Go Retire Psychiatrist

Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

“It’s bad for business” is what the local district attorney says when news reporter Carl Kolchak says a vampire is killing people in Las Vegas and the city’s leaders need to break out the stakes and mallets right away.

So, as I was watching the film “The Night Stalker,” I was asking myself, why all the reluctance to get the bad guy?

But first, some credits: This 1972 made for TV movie was directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and major actors are Darrin McGavin (as news reporter Carl Kolchak); Simon Oakland (as Tony Vincenzo, managing editor of the local newspaper); Carol Lynley (Kolchak’s main squeeze); Barry Atwater (as the vampire Janos Skorzeny, who prefers soup, not steak); Claude Akins (as Sheriff Butcher); Kent Smith (as local District Attorney Tom Paine, ironically named after the Father of the American Revolution); Larry Linville (as Dr. Makurji, pathologist/coroner); Ralph Meeker (as Bernie Jenks, FBI agent who helps or at least is sympathetic to Kolchak).

Las Vegas, by the 1970s probably didn’t merit the title Sin City because of reforms meant to sweep out the mob influence and introduce very expensive megaresorts which probably cost vacationers just as much.

In that sense, I can see a kind of vampirism in the predatory substitution of sucking blood out of the thousands of tourists flocking like sheep to Vegas by fooling them into throwing their hard-earned cash away in the casinos.

Okay! Let’s break out the chilled Type O positive! That’s what brings me up a little short. Why does Janos steal all the bottles of blood from the local blood bank? I’m not going to totally give the game away, but I doubt that just having a snifter of liquid hemoglobin after dinner is what a vampire would be after.

Hey, sucking is what it’s all about: the thrill of victory, the agony of stained shirts and whatnot. Even the movie sucks, but so what?

Usually, in every vampire movie the bloodsucker gets wasted, often by a combination of shining the light on him, pinning him to the floorboards with a stake, holding up your fingers in the sign of a cross at him—and then everybody cheers and heads to the slot machines.

Usually. I did say “usually.” And as usual, there are no spoilers in this fake review. Other than focusing too much on Kolchak’s old suit and his bowlegged gait (he’s even more bowlegged than I am!), I think it’s a fair movie. I give it a Shrilling Chicken Rating of 3/5.