This last
week, news spread of Richard Matheson's passing at 87. Over the
course of his 60+ years career, the author has left an indelible mark
on all things fantastic through his countless short stories, novels
and screenplays, not to mention the ever flowing stream of third
party adaptations that have brought his visions to the screen. As a
personal tribute to the man, I'll be writing about some of my
favorite screen works of his, starting with a terrific made-for-tv
double feature. When supernatural shit takes to the streets, who ya
gonna call?
Why, Carl Kolchak, of course.
The
Seventies/Early 80s were a particularly florid time for horror on
television, with classic films like The Dark Night of the Scarecrow,
Salem's Lot and the Spielberg/Matheson joint Duel being but a few of the most notable offerings of
the era. Nobody, though, owned this wave more than the team of Dan
Curtis and Richard Matheson. At the time of their meeting, both were
established TV powerhouses: Curtis as the mastermind behind the
massive crossover hit Dark Shadows, Matheson as the writer on some of
The Twilight Zone's finest half hours. Their first collaboration came
about when the producer laid hands on an unpublished novel, written
by a certain Jeff Rice, chronicling the tale of a Las Vegas reporter
uncovering a series of murders perpetrated by what turns out to be a
vampire.Nowadays, this kind of stuff sounds like a perfect fit for television, but way back in 1972, The Night Stalker was borderline revolutionary: throwing a supernatural element in the middle of the most classic “sleuthing journalist” scenario was something unseen at the time, a stroke of genius that couldn't pass unnoticed to a consummate peddler of high concepts like Curtis, who acquired the necessary rights and handed the adapting gig to Richard Matheson.
The result
of their collaboration aired in January 11, 1972, and went on to
destroy rating records, prompting Curtis to fast-track a sequel, The
Night Strangler, and a television series. Both the films and the show
are hugely entertaining affairs that, like Matheson himself, cast a
long shadow over most serialized genre TV to come: to put it plainly,
you don't get your X Files or your Supernatural fix without Carl
Kolchak doing it first. Still, the original films remain criminally
underseen, with most horror aficionados apparently too busy
discussing the same handful of 70s films to go digging in that
decade's overflowing chest of spooky TV goodness.
Truth be
told, The Night Stalker and its sequel share so many plot elements
that they could very well be considered the same film. The
similarities start at the very beginning: both films open in sleazy
hotel rooms, where disgraced journalist Carl Kolchak (tv stalwart
Darren McGavin) lays down on paper, and in voiceover, his memories of
some crazy case that happened way back when in this or that town,
such weird stuff that the authorities ended up sweeping the whole
deal under the rug. This is to be the only testimony of those
occurrences, he states: we're one “at cost of my sanity” away
from the classic Lovecraftian incipit. The intros betray the
made-for-TV nature of the films, reminding so clearly of the classic
recurring pre-title bits from so many shows. What follows, though,
sets The Night Stalker apart from routine television fare: a handheld
camera blitzes through the grime 'n' glitter of the Las Vegas
nighttime, following a woman who, in no time, ends up with her throat
crushed and every drop of blood drained from her body. Tame as it is,
it's an unusually graphic sight for 70s television standards: Stalker
actually gets away with a lot of creepy imagery, pushing ever so
slightly the boundaries of the medium.
The same
scene is repeated in Strangler, with very minor differences: this
time we're in Seattle, and only a tiny bit of blood's been taken from
the victims. First it was a vampire, now it's a zombie alchemist.
Same difference? Oh well, “It's not what a movie is about, it's how
it is about it.”, as Roger Ebert famously said: in both cases, the
stories themselves are compelling enough to forgive such glaring
repetitions.
From
the moment the case is assigned to our maverick reporter, the films
start hopping from one place to another, following Kolchak as he
pieces together the horrible truth about the rising body count du
jour. While the structure adheres to the classic rules of urban
investigative shows (think the Naked City series, or a Law & Order episode without stupid "thunk" location interstitials), Matheson's scripts
provide wonderful bits of lean, propulsive storytelling: every scene
feeds straight into the next, accumulating information through
character-driven banter. Kolchak's quick wit constantly puts him
ahead of the comically hostile authorities, and his sharp tongue
often leads to the subjects releasing secrets out of pure
exasperation. This sort of dynamic might appear overly simple – the
lead is the smartest guy in the room, everybody else is a blind
baboon – but there's quite a bit of interesting stuff going on
under the surface. For starters, Carl Kolchak is, to put it midly, a
world-class asshole. Much more than a Mulder in a world of Scullys,
our intrepid reporter is quick to accept massive leaps in logic, and
instantly goes into hysterics as soon as everybody else proves
hesitant to buy into his wild theories. Of course, by the end,
Kolchak is always proven right, but Matheson enjoys making him look
like an insufferable dick along the way. This is even truer of the
sequel: the similarities between the Stalker and Strangler cases
aren't lost on the author, who uses Kolchak's own sense of deja vu to
turn him from the sleazily lovable crank of the first film, to the
BUG EYED MADMAN of the second entry, with mildly irritating results.
Yes, the same shit happening twice is liable to make any man angry,
but I preferred McGavin's earlier, cool, “told ya so” attitude to
his later clothes-ripping histrionics. Still, can't blame the guys
for having a bit of fun with a likely mandate to stick to the winning
formula, and the fact remains that there's huge amounts of fun to be
extracted from Kolchak's dealings with rows of asshole cops and
newspapermen, including such notables as Ralph Meeker, John Carradine
and Simon Oakland. At some point during The Night Strangler, somebody
mutters “I'm getting too old for this shit”, marking what I
believe to be the first time the motto has been spoken on film.
In the
middle of all this fun talking, there's plenty space for some good
monster action, especially when it comes to The Night Stalker's Janos
Skorzeny, the mute, imposing vampire. Often lit in doubly awesome
Lugosi-light (see above), the centennial bloodsucker gets to dish
some good beatings on various bunches of cops, all while getting a
respectable body count in his name. Both films end with Kolchak
sneaking into the monsters' lairs for some extended creepiness.
Whether it's Skorzeny's private blood bank, or the alchemist's
mummified teatime companions, those final set pieces offer their fair
share of Hammer-ish spooks. Pleasantly surprising are also the
downbeat endings, perfectly in line with the decade's frowning
attitude. Mind you, don't expect Chinatown or anything.
There's been
talks some time ago about a possible Edgar Wright-led, Johnny
Depp-starring return of the beloved character, who already enjoyed a
who-gives-a-fuck revival in 2005. While more Wright is always good
news, the mere idea of Depp in the role is migraine inducing - his
take on an already disturbingly manic character is something the
world doesn't need. At the same time, a character like Carl Kolchak
is wide open for endless narrative possibilities, and the post-X
Files world is in sore need of a decent supernatural investigator. In
the meanwhile, those old films provide a solid slab of well-written
horror fun: track'em down and enjoy, and if you happen to have an mp3
of that awesome, jazzy main theme, throw it my way!
THE NIGHT STALKER
Year: 1972
Genre: Horror
Country: United States
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Writers: Richard Matheson (teleplay), Jeffrey Rice (story)
Starring: Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Caro Lynley
THE NIGHT STRANGLER
Year: 1973
Genre: Horror
Country: United States
Director: Dan Curtis
Writers: Richard Matheson (story, teleplay), Jeffrey Rice (characters)
Starring: Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, Robert Carradine, Jo Ann Pflug
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