Almost two decades before the heyday of the "X-Files" there was "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." He first appeared in a couple of made-for-TV movies in the early 1970s. Then he got his own weekly series for the 1974-1975 season. He was created by writer Jeff RIce, but Richard Matheson and star Darren McGavin had a lot to do with what actually made it to the screen. Like many sci-fi/fantasy series of the 1960s and 1970s, "Night Stalker" proved too niche in a TV market still dominated by three big networks that were all aiming for huge mass audiences. It became one of those one-season wonders that turned into a cult classic.

Fortunately cult classics are often now available on DVD...

The Ripper
A serial killer terrorizes Chicago with a series of murders very similar to those of Jack the Ripper...and Kolchak learns that this is not a coincidence.

It's another one of those surprisingly popular Jack-the-Ripper-was-a-superhuman-being-that-is-still-at-work stories. Remarkably enough, Richard Matheson did NOT write this one. Kolchak learns that there have been over a dozen series of killings just like the Ripper murders since the 1880s. How crimes as infamous and distinctive as the Whitechapel murders could be repeated so often without anybody noticing the pattern is anybody's guess. Apparently in Kolchak's world he's the only one sharp enough to notice things like this.

The audience never gets a good look at the Ripper, or (thankfully) his crimes. He is seen largely as a remarkably athletic figure leaping and running in dimly-lit confrontations with the police. He can survive four-story falls uninjured, shrug off bullets, and manhandle police officers as if they were dolls. He even at one point busts down a steel door with his bare hands. He never says an audible word. We never hear anything about his origins, his motives, or what he does in between murder sprees. He just seems to come from out of nowhere. Apparently Jack's style in clothes hasn't changed since the 1880s. He's even found to be wearing ninety-year-old shoes. They look remarkably new and shiny.

The Ripper's victims are also ciphers. They're all prostitutes, of course, and they receive no more characterization than a typical Trek TOS red shirt. Plus some fanservice, within the limits of 1970s network TV standards. The victims aren't really people, just plot elements to be casually bumped off. Ladies of the evening get this treatment a lot in thrillers. And sometimes in real life, too. There's not a lot of recognition that they are human beings, often forced, at a very young age, into something they would not have chosen for themselves (Stories about all-American suburban girls being abducted from shopping malls and such by traffickers are just urban legends, but real-life sex trafficking is a worldwide problem that ruins thousands of lives every year. Any man who pays for sex is likely to be supporting it at some level). As awareness grows, the sort of callous treatment we see of the victims in this episode is hopefully becoming less common.

Kolchak is shown in some typically adversarial interactions with the local police. Since he's the protagonist, he is of course in the right. But you still can't blame the officers for not getting along with him. The guy is awfully abrasive and adversarial. While I never watched much "X-Files," from what I recall even Agent Mulder could have taught Kolchak some pointers on politeness.

I'll say this much for the episode--there's some great low-light cinematography. They were trying to do film noir for color TV on a budget. Couldn't have been easy to do, but many of the shots work.

I've never seen the regular series, but I still have the 2 TV movies on DVD and love them.

"Kolchak" is not to be confused with "Kojak," BTW--which was running on TV at the same time. Kolchak was an intrepid news reporter who kept running into paranormal menaces that nobody else would believe in. Kojak was a notoriously bald, lollipop-loving police detective played by Telly Savalas.

Smashing, this is one of my all time favorite shows!

This is a favorite of mine. I watch the series and the two movies with great regularity. (Well the good episodes anyway)

We only got 13 episodes so I've learned to enjoy them all.

Most people always think of Darren as the dad from A Christmas Story, but to me he'll always be Karl Kolchak.

Yeah, when I watch A Christmas Story, I'm thinking, ah, good for Kolchak: he's settled down and had a family.

Yup. I love Kolchak.

This is one of my all-time favourite TV shows.

Rereading this review this morning, this struck me as curious. You weren't actually expecting an episode of Kolchak to be exploring sex trafficking or prostitution, were you? Even giving us much backstory or character to the victims seems out of the purview of a pulpy comedic thriller from 40 years ago.

No, I wasn't really expecting it to be different. Just pointing out a way in which a series of that era was different from what one today might be.

