Una storia allucinante

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. It had a great plot, good characters ... a reluctant hero and one of the best TV movie villains ever. Of course, you have to have a good villain to make a story work and Janos Skorzeny certainly fits the bill. And Barry Atwater plays Skorzeny with the perfect amount of venom and snarl, not going way over the top, which would have been easy to do.

Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak was also a role he was born to play. The rumpled suit, the trademark straw hat (which he incidentally wore along with a tuxedo to a Dean Martin celebrity roast!), the almost Columbo-like dogged questioning and pursuit. His "High Noon" showdown with Skorzeny was as good as it gets .... no one else was willing or able to take down the bad guy so the character least likely to do it reluctantly decides to save the city from a maniac.

The characters who worked for Las Vegas law enforcement were more interested in protecting their backsides and practicing CYA after being made to look foolish and incompetent by a reporter willing to consider something beyond their imagination. By sending the only people who knew the truth - Kolchak, his girlfriend and his editor, Tony Vincenzo - either out of town or threatening them into silence, the cover-up of the truth was completed.

Persistent rumors exist that there are plans to remake this into a big screen movie .... I hope not, I am having problems imagining contemporary actors who could play these roles better than the original cast.

And it took a TV movie to achieve this feat. But there's no denying the powerful intersection of screen writer Richard Matheson, producer Dan Curtis, and Darren McGavin in perhaps his best role (after A Christmas Story). Ably assisted by Jeff Rice's original novel, Night Stalker works on every level. The humor is there, but a bit subdued. The vampire is a feral beast who is strong, invulnerable, and drinks blood...and that's it. No lame transformations into a bat: The script's portrayal of Skorzeny the Vampire echoes that of Christopher Lee (Hammer also resisted displaying much of Dracula's superhuman abilities).

Skorzeny has none of the sexuality or personality of Dracula, but in a sense the movie isn't about him even if he's the "Stalker" of the title. It's a movie about Carl Kolchak, reporter and undeterred seeker of truth. He could be stalking a story about corrupt politicians, or mobsters, or whatever. The only difference is here, he's after a vampire. This extra supernatural element rises it above what few dramatic reporter-featured movies there are out there.

Item - Take one modern setting such a Las Vegas and tell a story of vampirism set there. Item - Add one eccentric, cynical reporter out for a good story with a great personality. Item - Add supporting characters that are interesting. Item - Add a fine cast headed by Darren McGavin as the relentless reporter Carl Kolchak. and Simon Oakland as the head of the newspaper Kolchak works for. Also add great supporting stars such as Barry Atwater, Larry Linville, and Claude Akins. Item - Have one of the kings of horror fiction...Richard Mathseon write a script based on the excellent novel by Jeff Rice. Item - Add the final ingredient of artful direction and you have one great movie that was made for television and that spawned a sequel and a television series on the title character. The Night Stalker is easily one of the best horror films ever made and certainly one of the best ever produced for television.

Good stuff here as modern-day vampirism gets a respectable TV-movie treatment that managed to bring something original to the mixture by having the story told from the point of view of a weary reporter.

Darren McGavin is unforgettable in a telefilm that set the record for ratings shares in its day. His reporter, Carl Kolchak, becomes a believer in the supernatual when he investigates a series of murders where the (female) victims are drained of blood. Kolchak uncovers the truth--the murders are the work of a "real live vampire"--and the truth is quickly covered up again by the Las Vegas police department, who don't want the news of a vampire to interfere with business (one is forced to consider that the ultimate proof of bonafide supernatural goings-on would ultimately be of more importance, but that would spoil the fun).

The film is delightfully dated in its fashions and styling, but otherwise the treatment of the material is surprisingly contemporary, which goes to show just how far ahead of its time "The Night Stalker" really was. 70s genre buffs will be thrilled to see plenty of familiar faces among the cast, including Carol Lynley and Elisha Cook, Jr. The finale, where Kolchak makes the classic spooky-movie mistake of confronting the monster in his own lair, manages to be both tongue-in-cheek and hair raising at the same time. A real example of how storytelling and creativity can render a big budget unnecessary.

For those who remember this television show, re-visiting it on VHS or DVD is a nostalgic experience. Darren McGavin was a likable, funny guy as "Carl Kolchak," a reporter for an independent news service who chases after vampires and assorted weirdos.

In this pilot show, "Kolchak" goes after a vampire in Las Vegas. Ah, a good place for any bloodsucker. Since this was on television back in the early-to-mid '70s, you see a thriller with no gore and no profanity and you also get to see the beautiful Carol Lynley's face again.

Darrin McGavin was an underrated actor, a guy who always seemed to make whatever character he was playing an interesting guy. He was great in this short (2 years, I think) television series.

The only annoying part of the this film and the TV series is all the hostility toward Kolchak, particularly by his loud and obnoxious employer, "Tony Vincenzo," played by Simon Oakland.