October Edition #19: THE NIGHT STALKER

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Screenplay: Richard Matheson, from a novel by Jeffrey Grant Rice
Starring: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Bernie Jenks
Release Date: 1972


This one is a prime candidate for this blog, as it has been sitting on my DVD shelf collecting dust since I bought it back in 2004. I’m glad that I can finally check it off of my list, though, as THE NIGHT STALKER is a supreme example of what has become a forgotten subgenre, that being the made-for-television horror movie.

The film begins with Carl Kolchak (McGavin), listening to an audio recording of himself recounting a tale of supernatural murder and political corruption in the city of Las Vegas. Kolchak is a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist whose abrasive behavior has gotten him fired from every major newspaper in every major city in the country. He has now resigned himself to writing for the smaller Las Vegas Daily News, living day to day with his showgirl girlfriend, constantly looking for the story that will get him the respect he believes he deserves. Fortunately for him,  he’s just been assigned the biggest story of his career.

Someone in Las Vegas is committing a string of gruesome murders, ambushing young women in the night, biting into their throats and completely draining their blood, and numerous hospitals in the city are reporting robberies of their blood banks. The local sheriff and the District Attorney insist on hiding the facts from the public, for fear of  causing a panic or, worse yet, making themselves appear foolish. Kolchak believes they might be dealing with a psychotic individual who believes he is a vampire. The idiotic authorities won’t hear any of it, even threatening to have Kolchak kicked out of town if he dares to report any of the facts.

As the body count rises, however, it soon becomes apparent that they may be dealing with more than just a delusional head case. After a failed attempt to rob a hospital of its blood stores, the police confront a tall, pale man with bloodshot eyes who is somehow able to take down five police officers at once, withstand multiple gunshot wounds, and outrun any police cruiser. Kolchak takes pictures of the whole incident, and in the next morning’s press conference one of his contacts, an FBI agent, reveals the identity of the killer as Janos Skorzeny, a 70-year old European immigrant who has operated under numerous aliases throughout the years, and always leaves a trail of bloodshed and chaos in his wake. It is here that Kolchak drops his theory that they are, in fact, dealing with a genuine vampire, much to the chagrin of the D.A., who of course ignores him and orders the city of Las Vegas to be put on total lockdown, creating the largest manhunt in the city’s history.

It doesn’t take long for them to spot Skorzeny again, which leads to one of the movie’s cooler scenes. I really liked that at a certain point the story drops all pretenses of hiding the vampire from the public, and just has a massive battle between the entire Las Vegas police force and one badass vampire who, of course, utterly decimates them before escaping and completely obliterates any of their doubts towards Kolchak’s theory. I thought it was an interesting choice for Skorzeny to never utter a word the entire movie. In fact the only noise he seems capable of making is deep animalistic growl, and though modern audiences have seen this approach taken a thousand times, it was new to audiences in 1972, especially television audiences, so I can imagine it was fairly terrifying back then.

 Feeling thoroughly vindicated, Kolchak convinces the police chief to order his men to carry with them a cross, a mallet, and a wooden stake at all times, and negotiates with the D.A. for the exclusive rights to the story, which they begrudgingly grant him on the condition that if it turns out he is wrong then he must leave town, never to return. Kolchak agrees, and soon after is able to track Skorzeny back to his home, a dreary mansion on the edge of town. The final twenty minutes are incredibly suspenseful, as Kolchak ventures inside to snap a few photos and finds one of the missing girls still alive, only to become trapped inside the house once Skorzeny unexpectedly arrives home early, leading to a suitably tense showdown between the hapless reporter and the bloodsucking bastard.

THE NIGHT STALKER is very much a movie of its period, and the limitations of being made for television show in many spots. The bloodshed is minimal, left mostly to the imagination, so in that respect it can in no way compete with the grisly horrors seen on any random episode of CSI. What carries this movie is the strong storyline, anchored by the central performance of Darren McGavin as Kolchak. Kolchak is an extremely likeable fellow, a man who lives to chase the story and usually ends up losing his shirt in the process. He’s just a regular schlub who happens to have stumbled into something way over his head. At times his morality comes into question, as we never can tell if he cares more about getting the truth out, or just getting the story, but he is nevertheless an easy character to root for.

McGavin is helped along by a tidy, fast-paced script penned by horror novelist Richard Matheson, a man whose presence typically guarantees a solid horror yarn. He wrote some of the best episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, as well as TRILOGY OF TERROR and, of course, I AM LEGEND. His stories seem to be an ideal fit for the small screen, as they serve more as small character pieces that just happen to feature elements of the supernatural. By that token THE NIGHT STALKER plays like a crime procedural in which the prime suspect just happens to be a badass vampiric motherfucker, and I enjoyed seeing Matheson’s interpretation of just how law enforcement officials would react to the undeniable reality of a vampire staking claim to their jurisdiction. The answer is just like they react to anything else: by lying, covering up the details and placing blame on anyone but themselves.

Like the best movies of the late 60’s and early 70’s, THE NIGHT STALKER has a major downer of an ending. Though Kolchak does eventually defeat the vampire Skorzeny, he does not come out of this movie a winner. In fact, he gets screwed over so royally, his life ruined so thoroughly, that I was literally fuming as the final scenes played out. For Kolchak, though, it’s just business as usual. He might be down and out now, but there will be other stories to chase down in other cities and maybe, just maybe, more monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to emerge from the darkness and shatter our illusions of what is and isn’t reality.

When it first aired on ABC back in 1972, THE NIGHT STALKER was the most watched TV movie in history, leading to a sequel one year later, and then a short-lived series called KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER that I used to watch in re-runs when I was a kid. That show acted as a sort of precursor to THE X-FILES, as that series’ creator Chris Carter has stated on numerous occasions that the monster of the week format of that show and the character of Agent Mulder were hugely influenced by the adventures of Carl Kolchak. Taken entirely on its own THE NIGHT STALKER is a hugely effective tale of old-world folklore butting heads with modern logic, and though it might seem antiquated to younger generations, a good story is still a good story regardless of a lack of gore or how badly the fashions and music have aged. This is a damn fine story, and if you can ever track down a copy (this DVD is sadly out of print), definitely give it a look.

My Rating:
8/10