The episode of Made for TV Horror covering The Night Strangler was Written and Narrated by Jessica Dwyer, Edited by Victoria Verduzco, Produced by John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
51 years ago television viewers were introduced to a monster in modern times. But luckily, they were introduced to a hero who was willing to shine the light on that monster and stop him. That hero’s name was Carl Kolchak and the TV movie that gave birth to the legend of the intrepid reporter was The Night Stalker. As we’ve covered here previously on JoBlo Horror, The Night Stalker became one of the biggest TV movies of all time when it was released and with ratings and accolades like that, it wasn’t hard to see that Kolchak’s search for the truth (which we all know is out there) was far from over. And so it...
51 years ago television viewers were introduced to a monster in modern times. But luckily, they were introduced to a hero who was willing to shine the light on that monster and stop him. That hero’s name was Carl Kolchak and the TV movie that gave birth to the legend of the intrepid reporter was The Night Stalker. As we’ve covered here previously on JoBlo Horror, The Night Stalker became one of the biggest TV movies of all time when it was released and with ratings and accolades like that, it wasn’t hard to see that Kolchak’s search for the truth (which we all know is out there) was far from over. And so it...
- 12/20/2023
- by Jessica Dwyer
- JoBlo.com
It’s time for a new episode of the Revisited video series, and with this one we’re looking back at a TV movie that started a franchise, 1972’s The Night Stalker ((pick up a copy Here)! The Night Stalker was followed by a sequel called The Night Strangler, and then a twenty episode season of a TV series called Kolchak: The Night Stalker. A show that served as inspiration for The X-Files and received a short-lived remake series called Night Stalker in the early 2000s. To find out all about The Night Stalker, check out the video embedded above!
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey from a teleplay by Richard Matheson, which was based on a novel by Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker has the following synopsis:
After several high-profile newspapers fire him for his difficult attitude, investigative journalist Carl Kolchak finds a job following the police beat for a small Las Vegas publication.
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey from a teleplay by Richard Matheson, which was based on a novel by Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker has the following synopsis:
After several high-profile newspapers fire him for his difficult attitude, investigative journalist Carl Kolchak finds a job following the police beat for a small Las Vegas publication.
- 12/27/2022
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
Vince Gilligan’s sole script on the 2005 ‘Night Stalker’ reboot is the perfect stepping stone between the writer’s two television universes.
“There are countless stories in the city, about the lives lived here, about how the fates of others intertwine with our own in ways we can never expect or predict.”
The X-Files was one of the most significant cultural touchstones to come out of the 1990s and it forever changed the shape of genre storytelling on television. Breaking Bad and its prequel spin-off series, Better Call Saul, have very much done the same for television in the 2010s and ‘20s, albeit in very different ways. Vince Gilligan is the common factor between these completely unique worlds, but he also wrote a single episode of 2005’s reboot of the totemic supernatural procedural series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
If The X-Files is about the pursuit of the truth and Breaking Bad...
“There are countless stories in the city, about the lives lived here, about how the fates of others intertwine with our own in ways we can never expect or predict.”
The X-Files was one of the most significant cultural touchstones to come out of the 1990s and it forever changed the shape of genre storytelling on television. Breaking Bad and its prequel spin-off series, Better Call Saul, have very much done the same for television in the 2010s and ‘20s, albeit in very different ways. Vince Gilligan is the common factor between these completely unique worlds, but he also wrote a single episode of 2005’s reboot of the totemic supernatural procedural series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
If The X-Files is about the pursuit of the truth and Breaking Bad...
- 8/12/2022
- by Daniel Kurland
- bloody-disgusting.com
It's been 50 years since Kolchak: The Night Stalker first aired on ABC. Spawning an additional move and a TV series, Kolchak has millions of fans around the world and inspired countless artists, including The X-File's Chris Carter. Those that dreamed of new adventures of Carl Kolchak are in luck because a brand new graphic novel has just hit Kickstarter!
From Moonstone Books, the Kolchak: The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel is an all-new, 100+ page graphic novel that includes ten stories featuring Carl Kolchak. In our latest Q&a, editor James Aquilone talks about his love of the original movies and TV series, and assembling an all-star team of writers and illustrators to continue the adventures of Carl Kolchak!
