The Night Stalker (1972)

          Seeing as how this playful horror show is not only a modestly budgeted telefilm but also the first of two pilot movies that preceded a short-lived series, The Night Stalker has cast a long shadow. A cult favorite for its mixture of humor and shock value, The Night Stalker and the weekly show it spawned—Kolchak: The Night Stalker—have been repeatedly cited by producer Chris Carter as the principal inspiration for his enduring X-Files franchise. Indeed, prior to The Night Stalker, it was rare for episodic television to feature ghouls and and monsters, except in the safe zones of anthology shows (e.g., The Twilight Zone) and comedies (e.g., The Munsters). Tellingly, one of the key players behind The Night Stalker, producer Dan Curtis, tested the public’s tolerance for small-screen scares by creating the vampire-themed daytime soap Dark Shadows, which ran from 1966 to 1971.

          The Night Stalker teamed Curtis with gifted fantasist Richard Matheson, who adapted the script from a book by Jeffrey Grant Rice. Like Curtis, Matheson was highly skilled at making spooky stuff palatable to TV viewers—witness his success with episodes of The Twilight Zone and the Steven Spielberg-directed telefilm Duel (1971). But enough about pedigree. While The Night Stalker is particularly interesting for its place in TV history, the movie is fun on its own merits, although its power to thrill has dulled with the passage of time and the accompanying coarsening of filmed entertainment.

          Darren McGavin, perfectly cast, plays Carl Kolchak, a low-rent reporter with a vivid imagination. Exploring the circumstances of bizarre murders in Las Vegas, Carl latches onto the wild idea that the killer is a real-life vampire—not a crazy person who acts like a mythical bloodsucker, but an actual supernatural creature. Naturally, this notion vexes Carl’s long-suffering editor, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), as well as local authorities including the hot-tempered Sheriff Warren A. Butcher (Claude Akins). Undaunted, Kolchak gathers enough evidence to persuade everyone that the preternaturally resilient murderer Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater) must be staked in the heart. Easier said than done.

          Unfolding with the familiar rhythms of a police procedural—clues, setbacks, witnesses, etc.—The Night Stalker builds a decent head of steam, with reliable TV director John Llewellyn Moxey delivering a lively version of the Dan Curtis house style. Think dramatic lighting, slow-burn suspense sequences, and zesty fight scenes. McGavin’s performance, as well as the motor-mouthed dialogue that Matheson provides for the actor, elevates the material considerably. Kolchak’s exasperation at the reluctance of authorities to believe the obvious is palpable, and his tap-dancing way of trying to play events for his advantage is consistently amusing. If there’s a weak link in the formula behind this piece, it’s Curtis’ usual predilection toward showing things full-frame instead of opting for mystery—the producer subscribes to the blunt-force-trauma school of storytelling.

          Nonetheless, the combination of the offbeat material and McGavin’s winning performance was worth sustaining, hence a second telefilm, The Night Strangler (1973), which Curtis directed from a Matheson script, and the 20 weekly episodes of Kolchak, airing between September 1974 and March 1975. A poorly received revival series, titled The Night Stalker and featuring Stuart Townsend in the lead, flamed out over the course of 10 episodes in the 2005–2006 TV season.

The Night Stalker: GROOVY

Burnt Offerings (1976)

          Note: When I posted my original review of Burnt Offerings two years ago, a handful of readers complained that I hadn’t given the movie a fair appraisal, so I made a mental note to revisit the film after some time had passed. Now, I’m happy to report that I enjoyed Burnt Offerings a lot more on second viewing—hence the following.

          Despite scoring on the small screen as the creator of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows (1966-1971) and as the director of a number of creepy TV movies, filmmaker Dan Curtis wasn’t able to achieve big-screen success. In fact, he directed only one significant theatrical feature, the haunted-house thriller Burnt Offerings, which is long on atmosphere and short on gore. The movie’s biggest “special effects” are the quietly creepy score by Bud Cobert and the twitchy leading performances by Karen Black and Oliver Reed. One could easily pick apart the logic of the storyline, which Curtis and co-screenwriter William F. Nolan adapted from a novel by Robert Morasco, but horror shares with the comedy genre a simple litmus test—whatever works, works. And since Burnt Offerings builds nicely from a disquieting opening sequence to a nasty finale, the movie basically works, in the sense of giving viewers a solid case of the heebie-jeebies.

