(1974)
Dir - Allen Baron
Overall: GOOD
The first installment "The Ripper" in Kolckak: The Night Stalker, (simply dubbed The Night Stalker for the opening four episodes), is an enjoyable romp, but it is also a carbon copy of the initial film from 1972. Instead of facing up against a vampire who murders women at night and is seemingly indestructible in the face of police fire power, the culprit here is seemingly Jack the Ripper himself. Carl Kolchak annoys both his editor Tony Vincenzo and the cops by taking photos at the scenes, drilling them with questions, and presenting evidence that what they are up against is an immortal fiend, getting his story squashed by the authorities in the end after confronting the bad guy in his own home in an eerie, suspenseful set piece. The lack of differentiating qualities between this and the two television films that proceeded it, (and proved successful enough to warrant the series being greenlit in the first place), is the only thing that makes it a subpar watch. For those who do not mind and crave a shot for shot remake of The Night Stalker though, this delivers exactly that.
(1974)
Dir - Alex Grasshoff
Overall:GOOD
Supporting players Carol Ann Susi and John Fielder are introduced in "The Zombie"; Kolchak: The Night Stalker's sophomore episode. Susi is the schlubby niece of one of the newspaper's bigwigs who has aspirations of becoming a reporter despite Kolchak's knack for dismissing and ditching her in the field, while Fielder plays the soft-spoken coroner who divvies out sensitive information on the recently deceased when you throw him some twenty dollar bills. The structure is still adhered to where our raffia hat-wearing title character irks authorities with his factually correct deductions about the supernatural tomfoolery that is afoot, tracking down a voodoo practitioner who has resurrected the body of her grandson in order to hunt down the undesirables that contributed to his murder. Mobsters also get involved, (which means that Joseph Sirola and Antonio Fargas get to show up), and even Scatman Crothers gets a scene while utilizing a Haitian accent. Not one of the most atmospheric installments on the program, but Darren McGavin's charisma still effortlessly wins through.
(1974)
Dir - Allen Baron
Overall: MEH
Soldiering on with the monster of the week framework that the show helped popularize, Kolchak: The Night Stalker's "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be..." actually does not feature any monsters in the traditional sense. Instead, it finds a roundabout way to use extraterrestrials, invisible ones at that who suck the bone marrow out of animals at the zoo, are drawn to electrical devices, are able to make walls explode soundlessly, are also able to make tons of lead ingots disappear, and are somehow distracted by intense lights when the plot needs them to be. The details are wacky and do not add up in any plausible sense, but the story has the usual strengths and weaknesses for the program. As the head police officer who refuses to believe anything that our title character says even when he witnesses it with his own eyes, James Gregory seems drunk in most of his scenes, slurring his dialog more than usual. Len Lesser and Dick Van Patten are also on board as supporting players, and Kolchak comes to his conclusions in as compact a manner as possible. Unfortunately the story is not as interesting as others, plus the ending is anticlimactic.
(1974)
Dir - Don Weis
Overall: GOOD
In the apply titled "The Vampire", Carl Kolchak goes up against the undead only two years after he did so in the initial The Night Stalker TV movie, the tweak being that the blood-sucker here is a woman instead of Barry Atwater's super-powered immortal. Our delightful tittle character is as oblivious as ever as to how insane he sounds when pleading his case to disinterested and furious law enforcement officials, (William Daniels guesting as the irked lieutenant for this round), going on and on about how strong vampires are and the means by which they need to be defeated. Though she has little if any dialog, Suzanne Charny still manages to chew the scenery as the vamp baddie, mugging with fangs in tow as she hurls herself at her victims, wrestling them to the ground, and making wild animal noises. The location is switched from Chicago to Los Angeles, (though the program was set in the former, it was almost entirely shot in the latter), but it is still the identical formula at play once again. It fails to compete with the aforementioned 1972 film that had only a slight variation of the same plot, but the side angle of Kolchak trying to hoodwink Vincenzo over the phone with an electric shaver and a real estate agent typing up his faux articles for him is a hoot.
(1974)
Dir - Allen Baron
Overall: GOOD
Airing a month after an episode where a vampire made goofy noises while lunging at people, "The Werewolf" has a werewolf making goofy noises while lunging at people. Set on a luxury cruise ship where swinging singles get to co-mingle with each other, our trusted narrator and title character is sent there instead of his boss Tony Vincenzo who was originally planning a vacation yet gets stuck in the Windy City during a blistering winter for auditing purposes. David Chase and Paul Playdon's plot still manages to throw in an authority figure for Kolchak to endlessly annoy, the ship's no nonsense captain in this case being portrayed by character actor Henry Jones. Though the show had yet to shake its cut-and-paste structure, and the title lycanthrope does not have the most convincing makeup job applied to him, the new scenery is appreciated, plus there are some intense set pieces scattered about. As usual, the supporting cast have their own charisma to go against Darren McGavin, save for Eric Braeden who turns in a fitting if downer performances as the ill-tempered man who goes full beast when the full moon rises. Why he chose to hop on a yacht full of people to attack while simultaneously trying to cure himself is never explained.
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