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us! Can you tell us about your first introduction to Kolchak and why the character, movies, and series are so important to you?...
From Moonstone Books, the Kolchak: The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel is an all-new, 100+ page graphic novel that includes ten stories featuring Carl Kolchak. In our latest Q&a, editor James Aquilone talks about his love of the original movies and TV series, and assembling an all-star team of writers and illustrators to continue the adventures of Carl Kolchak!
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us! Can you tell us about your first introduction to Kolchak and why the character, movies, and series are so important to you?...
- 1/12/2022
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Kolchak: The Night Stalker – The Complete Series
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1974/ 1.33:1/ 1,020 Minutes
Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland
Directed by Gordon Hessler. Alexander Grasshoff
“I saw what I saw when I saw it.” That was the mantra of Wilbur Grey, an anonymous shipping clerk who made a habit of bumping into some pretty famous monsters. As with most cautionary tales, no one will believe Wilbur about his strange encounters until it’s too late. Carl Kolchak, a beat reporter for Chicago’s Independent News Service, is stuck in the same boat; it seems that toddlin’ town is not only the City of Big Shoulders but Big Monsters—and they have a habit of playing in Kolchak’s backyard.
The newsman made his debut in the early ’70s when producer Dan Curtis parlayed Jeff Rice’s The Kolchak Papers into two television movies, 1972’s The Night Stalker and 1973’s The Night Strangler.
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1974/ 1.33:1/ 1,020 Minutes
Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland
Directed by Gordon Hessler. Alexander Grasshoff
“I saw what I saw when I saw it.” That was the mantra of Wilbur Grey, an anonymous shipping clerk who made a habit of bumping into some pretty famous monsters. As with most cautionary tales, no one will believe Wilbur about his strange encounters until it’s too late. Carl Kolchak, a beat reporter for Chicago’s Independent News Service, is stuck in the same boat; it seems that toddlin’ town is not only the City of Big Shoulders but Big Monsters—and they have a habit of playing in Kolchak’s backyard.
The newsman made his debut in the early ’70s when producer Dan Curtis parlayed Jeff Rice’s The Kolchak Papers into two television movies, 1972’s The Night Stalker and 1973’s The Night Strangler.
- 10/26/2021
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Bob Cobert, the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated composer of television’s “Dark Shadows” and “The Winds of War,” died of pneumonia Feb. 19, in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 95.
Cobert’s themes for the 1960s Gothic horror soap “Dark Shadows” – “great spook music,” he once called it – were his most popular compositions, and “Quentin’s Theme” (for the character played by David Selby) became a top 10 hit in 1969 as recorded by the Charles Randolph Grean Sound, earning a Grammy nomination as Best Instrumental Theme.
The “Dark Shadows” score, the first daytime soap to generate a best-selling soundtrack album, cemented Cobert’s partnership with the series’ creator-producer Dan Curtis, who continued to employ Cobert on nearly all of his television and film projects for the next four decades.
They did four features and more than two dozen television films together. Their largest-scale project was “The Winds of War,” the 18-hour 1983 miniseries based on...
Cobert’s themes for the 1960s Gothic horror soap “Dark Shadows” – “great spook music,” he once called it – were his most popular compositions, and “Quentin’s Theme” (for the character played by David Selby) became a top 10 hit in 1969 as recorded by the Charles Randolph Grean Sound, earning a Grammy nomination as Best Instrumental Theme.
The “Dark Shadows” score, the first daytime soap to generate a best-selling soundtrack album, cemented Cobert’s partnership with the series’ creator-producer Dan Curtis, who continued to employ Cobert on nearly all of his television and film projects for the next four decades.
They did four features and more than two dozen television films together. Their largest-scale project was “The Winds of War,” the 18-hour 1983 miniseries based on...
- 2/24/2020
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
By Todd Garbarini
Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) returns in The Night Strangler (1973), a follow-up TV-movie to the previous year’s unexpectedly successful The Night Stalker. Kolchak has been booted out of Las Vegas and settles in Seattle and teams up with his old boss Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) just as a string of suspicious murders begin to plague the metropolis. It comes to his attention that the victims, young female exotic dancers, are turning up dead after having had their necks crushed, drained of a small amount of blood, and most disturbingly all had instances of rotting flesh on their necks. The murders occur over a period of 18 days.