          When the story begins, psychologically scarred academic Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed) and his kindhearted wife, Marian (Karen Black), move into a California vacation home accompanied by their young son (Lee Montgomery) and their dotty old aunt (Bette Davis). The house’s owners, eccentric siblings Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) and Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart), instruct the Rolfs to deliver meals on a daily basis to the Allardyces’ elderly mother, who lives in an upstairs room but never sets foot anywhere else. Foolishly accepting an offer that’s too good to be true (the rental price of the house is outrageously low), the Rolfs soon get caught in the building’s otherworldly spell. While Marian becomes obsessed with looking after the house and the never-seen Mother Allardyce, Ben starts to experience inexplicable homicidal compulsions, as well as eerie flashbacks to his mother’s funeral.

          Although Curtis and his cohorts eventually provide a tidy explanation for the supernatural nature of the house’s power over its occupants, many aspects of the story are left intentionally mysterious, and that might be the film’s strongest element. For instance, recurring images of an enigmatic chauffeur (Anthony James) linger not only because the cadaverous and perpetually grinning chauffeur is so creepy-looking, but because the chauffeur represents an entire secret realm of unknowable malevolence.
          The biggest challenge when watching Burnt Offerings is accepting how quickly the house gets its hooks into the Rolfs—the usual “why don’t they just leave?” syndrome. (See: The Amityville Horror, etc.) That’s where Curtis’ long record of setting a spooky mood comes into play, because for those willing to join Curtis’ leisurely trek into the shadows, Burnt Offerings has a seductive quality. Black is aptly cast, thanks to the way her close-set eyes make her seem a little bit off right from the beginning, and Reed essays his underwritten role with gravitas and menace. Davis expresses suffering well, and the tag team of Eckhart and Meredith provide a wealth of weirdness in their single scene. Ultimately, Burnt Offerings may be too predictable and slow-moving to qualify as one of the decade’s best fright flicks, but it’s a fun exercise in style—and it comes close to doing for outdoor swimming pools what Jaws did for the Atlantic Ocean.

Burnt Offerings: GROOVY

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974)

          Producer-director Dan Curtis, the king of small-screen ’70s horror, struck again with this restrained adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel. (Jack Palace stars as the world’s most famous bloodsucker.) The question, of course, is whether “restrained” was the right approach for a story about sex and vampirism. Therefore, while Curtis is to be commended on some level for exercising good taste, this picture is ultimately as bloodless—metaphorically speaking—as any of the victims Dracula leaves in his wake. Penned by the great Richard Matheson, who was apparently instructed to exclude his wonderful sense of humor from the screenplay, Bram Stoker’s Dracula sticks closely to certain elements of the source material. The picture begins in central Europe, where English lawyer Jonathan Harker (Murray Brown) arrives to present various UK properties to a rich client, Count Dracula (Palance). The count and his three bestial brides prey upon Jonathan. Then Dracula takes a ship to England, where he menaces Jonathan’s fiancée, Mina (Penelope Horner), and her best friend, Lucy (Fiona Lewis), until the intervention of wily Dr. Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport).
          According to the fine folks at Wikipedia, this adaptation was the first to include two clever nuances: Dracula being the same person as real-life warrior Vlad Teppes (better known as “Vlad the Impaler”), and Dracula stalking a woman whom he believed to be the reincarnation of a lost love. (These nuances were later repurposed for Francis Ford Coppola’s frisky big-screen 1992 smash, also titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula.)  Notwithstanding its admirable literary properties, Curtis’ movie is turgid because of flat direction and even flatter performances. Palance is okay, clearly relishing a chance to play something other than a generic goon, and he strikes some facial expressions imbued with real pathos. Yet Brown, Davenport, Lewis, and Simon Ward (playing Lucy’s betrothed) seem stiff as they churn through leisurely dialogue scenes in between the film’s too-few fright sequences. Clearly, Curtis wanted to transpose the Gothic-romance formula of his enduring Dark Shadows franchise onto Stoker’s narrative, but it’s easier to appreciate what he tried to do than what he actually accomplished.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula: FUNKY
 

