https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCD-U70Sygi
Today’s film, The Night Stalker, is about a veteran reporter who has come to believe that a vampire is behind a series of horrible murders that affect Los Vegas. His stubborn research finds the resistance of his editor, as well as the authorities that do not believe that such a thing is possible.
Reviews:
Themidnightcafe writes:
It is a television film in the early 1970s. The budget was clearly very limited: there is almost no set design, lighting design, or design or child. Violence is mainly out of the screen. There are some between and renounced some police officers who trigger blank spaces to the murderer (they are not only bones with Squibs), but nothing visually interesting. The plot plays quite fast and loose with anything close to how things would go. I only thought that the police and politicians hate Kolchak, continue to invite them to their private meetings to discuss the case and then ask everyone to remain silent about it. As if a reporter, especially one as useful as Kolchack, will remain silent about a serial killer.
I enjoyed that it was filmed in Las Vegas and there are many exterior scenes. I love to obtain glimpses from a city of the past years. Every time they led to Casino Stardust, I was asked if Rosenthal Zurdo (portrayed by Robert Deniro in Casino) I was there.
Despite all this, I really enjoyed it. McGavin is very fun to see and everything develops with this silly child or joy.
A reviewer in Letterboxd writes:
This is unquestionably everything I want from a film, a pulposo detective story of the 70s set in the belly of a great city in a large city, touching the complete mysterious angle while speculating on an underlying supernatural cause. It is fantastic, exactly what should be a good story, I want 20 or less of these and fortunately exist. Even beyond the basic premise and writing, it is difficult not to admire how good this film is seen, midnight Pov driving voltages through Las Vegas, the aggressive jazz duration fights by the pool, the silence that crawls through the old house, something obsessed instantly. I really want to use this story as a basis for something I am writing, I want to study as a mystery based on a world firmly out of the field. This is Rosetta’s stone to understand some of the best media of the last fifty years, I can’t emphasize enough how much I love this movie.
Roy Webber, author of Ray Harryhause’s dinosaur films and occasional content collaborator to Svengoolie, writes:
A vampire movie made for very familiar television, by Dan Curtis or Dark Shadows’s fame. Great action and some genuine chills, thought that it cannot completely escape from a low budget dye that appears here and there. This film and its follow -up, The Night Strangler, helped launch a series of a Night Stalker season from 1974 to 1975 with Darrin McGavin again as a research reporter; It is still broadcast on the METV network on Saturday nights at midnight. Barry Atwater, the vampire, played the Surak Vulcan in the episode of season 3 of Star Trek cough “The Savage Curtain”.
This is a strange, pleasant but strange movie. He is a chimera child, our hand has the gray history of a struggle reporter in the trail of a great story and, on the other hand, you have, well, a vampire. It works, does not make fog, but the transition from vampire theory to vampire certainty by Kolchak (Darin McGavin) is rather salty and is taken to a pleasant apex when Hey Uncaling’s Waling. It is as if I had found one before, as if they were crazy for not consulting this possibility in the first place. That rarity adds an interesting flavor to the film and must have appealed to the public of the day, since it was very popular and generated a sequel, which will be presented here on a later date, as well as a television program.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Notable actors: Darin McGavin, Claude Akins, Barry Atwater
Spoilers!
Synopsis: A veteran reporter Kolchaak, trying to rebuild his career after shooting numerous previous positions, clinging to the case of a woman brutally murdered in the strip in Los Vegas. The authorities have no idea why their throat is torn like an animal and there is no blood on the scene or in its body. The journalist has the theory that they are dealing with a murderer who thinks he is a vampire.
The murders continue, violently and without the presence of blood. The journalist pushes his theory about his editor and the authorities that discard him as a crank. His work is threatened and the authorities warn that they are running out of patience with him and his notions of vampirism.
After stealing a blood bank, the authorities find a suspect that throws detection officers to the side like rag dolls. Several shots shoot, but the thief brushes them and escapes. Based on the prodigious strength and immunity of man with the shots, along with his girlfriend’s impulse, Kolchaak believes that, in fact, they are treating a true vampire.
When the authorities do not capture the murderer again, now identified as a Skorzeny Janos, they are forced to the unorthodox ideas of Colchak. Meanwhile, Kolchak is coming about Skorzeny’s whereabouts and sneaks into the creepy house in the direction he is giving. Evidence discovers bottles of blood in a fridge, as well as a woman tied to a bed with the drained blood bee. The sudden return of the murderer leads to a fight. A friend of Kolchak arrives and the two manage to involve Skorzeny until dawn arrives. Weakened, the vampire now confirmed is betting on the heart by Kolchak.
Proud of his victory and excited about the perspective of a great story, Kolchaak proposes to his girlfriend. But their editor and the authorities have other ideas. Instead of directing their history, they plant a less supernatural story in the newspaper and threaten Kolchak for being accused of murder if it does not come out of the city. Now alone, since his girlfriend has already persecuted the authorities, he moves to New York. The film ends with him lying on his bed and finishing his recorded records of the case, pointing out that there are no witnesses to verify his account.
