5 Things You Didn’t Know About 1972’s ‘The Night Stalker’
If your September could use a bit more bite, Svengoolie has you covered — he’ll be showing 1972’s The Night Stalker on the Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, installment of his MeTV series, Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie. Though it might be best known today as the inspiration for the 1974 cult series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, this film about a vampire picking off victims in Las Vegas and the reporter trying to stop him was the most popular made-for-TV movie of all time when it was released.
Settle in with some holy water and garlic, and check out some spine-tingling facts about The Night Stalker.
1You May Know Kolchak Better By Another Name
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Darren McGavin, who played intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak in this movie, as well as the made-for-TV sequel The Night Strangler, and the series, has so many credits under his belt, it could be its own article. Depending on your age and tastes, you may best remember McGavin for his turn in the 1955 Frank Sinatra flick The Man With the Golden Arm, his run as the title character in the 1958 show Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, or his role in 1984’s The Natural. But a good many of you probably saw his photo and instantly thought, “Fragile! It must be Italian!” Yes, McGavin played the leg-lamp-owning father in 1983’s A Christmas Story. Making it through a family Christmas isn’t quite as hard as chasing down blood-sucking monsters … but honestly, it’s close.
2The Actor Who Played The Vampire Also Had Some Serious Sci-Fi Credits
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Though Barry Atwater, who plays the vampire tearing through Sin City, never speaks in the film, he was actually an accomplished character actor, with some serious sci-fi and horror bonafides — he played a Vulcan on the original run of Star Trek, and also appeared on Night Gallery, The Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But his most impressive sci-fi role is as one of the paranoid neighborhood residents in the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Atwater played Les, a man who is first accused of being an alien, and then turns on this neighbors.
3Not Everyone Thought The Film Would Be A Hit
McGavin’s agent thought the script for The Night Stalker was terrible — and so did his wife, the character actress Kathie Browne. But according to McGavin, the script “was terrific, bloody terrific.” That’s not too surprising, considering it was penned by sci-fi legend Richard Matheson. McGavin made the film anyway. He was so passionate about the character of Kolchak that he immediately began pitching a series to producers: “The second night we were shooting The Night Stalker movie, I said to a network executive, ‘I’m free now, I have no plans for next year, and this would make a terrific series.’ The executive said I was out of my head.” (Once the show actually began shooting, however, McGavin had a more love-hate relationship with the show.)
4It Made A Cameo In Another Creepy Made-For-TV Movie
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Producer Dan Curtis was most famous for creating the spooky soap opera Dark Shadows. He also produced The Night Stalker, and directed the classic 1976 TV film Trilogy of Terror. Trilogy of Terror has more in common with The Night Stalker than just supernatural themes; in the first segment, “Julie,” Karen Black‘s character attends a drive-in movie where The Night Stalker is being shown on the big screen.
5A Quarter Century Later, McGavin Appeared On A Show He Inspired
In 1998, 26 years after The Night Stalker premiered, McGavin appeared on an episode of The X-Files. The show was inspired by Kolchak: The Night Stalker (and often repeated its “monster of the week” formula), and creator Chris Carter repeatedly asked McGavin to appear as a guest star on the show. He finally agreed in the Season 5 episode “Travelers” to play Arthur Dales, a former FBI agent who hunted down a mutated murderer and created the first “x-file.” Though McGavin had turned down Carter’s earlier invitations to reprise the role of Kolchak, with this character — a man who devoted his life to uncovering supernatural culprits that others tried to deny — he came quite close.
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Dracula
October 2020
Drac is Back! Delve into some of the best vampire fare in TV, movies, radio and books.
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