The Zombie
A killer who perishes from his victims' gunshot wounds is buried--and then kills again.

The killer pulls this burial-and-coming-back again trick TWICE, as a matter of fact. He's an old-fashioned voodoo-style zombie, being used as a weapon in a gang war between black and Mafia mobs. He's pretty agile for an old-school zombie, and incredibly strong. Bullets can fell him, but not necessarily in time to save the shooter's life.

He's being revived, repeatedly, by an old Haitian sorcerer woman using her magic. She is played by Pauline Myers, who turns in quite an entertaining performance. Seems like a nice old lady. Who has no qualms, it turns out, about reanimating a zombie to murder others. And she says that the zombie is her deceased GRANDSON. That is one creepy grandmother!

Pauline Myers is only one example of a very watchable cast of vivid supporting characters. We've already seen John Fiedler as the friendly city coroner that Kolchak keeps interacting with. And there's Scatman Crothers, playing against type as an old Haitian gentleman. These supporting turns are starting to look like the best thing about the series.

Remarkably enough, I have distinct childhood memories of two scenes in this episode. One is the scene where the sorcerer lady performs a new zombie-reanimating ritual. The other is where Kolchak tells skeptical listeners just what they need to do to stop the zombie for good--pour salt in his mouth while he's inactive, sew his lips shut, and burn candles around him. Kolchak tries to do this later on, but it doesn't go quite like he planned....

It's remarkable that I can recall this because I was only six or seven when the series aired. I wasn't normally still up at the time when this show would have been on the air. Also, this sort of show wasn't normally my parents' cup of tea. I must have been allowed to stay up later than usual that evening, probably sitting on the floor playing and occasionally glancing at the TV when something caught my attention. Still not sure why Dad would have been watching. Maybe he mistook it for KOJAK?

Gotcha!

They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be
An invisible entity wreaks havoc around the city.

The title led me to expect a Lovecraftian tale about immortal eldritch beings that have been whispered about for centuries in legends. It turns out instead to be a story about an alien (Or maybe aliens?) stealing stuff to fix a stranded flying saucer. And also seeking nourishment, which unfortunately turns out to come from animal and human bone marrow. As Kolchak puts it at the end, we can all relate to a traveler pulling over to get the vehicle fixed and grab a bite to eat.

For once the police experience the mysterious phenomena in an all-out, undeniable fashion. They keep getting knocked around by the mysterious force. Kolchak's problem is convincing them that he has some sort of valuable insight into the situation to offer, not that it exists in the first place. Actually he ends up not helping out that much. He doesn't destroy the monster in this case. He only witnesses its departure. Naturally the authorities deny that anything happened.

We never see the monster (or monsters), even as a shadowy form. Mostly we just see the sudden, violent winds from nowhere that herald its presence. The cops keep getting hurled through the air. At first glance it looks like they're getting blown around, but I think we're meant to understand that they're being violently levitated. The repeated shots of grown men sailing through the air in slow motion, as they leap from platforms or trampolines just off-camera, are quite surreal. Kudos to the stuntmen who performed these leaps.

The most useful thing that Kolchak learns is that the monster, though predictably immune to bullets, can be checked at least momentarily by sudden, bright flashes of light. Even the dinky flash unit on the cheap pocket camera he carries in this episode is enough to save Kolchak's own bacon. Which is good, seeing as he is the series' protagonist, and it's still early in the season.

Another great guest appearance here, by Mary Wickes as a doctor Kolchak tries to get information from. TV viewers of a certain age will recall her as one of those character actors that you used to see everywhere. She was always fun to watch.

I agree with your observation about the supporting cast - the various clerks, medical examiners and witnesses Kolchak speaks with are always brilliant. It is, as you say, one of the best features of the show.

The Vampire
A series of murders turns out to be the work of the Undead.

The vampires of folklore were typically loathsome monsters, like zombies and werewolves. The modern idea of the romantic vampire, creepy yet somehow attractive, was a creation of the nineteenth century. Literary critics have often said that the vampires of this era were manifestations of Victorian hangups and fears about sex. Although the critics tend, as usual, to overstate their interpretations, it's clear enough that Dracula and his kin were often linked to ideas of dangerous and unhealthy sexuality. It's worth noting that in the twenty-first century, as society rushes to embrace things it once disapproved of, vampires have mostly come to be viewed as romantic heroes. Vampire romances are a big part of the urban fantasy genre. You can see them a lot on contemporary manga bookshelves as well.

