolchak comes to believe that they are in fact dealing with a real vampire.
When the authorities again fail to capture the killer, now identified as one Janos Skorzeny, they are forced to consider Kolchak’s unorthodox ideas. Meanwhile, Kolchak is tipped off as to the whereabouts of Skorzeny and sneaks into the creepy house at the address he is given. Poking around for evidence, he discovers bottles of blood in a fridge as well as a woman tied to a bed with her blood being drained. The sudden return of the killer leads to a fight. A friend of Kolchak’s arrives and the two manage to engage Skorzeny until dawn arrives. Weakened, the now confirmed vampire is staked through the heart by Kolchak.
Proud of his victory and excited at the prospect of a big story, Kolchak proposes to his girlfriend. But his editor and the authorities have other ideas. Rather than run his story, they plant a less supernatural tale in the paper and threaten Kolchak with being charged with murder if he doesn’t get out of town. Now alone, as his girlfriend has already been chased away by the authorities, he relocates to New York. The movie ends with him laying on his bed and finishing his taped records of the case, noting that there are no witnesses left to verify his account.
First comment went into the ether so I will try again. This is a great film and not only did it have a sequel – “The Night Strangler” – but it also followed on with a great TV series called “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” which I used to watch as a kid. I don’t think that TV had anything like it on at the time and not only did it probably help lay the path for “The X Files” but also for the TV series “Supernatural” later on. I miss TV like this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolchak:_The_Night_Stalker
Same same, stuck with me for some reason. The image I retain is of the Seattle underground, understanding that was real, and realizing there were abandoned underground cities elsewhere. What is materially real but has been forgot.
In my lost comment I was talking about that episode. I think that was where he found a mansion underground and inside at a table were the dead guests still sitting in their chairs and covered with cobwebs. I have never forgotten that scene even after half a century.
I remember watching these when I was a bit younger too. Here’s the one you mentioned:
The Night Strangler (1973) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz8Te5LpWt0
Bit of a time capsule about what downtown Seattle looked like.
My older brother and i watched the tv series. It was in the 10:00 pm slot. I remember it as being quite scary to this pre-adolescent, heh heh.
Always thought Kolchak must have been Scully’s crazy uncle. The character even showed up in an X-Files episode.
The runners and script writers on the X-Files did a pretty reasonable job at hearkening back to impactful persons in that regard, for certain.
Odd enough the lead actor in this film showed up on my TV scanning yesterday…playing the hotelier father to Billy Madison…
Kolchak (McGavin) plays the agent who opened the X-Files. He was in two episodes, and his health kept him out of “The Unnatural.”
The X-Files was simply an updated version of the Nightstalker. One item that separates the two from the pretenders is the relative mundane nature of the lived in world that created a sense that the weird could happen. Then they stayed with the human condition themes.
By comparison, other supernatural shows have access to space magic. themes. Mulder and Scully may have been a little too talented, but Gillian Anderson was wanted by the studio to replace Jodie Foster in the later Silence of the lambs movies. A relatively mundane character with no magic or destiny assigned at birth.
This movie is one we still talk about in my family. We loved it. In fact
We got so involved that while watching it, my brother jumped up and yelled. “ somebody help him”! It was a family joke for years.
I remember watching the series. Low budget can be a benefit. It allows the exercise of your imagination to fill in the blanks just as radio drama did and, yes, I remember that as well. I am going to go back to the film now and find Kolchak on the status of reporters. Now they all have journalism degrees and are not half what he was. Think of it. Actually doing the dirty work.
And who could pass up a movie with Elisha Cook, Jr.!
I loved the movies and the TV show as a teen. I felt it was a big inspiration for the X-Files.
Darren McGavin was always very good! He was also excellent as the sympathetic drill sergeant in the ABC Movie of the Week Tribes with Jan-Michael Vincent and Earl Holliman. Brian’s Song (James Caan, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Warden) was also a Movie of the Week. Yes, I watched too much TV as a teenager, but these movies were good. Imagine that!
Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson will undoubtedly return Hollywood to its glory days, at the direction of the President.
The longevity of one Jon Voight I find quite amazing. Of course opinions will vary, but I think of him fondly from that goofy high schooler movie, a memorable Varsity Blues where played Coach Kilmer.
Film nerds can also will or make note….yes he was a pivotal character in the Deliverance movie. “Lewis you’re ruined !”….
Conrack, from The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy. A very underrated movie. But that seems true of all of Martin Ritt’s movies. Most of the school children were locals. And I just noticed: Music by John Williams.
Well do I remember this. We have it, the sequel, “The Night Strangler,” and the series on DVD somewhere in the vault of horror (aka our library room.) The script was by the ever reliable “offbeat” writer Richard Matheson. He also did the script for the sequel “The Night Strangler,” and an unproduced third film, “The Night Killers.”
Darren McGavin was an excellent character actor.
There were several “interesting” Movie of the Week outings focusing on supernatural themes. I remember “Gargoyles” (1972) with Cornel Wilde, and “Fear No Evil” (1969) and a sequel to it starring Louis Jordan (not the execrable 1981 horror flick.)
Now, for some enterprising auteur to make a film about vampires set in Washington DofC.
Stay safe and, don’t open that door!!!
It’s a genre mash-up of vampire movie and Philip Marlowe detective (except Kolchak is a reporter rather than private dick) complete with world-weary cynical voice over at the beginning and end. What makes it creepy isn’t the vampire stuff or killings but the malevolence and incompetence of police and DA bureaucrats.
