Lo strangolatore della notte

This was a second pilot for a television series that aired after this movie was shown. Another pilot, "The Night Stalker," a year earlier. This one actually kicked off the series, called "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," which ran only two years. It seemed to be popular so I don't know why it didn't last longer.

At 90 minutes, this was longer than the first pilot but very similar in plot. The only major change is in the cities. Here, our intrepid reporter-hero "Carl Kolchak" (Darren McGavin) is hunting down a serial-killer werewolf in Seattle instead of Las Vegas.

He has the same common opponents, meaning his newspaper boss "Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) and a hostile police chief (played by Scott Brady). Along the way you get to see a bevy of beauties including Jo Ann Pflug and Nina Wayne. You also have brief appearances by somewhat-famous actors John Carradine, Margaret Hamilton, Al Lewis and Wally Cox.

The story will keep your interest and has good suspense at the end. The only annoying part - at least for me - is the overdone yelling between McGavin and Oakland, and McGavin and Brady. Every single time - every time - that pairing is on screen it is nothing but a shouting match. Can you say "abrasive?" It's just too much. Thankfully, on DVD, I can use the English subtitles and mute the sound button so I can turn off these screaming lunatics. Unfortunately, those shouting sessions take up a good chunk of the movie.

Follow-up to the 1972 TV movie "The Night Stalker". Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is now in Seattle. It seems women are being killed and drained of their blood. It also seems this happens every 21 years. Kolchak investigates helped by a wacky woman (Jo Ann Pflug).

This is nowhere near as good as "The Night Stalker" despite having most of the same crew involved. The story is kind of vague and the comedy and scares don't really work. Still it looks fantastic, has great atmosphere and good acting. McGavin and Simon Oakland reprise their roles and are great. Pflug is too but her character is annoying. This lead to a TV show called "Kolchak the Night Stalker" which was not a hit but has a cult following now. So this is an OK movie elevated by good acting and atmosphere.

Having seen this movie when it originally appeared on TV in the '70's, I can still remember the chills I got watching it. Seeing it again on video recently, those old chills returned and were just as enjoyable. Kolchak is one of my all-time favorite heroes, a bumbling regular guy who has enough faith in himself to follow his beliefs despite the road blocks thrown in his path by the authorities, who believe only they know the right way. The villain is not your run of the mill monster but as evil, lurking and despicable as the best of them. The premise of the movie that these things can and do exist unbeknownst to the gullible public is what makes this movie so much fun to watch. It makes you want to pull your covers up over your head on a dark stormy night just the way a great horror film should.

Relocated to Seattle, reporter Kolchak stumbles on yet another series of murders, a series which seems to be repeated every twenty-one years. Of the two movies, `The Night Strangler' has the slight edge. This is possibly down to its location, Seattle. Very unfamiliar to me, it adds certain freshness to the story, while the underground ‘old' Seattle is a fantastic location, macabre and memorable; it sticks in my mind long after watching the movie. The candle lit, cob-webbed corpses are perhaps one of the most vivid images in American genre television.

Also of note is Richard Anderson's villain, a crazed, immortality seeking Doctor, he is far more impressive than the original's vampire. A more assured script (which is genuinely funny in places), plus some enjoyable cameo's (Carradine, Hamilton), help make this a rare sequel which is better than the original.

Sadly, plans for a third movie were abandoned and instead a short-lived, inferior television series (without Matheson's involvement) resulted. A patchy effort, despite McGavin's best efforts it never attained the quality of the two movies.

After an estimated 75,000,000 viewers tuned in to ABC-TV on Tuesday, January 11, 1972, television history was made. That night, one-third of America was transfixed to its TV sets as the tale of an intrepid, hard-nosed reporter named Carl Kolchak pursued an elusive modern-day vampire across Las Vegas before dispatching the bloodsucker with an inevitable stake-through-the-heart. At the time, THE NIGHT STALKER, an ABC Circle Film, became the most watched television program in the history of the medium, which enticed the ABC brass to quickly reassemble key players of the telefilm (actor Darren McGavin, producer Dan Curtis, and writer Richard Matheson) to lay plans for its sequel.

Thus, THE NIGHT STRANGLER hit the airwaves a year after its popular predecessor. The talented Darren McGavin reprises his role as Kolchak, the tenacious newsman in trademark straw porkpie hat and rumply seersucker suit, who arrives in Seattle, meets up with his cantankerous former editor Tony Vincenzo, and lands another unearthly assignment. This time around, the locum tenens of the vampire is an immortal alchemist named Dr. Richard Malcolm, an ex-Civil War physician who gains superhuman strength and avoids death by concocting an elixir of life, a substance whose main ingredient is human blood! Every 21 years since the end of the Civil War, Malcolm returns to the Seattle streets to procure blood from the bases of strangled women's skulls. But Kolchak manages to locate the undead medico's lair in Old Seattle's underground ruins and foils the creature's attempts at another 21 years of dormancy. Again, local authorities ice his chances at publishing his macabre story and the hapless reporter becomes footloose once more.

Like THE NIGHT STALKER, THE NIGHT STRANGLER is a bone-chilling tale that blends gritty detective drama with a touch of the supernatural. Fast-paced plot, nail-biting suspense, and above-average dialogue highlight this sequel, which rivals the original telefilm for originality and overall quality. Contrary to popular opinion, THE NIGHT STALKER and THE NIGHT STRANGLER are much better TV fare than any episode of the much-overrated Kolchak rip-off THE X-FILES, and these telefilms serve to remind viewers that TV has indeed produced some outstanding programs, programs which mark the halcyon days of the medium.