Anyway, this episode contains an example of a recurring trope in vampire stories--the vampire hooker, a very literal lady of the evening who preys on her clients. I've seen claims that these sorts of vampires represent fears of female sexuality and empowerment, or that they're a metaphor for the way prostitutes risk becoming vectors for venereal disease. Or maybe it's just that this gives the producers a good excuse to once again titillate viewers with a glimpse of the sex industry, and provide a bit of fanservice.

This episode's Undead call girl is a very old-school Hollywood vampire. She has a great vulnerability to crosses and sunlight. She sports some very scary fangs, and snarls in an inhuman manner. A couple of the shock cuts of her fanged, snarling face are indeed pretty shocking. You have to wonder how this character could pass herself off as a human being well enough to get taken on by an "escort service." Perhaps the fangs only come out when she's ready to feed.

Kolchak deals with her in an equally old-school manner by putting a stake through her heart. Then he's arrested for murder. Then the police let him go when they notice that the "victim" has reverted to a set of remains that the coroner determines are a good three years old. You'd think that mutilating a mummified body would still carry a risk of prosecution and jail time. Probably the police realize that Kolchak has just done in a vampire, and decide that it would be simplest just to send him home and try to forget the whole thing ever happened.

As mentioned above, the vampire is vulnerable to crosses. All sorts of them, including a proper hand-held cross, an improvised cross, and a big outdoor landmark cross. It's not just a psychosomatic thing she has, either--at one point a cross burns her when it comes in contact. Kolchak sets fire to a huge outdoor cross to pin her in place while he plies his stake and hammer. The scene makes for quite a spectacular climax to the episode.

It's also very problematic, and not just because of the association of burning crosses with the Ku Klux Klan. The cross is much more than just a decoration for Christians. It carries a great deal of symbolism. It symbolizes Jesus' sacrifice by being crucified for our sins. It symbolizes the full-life commitment it takes to be a follower of Jesus. It symbolizes how the Christian message upends all of the world's expectations and priorities, as an implement of torture, coercion, and death becomes a symbol of life and hope.

All of which is to say that burning a cross just to make a spectacular scene on TV is not cool. Burn another religion's most holy symbols like that, and you'd be in danger of being arrested on hate crime charges. Depending on the religion, you might also get yourself killed (Or maybe some members of an overseas Christian minority might find themselves turned into a proxy target of vengeance for the sacrilege).

Kolchak's use of the cross raises some interesting questions about him. While the episode doesn't mention it, many vampire tales say that a cross will only work against a vampire if the wielder has some form of religious faith in it to back it up. I once read a story in which a vampire mocked a modern, secular American for trying to use a cross against him. The intended victim had no faith, so the cross had no effect. The victim then frantically tried to buy off the vampire by pressing cash into his hands, and the vampire disintegrated. Turns out modern, secular Americans DO have faith in something....

Kolchak has never once said anything to indicate that he has any sort of religious belief. He does, however, show signs of hidden depths. In this vampire episode he explicitly rejects the option of leaving town and letting the vampire be somebody's else's problem, because he can't let her keep killing people. He's prepared to risk his own life going up all alone against a terrifying vampire to save the lives of others he's never even met. Somewhere beneath that cynical exterior lies an uncommon measure of altruism.

I suspect that Kolchak spent some time growing up attending a Catholic school. He would have been taught to revere religious symbols, and taught that the people worth most worth admiring and emulating are the saints who dedicated their entire lives to serving others. His personality being what it is, young Kolchak no doubt chafed and rebelled against the school's teaching and discipline all the way. But perhaps his repeated encounters with the paranormal have got him wondering whether maybe those priests and nuns had something there. Perhaps in Kolchak's world that's faith enough to get going on.

Vampire is easily one of Kolchak's best episode if not the best! And I especially love how it's a sequel to the movie.

I don't think there's a single episode of this show that I dislike. It is, for me, one of the classic shows of my childhood. I'd always sit up late and watch it with my Dad.

It's been awhile. I should rewatch these.