The star of the show is the soundtrack, which is chock-full of period clichés. Count the number of vibraphone minor-second chords! You can’t, there’s so many. The music for the chaotic drive to 5th Place and the pool-side scene (starting at 40:00 lasting about 3 minutes) is the most fun with all sorts of styles included: special effects, a free-jazz sax solo, and psych fuzz wah-wah guitar.
Generally the pace is pretty swift and satisfying except for the climax scene in the vampire’s home which drags a bit and, without dialog or much action, means we just have the goofy soundtrack to focus on. And then every time Kolchak waves his crucifix, the vampire clears his throat menacingly.
I’m left with one question. How come cops had the authority to grant Kolchak exclusive story rights?
Nice how it all translated to the TV series: seersucker jacket, straw boater, camera and tape recorder. The TV series upgraded from Vegas to Chicago and from white shoes and a bitchin’ Camaro to a Mustang and white bucks. Truly, stand alone cool.
A movie link for the movie report.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/can-trumps-movie-tariff-actually-work-1236207053/
With Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, many countries had limited recourse for retaliation because the U.S. trade deficit on physical goods in nearly all nations is so enormous. That’s not true for entertainment. The U.S. exports nearly three times as much entertainment as it imports, according to the MPA. Figures from the European Audiovisual Observatory, a media industry think tank, show that U.S. films accounted for 71.1 percent of cinema admissions in Europe in 2023, the latest year for which figures are available, with locally made movies making up just over 25 percent of sales. A tit-for-tat tariff response by international governments would jack up the price of U.S. movies abroad, and, for Hollywood, still struggling to recover from a post-COVID box office dip, it could be devastating.
And the article says don’t count on a blow to international tentpoles to help the indies.
Without a domestic rebate to offset the lost incentives abroad, the increased costs of filmmaking in the U.S. will likely mean that studio movies get smaller — or become more digital, with more volume stage and greenscreen shooting or more use of artificial intelligence (though that could create new problems with the guilds, which have strict restrictions on the use of AI).
For small and midsize independent productions, a tariff could simply mean those films don’t get made.
So, after, watching all day more on the terror in Gaza, I actually watched this POS, it was somewhat nostalgic, and strangely reaffirming. It does say something.
It’s almost an existential film. The protagonist struggles against Fate in the guise of the Establishment to overcome just one of the forces of evil. The individual struggle is the entire point of the plot. Kolchak never gives up, despite numerous setbacks. One head of the Hydra bites the dust. Many more are left to do their fell work.
Compare this film with the endless parade of “Superhero(TM)” movies churned out by Hollywood of late. There, the viewer can fantasize about being strong and dominating enough to overcome any and all perils. Such is not realistic in any wise. Superheros are pure wish fulfilment.
The contender against Fate that Kolchak embodies is not powerful, nor determinate. He or she suffers setbacks and perils, often as the result of the decay and corruption of the society said ‘Hero” is trying to protect. Here, victory is not the final end of the matter. The struggle itself is the reason to persevere.
As for the Gaza genocide; all I can say is that it has finally destroyed any semblance of morality Zionism ever projected. As another person said a few days ago, the insane actions of the Radical Zionists have already put the safety of Jews worldwide in jeopardy. Netanyahu and his fellow zealots have become their own worst enemies. Where is their Carl Kolchak going to come from?
Eloquent my friend.
I cannot expound as such, the worldly moral transgressions of the present overtake me.
But I thank you. Maybe an existential piece…
True. Contemplating evil will make the sensitive person depressed. As a frequent sufferer of depression, I find the warning signs of self-destructive nihilism old friends. Avoiding that trap is the Sisyphean task we all must endure. It almost defines the neo-liberal world.
I can almost curse the day Sartre was born, but then I recollect that he endured most of his life partnered with Simone de Beauvoir, and comfort myself with the observation that Life truly is absurd.
Stay safe and do not despair.
I do not use the word evil, though I am informed by its use.
I look at particular material welfare as evolving to general social conditions.
Rod Serling once said that he could write of social conditions in fantasy when he could not write so in fact. To paraphrase.
I think in material conditions, as I am only near the ground.
The script writer had to adapt any thoughts of social welfare to a fantasy.
And the target corruption and resolution of it.
In the piece we escaped for now.
The system would not permit otherwise. But as you have compared.
The strong do as they will, the weak suffer as they must.
Thucydides turned on his head in corporate fare.
To tell you the truth, this war also destroyed any semblance of pretense of morality that the west ever had. It’s not enough that western countries have been giving Israel political protection and enabling its starvation blockade but they are giving Israel the military equipment that they need to commit this genocide. I grew up learning that phrase ‘never again’ and we learned as kids who the Nazis were and what they were all about. And now actual Nazis are being redeemed FFS and not only in the Ukraine but also in Israel. As far as I’m concerned, we in the west have now become the baddies.
Pretense is exactly the right word to use.
Today’s neo-cons remind me a bit of Basil Zaharoff. Anything for a buck, up to and including mass murder.
Stay safe and keep your potassium iodide tablets handy.
Loved the Night Stalker.
The “Sunday Morning Movie Presents:” makes sure I always check archive.org as well as youtube to see what is available. In this case they have 20 of the original series availabe for those that want to get lost for awhile.
https://archive.org/details/KolchakTheNightStalker
Thanks for this Sunday Morning movie, a great reminder of some fun television.
(I always find some interesting stuff on this site and donate a few bucks every year. The site is a treasure)