Rating: 
Summary: The Night Stalker/Strangler
Review: When i sat down to see these movies for the first time i thought it would be 2 stupid 70's movies with a guy running around in a dorky hat. He had the dorkey hat but othe than that these movies are wonderfully well made and the writting was so good and scary they didn't need any speciall effects.
Rating:
Summary: Carl the Vampire Slayer?
Review: When I was 9, I used to stay up and watch Kolchak: The Night Stalker. To me, it was some seriously scary stuff. I didn't know at the time that the series was based on 2 made-for-TV movies from a couple of years earlier. Many years later I was in the Air Force in 1987 and stumbled onto the original Night Stalker on VHS. I immediately rented it. The memories came flooding back. The Night Stalker, when originally aired, became the most viewed TV movie ever (at the time). It would be many more years before I got to see the second movie, The Night Strangler as part of this DVD double feature.The Night Stalker is the story of Carl Kolchak (played by Darren McGavin), a formerly respectable reporter who fell on hard times and has ended up at a Las Vegas newspaper, searching for the one big story that will propel him back to the New york daily papers and the Big Time. That big story comes in the form of a killer with amazing strength who is, for some reason, draining his victims of blood. There is much nervous joking about the killer thinking he is a vampire. However as Kolchak follows the killer's trail, he comes to the impossible realization that the killer may indeed be a genuine vampire, and since no one else will believe or at least admit the possibility, it is up to him to kill it. The character of Kolchak works because he is a lot like the rest of us. When the killer discovers him in hiding, Carl screams like a little girl and runs like mad! It makes us examine how we would truly react if faced face-to-fang with a REAL mythical undead creature. Carl is cowardly in many ways but he is noble on some level too. He risks his life to stop the creature, but then again, maybe he is just doing it to land that perfect story. The Night Strangler takes place in Seattle (Kolchak moves there after the events of the first film) and he bumps into his old editor from the original movie, Anthony Vincenzo (played by the great Simon Oakland)and begs his way into another job. Soon he is investigating a series of murders where the killer apparently re-appears every few decades. This story is very similar to the character of Toomes in the first season of the X-Files, and since Chris Carter's inspiration for X-Files was the Kolchak series, it is possible that this resemblance is not coincidental. As many other reviewers have mentioned, it is a SHAME that the Kolchak TV series has not been released on DVD yet. I am sure it will happen eventually, but the sooner the better. These movies are 30 years old now, but they still hold up today. Just try to ignore the polyester suits, plaid sports jackets, and go-go boots! Note: in August 2004 a new release of these 2 films is being issued. It supposedly will have some featurettes and interviews. I am reviewing the 1998 release which has no extra features. Hold out for the new release if you have not bought this yet.
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