Well, here we are again at the end of another Halloween Season, nothing but candy in a bag and tired feet to show for it. Sure the ride was an amazing, sure the knowledge gained was great, but now comes the hard part...
Saying goodbye to the holy day of holy days, putting the Halloween Tree away until next year.
KOLCHAK
What makes Carl such a great protagonist is that he's your average Joe in a seersucker suit and straw boater hat whose only mission is to be a truth-teller, to find the facts and report them to his audience, the reader.What makes him even greater is that he not only uncovers great supernatural evil on a regular basis on his own, but he usually either dispatches or destroys it.
Sure, he does all of this while being scared out of his gourd, but he overcomes it, in part due to his sense of fact-finding—but there clearly is a sense of civic responsibility, too. Course, he’s also a silver-tongued, wittily sly guy who can usually talk himself into more trouble than he needs and out of more trouble than you would expect.
Born in an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice entitled The Kolchak Papers, the story was adapted by Richard Matheson into the 1972 film The Night Stalker and starred the great Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, hunting down a vampire killer.This TV movie was the most highly rated of all time and led to a sequel (The Night Strangler).
The series began on Friday, September 13, 1974 and ran for 20 episodes. Some of these are great and some are less than good. Don't worry, Carl knows what to do with stories that just don't fit and ideas that stretch the imagination beyond the breaking point...
Out of the goodie bag tonight, kiddies, comes a grab-bag of television vampires! That’s right, they’re double-bagged! You want to be extra-safe when it comes to those fangy bastards!
I’m sure this is one where I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg, but here are the top television vampires or episodes featuring said creatures of the night that stick out in this viewer’s memory.
Originally scheduled to show for the first time in October of 1973 and directed by Dan Curtis and even scripted by Richard Matheson, this adaptation of the Dracula tale was delayed when then President Nixon (himself a suspected vampire) gave a prime-time speech about the resignation of Spiro Agnew. It then aired in February of 1974.
Caught this film about 6 or so years back and I have to say Palance's portrayal of the Count was scary--hell, the man was usually scary by himself anyway! This adaptation includes a bit of reincarnation theme that may have influenced Coppola's film. BTW, Coppola's company purchased the rights to this version of DRACULA around the time of the production of his own adaptation.
One note--Jack Palance's Dracula always looks as though someone is stabbing him in the ass with a gigantic wooden stake!
My main man Carl Kolchak came face to face with vampiric evil in his very first television appearance, THE NIGHT STALKER! Again, Richard Matheson comes into play as he wrote the script for this and the second Kolchak TV movie, THE NIGHT STRANGLER.
He would later go after a more sexy vamp in an episode of his short-lived regular series.
Though not a classic vampire, in the episode "The Man Trap"a salt-sucking vampire creature mesmerized the whole gang until it could get close enough...
to suck the salt out of folks--so much so that they'd die!
She was a real looker...
Written by Vince Gilligan, lately of BREAKING BAD fame, the "Bad Blood" episode of THE X-FILES was a very entertaining and unusual one! Told from first the point of view of Agent Scully and then from Mulder's perspective, it's really a tale of perception. Fans of BREAKING BAD might take note that an RV park plays a big role in the story.
And, then there's the original SALEM'S LOT--'Nuff Said!
I saw this for the first time as a boy and I must say that the little kid in his PJs scratching at the window was the first thing that creeped the crap out of me. Peter Pan, this kid ain't!
Toward the end of the mini-series, the beautiful Bonnie Bedelia was nearly enough to seduce our hero...
This undead hag was cause for the boys to get inventive in their methods!
The scaredy cat, ‘fraidy cat or, as I like to call them, human characters in scary films, television and even literature are there to both add comic relief to very stark, dark situations and to provide a character we can all relate to more easily than the hero or the damsel in distress. The folks who would show the most realistic respons to the sheer terror a real encounter with the supernatural or murderous would bring out in a person.
They are there to lighten the emotional load for a viewer who is fit to burst with tension from all of the suspense and horror of a piece. There are many who are good at playing this role, but only some were great at it. Great actors, comedians and characters fully realized for our amusment and their relatability.
Mantan Moreland came out of the vaudville scene with some friends and added much needed wit and humor to some very dry and dark scripts for several horror films of his day. He overcomes the typical, exploitive writing of the time and presents a true humanity to his characters and a smartness to them that you won’t find in the white heroes of those pieces. He was brilliant whereas the scripts he was working with were childlike. Fine work from a fine comedian can be found in “Lucky Ghost” and “King of the Zombies” among many others. An informative blog entry about the man known as Mantan: HorrorDigest
And now, for your enjoyment is the entire film "King of the Zombies"
Scooby and Shaggy are the gold standard of television cartoon comic relief. Shaggy even had a word for just how he felt about some of the situations he and Scoob found themselves in and it was “Zoinks!”. It would take a heck of a lot to get Scooby in the mood to play bait for one of Fred and the gang’s monster traps--whatever’s in those “Scooby Snacks” must have been impressive indeed.
Don Knotts is pure comic genius. Heck, his face could carry him even if he didn’t have perfect comic timing. He is great a playing that frazzled, on edge, nervous nelly that we all know. He can pull off any of these kinds of characters. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it a habit to inhabit the kind of light horror film that would have given him much more to say on the subject beyond the brilliant “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”.
Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), seemed to be afraid of some new creature every week on LOST IN SPACE--going so far as to throw young Will Robinson under the bus to protect his own chicken ass all the time. It’s camp, but some of the threats there were a bit more serious and his reaction to them all always seemed genuine. Dr. Smith was a weak and cowardly type with few redeeming qualities, but he was a great character to love to hate.
Carl Kolchak is an investigative reporter of the strange and unexplained in Chicago who attacks the terrifying with a deep sense fear and a sense of humor to make light of the darkest situation. Still, he does march into the very dens of evil he reports on, but he definitely shows his own fear at times. His sense of humor in the face of such madness is probably what allowed him to continue his search for the truth. That’s probably his version of a Scooby snack, btw, the ugly, unbelievable truth.
Some are more comedic than others, some are more geuninely afraid, but all served their roles in adding much needed texture to the frightful fiction we all enjoy--especially this time of year.
At Heroes Con in Charlotte this year, my pal Jeff picked up a sketchbook to get some of the many good folks in "Artist Alley" to doodle speedy drawings in to remember them by (or was it sell on eBay for profit?). So it was suggested to him by a fellow friend (Tilley?) or maybe he thought it up himself? I draw a blank. Anyway, I came to draw this in his notebook in my spare time this week:
It was great fun to work on and a great idea for a crossover. Similar to my wet dream of having a Hellboy and Captain America team-up.
