2024 marks the anniversary year of a beloved and yet short-lived horror tv-series, born from two television movies that gave future influence to The X-Files, and later spun a revival television series, I had planned encapsulating my favorite episodes into one article. However, as my passion for the episodes grew, I realized the article was becoming too large, and decided to choose each month to cover one or two episodes, just as I have done for Buck Rogers: Space Vampire or Quantum Leap: Blood Moon. Therefore, this article review is to inform of the concept of the show and then list all episodes of which some will be reviewed.

Unlike many television that start with a mere pilot, Kolchak took a different route, Dan Curtis connected with extraordinary horror author and famed screenwriter Richard Matheson to use an unpublished story by Jeffrey Grant Rice and developed a tv-movie entitled The Night Stalker. It was about a newspaper reporter named Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) who was to investigate a vampire in Las Vegas and received phenomenal ratings and strong critic reviews; when to an unprecedented television movie sequel the following year The Night Strangler. Thanks to success of both these films Universal greenlit a series for a two-year run, that had most of the cast personnel returning for these weekly episodes in Kolchak: The Night Stalker; although Curtis and Matheson declined the involvement which likely hurt the shows ultimate success in the long-run.

The episodes present in a paint-by-number formula and have a mixture of camp meets cheesiness, though a few episodes due standout in a show that merely lasted one season but stretch from 1974 to 1975. For those unaware, the formula of any episode would start with an individual succumbing to a set of strange circumstances and Kolchak would become involved with an always bizarre but correct theory though once the matter was resolved his story went unpublished because of the over-the-top zany attitude. Incredibly, Kolchak kept his job even he was a laughing stock to other reporters and a frustrating headache to his editor as each new-story contained supernatural elements, obscure kernels of knowledge and wee bit of humor.

One nice aspect of the series was that one doesn’t need to watch the episodes in any order as the storylines and development of characters rarely roll-over into the next one. The production value was typical for a low budget television series of the early 70s, yes they are dated compared to today and used Los Angeles to double as Chicago. Although many criticize the monsters, allow for the moment to note the smart usage of cinematography to cover up for the lameness of many of them. The camera-work used different angles and sound effects to cover the sheer looniness of the monsters in attack mode, there really wasn’t much in regard scares or frights, yet sold it in a fun niche marketed style.

One very positive aspect of the series came from the actors namely Darren McGavin (Dead Heat [1988]) as Kolchak and his boss at the Independent News Service (INS) Tony Vincenzo portrayed by Simon Oakland (Psycho [1960]). Darren gave this character a charm that filled out the ugly blue suit, with white tennis shoes, cheap hat, and the world’s worst consumer flash camera, complete with hurried and a plethora of sputtering nonsensical utterances and the ability to con his way through a multiple of situations. Tony was the tough but gullible editor who often became a butt of joke from Kolchak during a scheme or caught in a mess from others above his pay-grade. Rounding the small paper staff was Ron Updyke (Jack Grinnage) who was more irritating nuisance to Kolchak and he in turn needled him with name ‘Uptight’ and then there was Emily Cowles (Ruth McDevitt (The Birds [1963])) who curiously was in the first episode as a completely different and unrelated character. Assisting the actors were the writers, for without their words none of this horror would have happened, especially if one looks at what some of them did or went on to do with their careers, first the writer to did most of the episodes was David Chase, most known for the creation of The Sopranos; or the dynamic duo who created Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale did the teleplay for the 15th-episode entitled Chopper; and must not forget Jimmy Sangster (Dracula: Prince of Dracula [1966]), from legendary Hammer Studios penning one top-rated episode “Horror in the Heights” that amazingly still has a loyal base of fans.

Tom Skerritt and Darren-McGavin IN The Devils Platform

Hence if one sought tales of various monstrosities or cryptozoology coming to life and some case advanced technology running amok, Kolchak investigated the mysteries. Although it takes one person several years later, named Chris Carter, a loyal fan of this short-lived yet still influentially important series, to create The X-Files, thereby delivering a better developed and plausible storylines, who wanted to McGavin reprise his role on semi-regular basis, but the actor declined. Therefore, instead of signaling out a few brief snippets about some of my favorite episodes I am going to do what I have done in the past with Space Vampire episode on Buck Rogers or Quantum Leap, yep I shall review the episodes in the their entirety.

TAGLINES:

• One man’s quest to uncover the truth,
• Television’s Greatest Chiller Movie Becomes a Weekly Series!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071003/

IMDb Rating: 8.4/10

Baron’s Rating: 8.0/10

Episodes

S1.E1 ∙ The Ripper

S1.E2 ∙ The Zombie

S1.E3 ∙ They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be…

S1.E4 ∙ The Vampire

S1.E5 ∙ The Werewolf

S1.E6 ∙ Firefall

S1.E7 ∙ The Devil’s Platform

S1.E8 ∙ Bad Medicine

S1.E9 ∙ The Spanish Moss Murders

S1.E10 ∙ The Energy Eater

S1.E11 ∙ Horror in the Heights

S1.E12 ∙ Mr. R.I.N.G.

S1.E13 ∙ Primal Scream

S1.E14 ∙ The Trevi Collection

S1.E15 ∙ Chopper

S1.E16 ∙ Demon in Lace

S1.E17 ∙ Legacy of Terror

S1.E18 ∙ The Knightly Murders

S1.E19 ∙ The Youth Killer

S1.E20 ∙ The Sentry