Format: DVD from Peotone Public Library through interlibrary loan on gigantic television.
I’m just old enough to remember when Darren McGavin wasn’t famous for being the dad in A Christmas Story, but for being Carl Kolchak. I didn’t watch the movies as a kid, but one of my brothers watched Kolchak: The Night Stalker during its brief run. There are a couple of episodes that I remember distinctly. The Carl Kolchak character, a newspaper reporter who gets regularly tied up in supernatural murders, started with The Night Stalker made-for-TV movie, which was followed by The Night Strangler. The Kolchak stories feel like a natural parent to The X-Files, and this is not hampered in the slightest by the fact that they were written by Richard Matheson.
So, while the show was highly influential, the show would have never happened without the two made-for-TV movies and without the charm of Darren McGavin. The Night Strangler sees our newspaperman hero, fired from his job in Las Vegas after writing about vampires, relocated to Seattle. Because we want to have some consistency between this sequel and the original, we’re going to also import Carl Kolchak’s newspaper editor Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) from Las Vegas as well, fired from his editorial position in Vegas for supporting Kolchak’s crazy vampire story.
Vincenzo seems to have not quite forgiven Kolchak, but realizes that he’s actually a good investigator and so gives him a new assignment—the murder of a young belly dancer, strangled on her way home from work. Kolchak starts to get the story and discovers that there’s been a second, similar murder and that there are disturbing details. The victims’ necks have been crushed, far beyond normal human strength. The victims also had small amounts of blood drawn from them. Most disturbing, there is evidence of dead, rotting flesh on the necks of the victims. Looks like Kolchak is back on the case.
Kolchak does his job, which involves talking to the other belly dancers at the club where the one was murdered. This leads him to student Louise Harper (Jo Ann Pflug), a part-time dancer who works at the club to pay for her college classes. It also means that Kolchak is going to get into trouble with the Seattle police and with Llewellyn Crossbinder (John Carradine), his publisher.
Kolchak enlists the support of Titus Berry (Wally Cox), who works in research at the paper Kolchak works for. He discovers a disturbing pattern. 21 years previously, in 1952, there was a similar series of murders—six strangulations over 18 days. And it happened again in 1931, in 1910, and in 1889. Every 21 years, six women have their necks crushed, small amounts of blood drawn, and the cycle repeats. One wonders if this is where Stephen King got the idea for the 27 year cycle in IT.
The truth is that The Night Strangler isn’t very scary. This isn’t because of the format—films like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark from the same year and the TV version of ’Salem’s Lot demonstrate that movies made for old school broadcast television can certainly bring the scares. This really isn’t about the scares, though. It’s much more about the character and about the story than it is anything else. The Night Strangler (and both The Night Stalker before it and the series after it) wouldn’t work if not for the presence and charm of Darren McGavin.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised that no one has brought this back. It’s been more than 50 years, and this feels like a movie/show that could easily work today on a streaming service where the scares can go much harder. Mike Flanagan would kill this as a mini-series.
Ultimately, we know how this is going to end. Kolchak is going to get deep into trouble, he’s going to make the case, and no one is going to believe him. That’s the story that ultimately we want—the world needs to stay in the dark about the things that go bump in the night for exactly the same reason that Mulder and Scully could never definitively prove the existence of the things that they encountered.
It’s hard not to like this. While the formula ultimately gets repetitive (and is a large part of why the series only lasted 20 episodes), this is early in that process, so it hasn’t worn out its welcome.
Why to watch The Night Strangler: If you like The X-Files, you’ll feel right at home here.
Why not to watch: It’s pretty tame.
I miss Darren McGavin. An amazing character actor and certainly someone you don't fuck with. He is a good dude.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently watching the old Night Stalker television show. Hearing the voice of Ralphie's dad talk about witches and zombies is a bit of a trip.
DeleteI loved these films and the series when it initially ran even though horror isn't something I'm overly fond of. The main reason boils down to Darren McGavin's irresistible charm as Kolchak, although Simon Oakland is a blustering delight as his gruff editor and both the movies and the series had them surrounded by wonderful casts, in this case Jo Ann Pflug (LOVE her-she was everywhere in during this period and then seemed to disappear. A shame, she was a fine comedienne with a lot of charm) and if I remember correctly one of my favorite supporting character actresses, Ruth McDevitt, was a regular in both the films and series.
ReplyDeleteIt was my kind of horror, more suspense than blood and guts with doses of humor thrown in and a strong lead.