Trilogy of Terror (1975)

          In honor of the recent passing of ’70s stalwart Karen Black . . . Fondly remembered by many fans as the TV movie in which Karen Black plays a woman who is menaced in her apartment by a tiny doll that attacks her with a miniature spear, Trilogy of Terror is a fairly pedestrian anthology of stories that sprang from the pen of prolific fantasist Richard Matheson. The author of countless memorable stories—from I Am Legend (originally published as a novel in 1953) to “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the 1963 Twilight Zone episode in which William Shatner plays an airplane passenger who sees a gremlin on the plane’s wing—Matheson was a master at contriving frightening situations. And while none of the stories in Trilogy of Terror represent the author’s best work, since all three are predicated on hokey contrivances, each component of Trilogy of Terror is somewhat droll. The problem, however, is that producer/director Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) shoots each story in such a stripped-down fashion that there’s not much in the way of atmosphere. The camerawork is bland, the lighting is flat, and the sets are sparse, so the only time Trilogy of Terror kicks into gear is at the end, when that nasty little doll goes on his rampage. Another dubious aspect of Trilogy of Terror is that it’s presented as a tour de force vehicle for leading lady Black, who stars in all three mini-movies. A unique screen personality with an eccentric brand of sex appeal, Black was usually best in small doses, and this project pushes her talent way past its limits. Still, she’s committed and energetic from start to finish. (Supporting actors include Robert Burton, George Gaynes, and Kathryn Reynolds, although this project’s all about Black’s multiple performances.)

          The first story, “Julie,” stars Black as a mousy college professor who is drugged and violated by one of her male students; her attacker, however, soon realizes he messed with the wrong woman. The second story, “Millicent and Therese,” is a clunker about two dueling sisters whose battle hides a not-very-surprising secret. The last story, “Amelia,” is the one about the doll. Black plays a woman who buys an African ritual doll that is rumored to contain the soul of a savage warrior. When she accidentally “activates” the doll, it chases her around the apartment, biting and stabbing her as she tries to fight back with closet doors, suitcases, and an oven. The last 15 minutes of Trilogy of Terror are so enjoyable that they (more or less) justify watching the entire brief movie, although none could be blamed for fast-forwarding straight to “Amelia.” The doll sequence has lost some of its ability to shock because the special effects are so primitive, but “Amelia” is still a nasty piece of business, and the final shot is truly haunting. FYI, the doll from “Amelia” returned in the made-for-cable sequel Trilogy of Terror II (1996), which was once again directed by Dan Curtis. With British starlet Lysette Anthony following in Black’s footsteps by playing separate roles in three different spooky stories, the sequel failed to gain much attention.

Trilogy of Terror: FUNKY

The Norliss Tapes (1973)

          Despite overseeing the TV movies The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973), producer Dan Curtis wasn’t involved with the short-lived series derived from those pictures, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Undaunted, Curtis produced and directed a feature-length pilot for a copycat project titled The Norliss Tapes. Although the proposed series never materialized, the Norliss Tapes feature survives today, via syndication and home video, as a stand-alone thriller featuring Curtis’ favorite monster, the vampire. (Lest we forget, Curtis created the cult-fave bloodsucker soap opera Dark Shadows, which ran from 1966 to 1971.) While The Norliss Tapes is unquestionably derivative, it’s a decent little shocker with a solid cast of reliable B-level actors.