Through a researcher, Carl learns that a nearly identical series of killings took place in 1952 (21 years earlier) for the same duration, and then 21 years prior to that, all the way back to at least 1889. The police want Kolchak to cease his...
Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) returns in The Night Strangler (1973), a follow-up TV-movie to the previous year’s unexpectedly successful The Night Stalker. Kolchak has been booted out of Las Vegas and settles in Seattle and teams up with his old boss Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) just as a string of suspicious murders begin to plague the metropolis. It comes to his attention that the victims, young female exotic dancers, are turning up dead after having had their necks crushed, drained of a small amount of blood, and most disturbingly all had instances of rotting flesh on their necks. The murders occur over a period of 18 days.
Through a researcher, Carl learns that a nearly identical series of killings took place in 1952 (21 years earlier) for the same duration, and then 21 years prior to that, all the way back to at least 1889. The police want Kolchak to cease his...
- 11/7/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
By Todd Garbarini
I was three years-old when John Llewellyn Moxey’s The Night Stalker premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on January 11, 1972 and it took me nearly twenty years to catch up with it on a late night rerun on a local ABC-tv affiliate. Featuring the terrific late character actor Darren McGavin in the role of Carl Kolchak, an intrepid reporter who wants to print the truth regardless of what his editor says after finding himself in the midst of several murders, The Night Stalker, penned by the great Richard Matheson based on an unpublished novel, is a delightful slice of early 1970s spooky entertainment fare that is most definitely a product of a time that was populated by groovy music on the radio, TV dinners, and little kids getting tossed around in the backs of mammoth station wagons. The Las Vegas of 1971 when this movie was...
I was three years-old when John Llewellyn Moxey’s The Night Stalker premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on January 11, 1972 and it took me nearly twenty years to catch up with it on a late night rerun on a local ABC-tv affiliate. Featuring the terrific late character actor Darren McGavin in the role of Carl Kolchak, an intrepid reporter who wants to print the truth regardless of what his editor says after finding himself in the midst of several murders, The Night Stalker, penned by the great Richard Matheson based on an unpublished novel, is a delightful slice of early 1970s spooky entertainment fare that is most definitely a product of a time that was populated by groovy music on the radio, TV dinners, and little kids getting tossed around in the backs of mammoth station wagons. The Las Vegas of 1971 when this movie was...
- 10/30/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1972/73 / 1.33:1 / 74/90 Min. / Street Date October 2, 2018
Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland
Cinematography by Michel Hugo, Robert B. Hauser
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis
In January of 1972 ABC broadcast the story of a middle-aged newsman hot on the trail of a vampire seemingly escaped from a 50’s horror comic. The man and the monster had one thing in common – by the 70’s they were both anachronisms, adrift in an era of hot pants and roller disco.
Carl Kolchak, the overbearing reporter played by crusty TV vet Darren McGavin, was not simply immune to current fashions – his steadfast belief in the supernatural ensured his outsider status throughout two films and 20 hour-long episodes broadcast between 1974 and 1975.
The first of those movies was The Night Stalker, a nocturnal thriller animated by the lurid neon of the Vegas strip where a string of showgirl...
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1972/73 / 1.33:1 / 74/90 Min. / Street Date October 2, 2018
Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland
Cinematography by Michel Hugo, Robert B. Hauser
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis
In January of 1972 ABC broadcast the story of a middle-aged newsman hot on the trail of a vampire seemingly escaped from a 50’s horror comic. The man and the monster had one thing in common – by the 70’s they were both anachronisms, adrift in an era of hot pants and roller disco.
Carl Kolchak, the overbearing reporter played by crusty TV vet Darren McGavin, was not simply immune to current fashions – his steadfast belief in the supernatural ensured his outsider status throughout two films and 20 hour-long episodes broadcast between 1974 and 1975.
The first of those movies was The Night Stalker, a nocturnal thriller animated by the lurid neon of the Vegas strip where a string of showgirl...
