Runtime: 74 minutes
Directed by: John Llewellyn Moxey
Starring: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Barry Atwater
From: ABC Circle Films/Dan Curtis Productions
As everyone knows, vampires drive station wagons…
Despite the cult following that The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler and Kolchak: The Night Stalker has had for decades, it was not until last night that I had ever seen Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak. I knew his appearance and that this initial TV movie (which was a gigantic hit) had a vampire as an enemy, but it took me viewing a YouTube video from a 1979 broadcast on KABC TV in LA-complete w/ commercials!-for me to finally discuss this here. Those ads were a sheer delight.
Kolchak has an abrasive personality due to his blunt nature and his distrust of authority. This is why he was fired from multiple gigs and his current boss at the Las Vegas rag is rankled by him. When bodies are found drained of blood, Kolchak at first assumes that the villain just believes he’s a vampire. However, when supernatural events happen and the authorities refuse to believe it’s supernatural…
It’s solidly directed by Tarantino favorite John Llewellyn Moxey, has a cool score, was produced by Dan Curtis, written by Richard Matheson and is full of famous faces-everyone from Carol Lyndley to Elisha Cook, Jr. for like a minute-but of course it is McGavin who is the key to making this picture work. Kolchak could have been an annoying know-it-all who wears a seersucker suit w/ a porkpie hat yet instead was a charming smug dude who dealt with positions of authority that mostly were real jerks so it was easy to root for a chap that uses his charm to recruit a variety of characters to give him tips. Praise is also deserved for Barry Atwater as the vampire who both had the Lugosi stare and successfully exhibited animalistic tendencies.
As it provides solid early 70’s made for television scares, I was happy to have finally tackled this blind spot. After all, years ago at my sister’s house when A Christmas Story was on my dad spotted McGavin and asked if that was Kolchak, The Night Stalker. Still surprising to me given that neither parent ever showed me any horror as a child.
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