          When the picture begins, publisher Sanford Evans (Don Porter) visits the home of an author who’s gone missing, then finds recordings related to the author’s in-progress book. As Evans listens to the tapes, we see flashbacks depicting weird events the author, David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), witnessed. In true Curtis fashion, things get spooky fast, with little left to the imagination. It turns out Norliss was contacted by a woman named Ellen Cort (Angie Dickinson), who claimed to have seen her dead husband rooting around their house as a vampire/zombie/whatever. (Curtis presents this vignette with full-on monster makeup, offering a nastier jolt than one might expect from a small-screen flick.)

          Meeting Ellen starts Norliss down the road of investigating nefarious types who are bringing the dead back to life for mysterious reasons. Along the way, Norliss encounters a sexy spiritualist (Vonetta McGee), a disbelieving sheriff (Claude Akins), and, eventually, a demon trying to enter the mortal world. Curtis crams a lot of enjoyably silly stuff into 74 minutes, so even though Thinnes is a forgettable leading man, it’s easy to see where this material could have gone with a more dynamic star. It doesn’t hurt that Dickinson looks fantastic, and that Curtis was adept at boosting production value with low camera angles and shadowy lighting. The Norliss Tapes won’t linger very long in your memory, but it’s fun to watch once.

The Norliss Tapes: FUNKY

House of Dark Shadows (1970) & Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

          Although the name of producer-director Dan Curtis looms large over small-screen ’70s horror—his projects from the era include the series The Night Stalker and the TV movie Trilogy of Terror—Curtis’ brand of melodramatic horror didn’t connect as strongly on the big screen, as evidenced by the fact that he only made one proper theatrical feature in his career, the 1976 Bette Davis shocker Burnt Offerings. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that the two big-screen spin-offs Curtis made from his cult-favorite supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows are unimpressive: The gimmicks that seemed bold and exciting in America’s living rooms weren’t enough to sustain interest in darkened theaters.

          Running from 1966 to 1971, Dark Shadows was an oddity in the milquetoast realm of daytime TV, mixing ghosts and werewolves and vampires into the usual soap tropes of domestic drama and doomed romance. Additionally, the show’s cheesy production values were part of its charm—so the fact that House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows are competently made actually works against their efficacy. Whereas the series had a quasi-intentional tongue-in-cheek quality thanks to actors flubbing lines and stagehands walking through shots, the features are presented without irony, so they feel dull and humorless.

          The narratives also move at a glacial pace, as long stretches of screen time are filled with characters wandering through forests or hallways while spooky music plays in the background. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that the both movies awkwardly rehash plot threads from the TV show. House of Dark Shadows is a sort of “origin story” adventure featuring the series’ beloved vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), and Night of Dark Shadows is a Gothic romance about Quentin Collins (David Selby), an artist haunted by the demons of his past lives; both main characters were regulars on the series. In the first picture, anguished bloodsucker Barnabas explores a possible cure for vampirism until a romantic triangle involving a reincarnated lover ruins his plans for a plasma-free future. In the second picture, Quentin moves into the haunted family estate in Collinsworth, Maine, where he’s seduced by the angry spirit of a witch he loved in a previous life, a turn of events that understandably creates tension in Quentin’s marriage to spunky Tracy Collins (Kate Jackson, pre-Charlie’s Angels).

          Both pictures deliver the familiar visual style of the series, which means lots of deep-focus camerawork juxtaposing background and foreground actors; super-low angles accentuating ornate castle walls; and waves upon waves of ominous music. The acting is enthusiastic but mediocre, with actors hamstrung by florid dialogue and turgid pacing. Another reason neither movie is particularly satisfying is that each has something the other lacks—House of Dark Shadows has a steady flow of action leading to an overwrought Grand Guignol finale, while Night of Dark Shadows boasts a more vivid love story. In fact, had these movies been the world’s first exposure to the Dark Shadows franchise, it’s unlikely anyone would remember Barnabas and his extended clan today.

House of Dark Shadows: FUNKY

Night of Dark Shadows: FUNKY