- 10/16/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Now that October is officially underway, that means we have a big week of Blu-ray and DVD releases to get excited for, and there are some great genre-related titles coming out on Tuesday. Universal Studios Home Entertainment is unleashing both Tales from the Hood 2 and The First Purge on multiple formats, and for fans of action cinema, Death Race: Beyond Anarchy races home this week, too. Kino Lorber is giving both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler the limited edition treatment, and for those who enjoy indie horror, Feral, Housewife,and Blood Fest are certainly all worth your time.
Other notable releases for October 2nd include Extremity, Molly, The Legend of Halloween Jack, The Evil Dead in 4K, Sleep No More, and West of Hell, with Rob Zombie’s Halloween getting a Steelbook release as well.
The First Purge
Blumhouse Productions welcomes you to the movement that began as...
Other notable releases for October 2nd include Extremity, Molly, The Legend of Halloween Jack, The Evil Dead in 4K, Sleep No More, and West of Hell, with Rob Zombie’s Halloween getting a Steelbook release as well.
The First Purge
Blumhouse Productions welcomes you to the movement that began as...
- 10/2/2018
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Before the influential Kolchak: The Night Stalker series aired on ABC in the mid-’70s, Darren McGavin brought the titular investigative reporter to life for the first time in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, which is getting a 4K restoration Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber this October, along with its 1973 sequel, The Night Strangler.
Announced on Facebook and Twitter, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler Blu-rays will be released on October 2nd in the Us. Each release will come with a new 4K restoration, a new audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas, and other new special features.
Below, we have the announcements from Kino Lorber, as well as a look at the new cover art by Sean Phillips. Let us know if you'll be adding these releases to your home media collection, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From the Tube column...
Announced on Facebook and Twitter, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler Blu-rays will be released on October 2nd in the Us. Each release will come with a new 4K restoration, a new audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas, and other new special features.
Below, we have the announcements from Kino Lorber, as well as a look at the new cover art by Sean Phillips. Let us know if you'll be adding these releases to your home media collection, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From the Tube column...
- 7/25/2018
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Look, anyone who knows me is aware of my severe lack of fondness for spiders, as well as my love for movies about them. (I am riddled with inconsistency.) 1977 was a vintage year for arachnids; in addition to one of my all time favorite movies, Kingdom of the Spiders, the small screen offered up the telefilm Curse of the Black Widow, a Dan Curtis effort that never fails to entertain. Just keep the buggers away from me, okay?
Originally broadcast September 16th as part of The ABC Friday Night Movie, Curse went up against Logan’s Run/Switch! on CBS, and the much tougher competition, NBC’s The Rockford Files/Quincy, M.E. For those not inclined to have Jack Klugman yell in their face for an hour, Curtis’ Curse offered a fun, goofy alternative.
Let’s crack open our cobwebbed faux TV Guide and have a look see:
Curse...
Originally broadcast September 16th as part of The ABC Friday Night Movie, Curse went up against Logan’s Run/Switch! on CBS, and the much tougher competition, NBC’s The Rockford Files/Quincy, M.E. For those not inclined to have Jack Klugman yell in their face for an hour, Curtis’ Curse offered a fun, goofy alternative.
Let’s crack open our cobwebbed faux TV Guide and have a look see:
Curse...
- 5/6/2018
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
There aren’t a ton of absolutes in life, but among a laundry list of things I enjoy whilst spinning around the sun, here’s three: Christopher George, private dicks, and mad scientists. And so imagine my delight when I stumbled across Escape (1971), a failed TV pilot about an ex escape artist turned P.I. who investigates, in his words, “the unexplainable.” And while the pilot doesn’t dip its toes too much into the pool of the unusual, it sure feels like that’s the way they were planning to go.
Not picked up by the network and instead broadcast on April 6th as an ABC Movie of the Week, Escape did little to swerve people away from their Hee Haw’s, All in the Family’s and 60 Minutes for the brass to reconsider putting it back on the slab. What a shame; Escape today plays as Bruce Wayne...
Not picked up by the network and instead broadcast on April 6th as an ABC Movie of the Week, Escape did little to swerve people away from their Hee Haw’s, All in the Family’s and 60 Minutes for the brass to reconsider putting it back on the slab. What a shame; Escape today plays as Bruce Wayne...
- 2/25/2018
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
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