The Night Stalker

Synopsis: Carl Kolchak is a newspaper reporter with an abrasive personality that has gotten him fired ten times from various big-city papers. Now he's reduced to reporting for a relatively small-time paper in Las Vegas. It's here he gets the story of his life. But will the local sheriff, or the D.A., or even his own boss, let him print it? He has an ally in the FBI agent brought in to investigate this strange case. It seems someone is biting the necks of young girls and draining their blood. Can this killer with supernormal powers really be a 70-year-old Rumanian millionaire? Can he really be a vampire? And can an aging reporter do anything to stop him?
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Production: MCA Universal Home Video
  1 win.
 
IMDB:
7.8
Rotten Tomatoes:
86%
NOT RATED
Year:
1972
74 min
1,777 Views


Chapter One:

This is the story behind one of

the greatest man-hunts in history

Maybe you read about it, or rather,

what they let you read about it...

...probably as some minor item,

buried somewhere in a back page.

However, what happened in that city,

between May 16th and May 28th of this year...

...was so incredible...

...that to this day, the facts have

been suppressed in a massive effort...

...to save certain political

careers from disaster...

...and law enforcement

officials from embarassment.

This will be the last time I will

ever discuss these events with anyone.

So when you have finished

this bizarre account...

...judge for yourself

it's believability.

And then try to tell yourself...

wherever you may be...

...it couldn't happen here.

Sunday, May 16th:

At approximately 2:30 am, Cheryl Hughes was standing at

the intersection of Casino, Center and Fremont streets...

...waiting for a girlfriend

to give her a lift home.

Cheryl Hughes was 23, 5 feet,

five and one half inches tall...

...118 pounds, blonde hair...

...light brown eyes...

...Swing-Shift change girl

at the Gold Dust Saloon.

Cheryl Hughes:
Tired... and hungry...

...but just mad enough to walk the 8 blocks to her

small frame house off the corner of 9th and Bridger.

Cheryl Hughes:
En route to her doom.

That's odd.

No evidence of dependent

lividity, either.

Peel back the chest flap, please...

This should do it.

That's incredible!

Begin the gross work on internal organs.

I'm going to phone the district attorney.

...and don't talk

about this... TO ANYONE.

I came into it two days later...

Called back 97 miles from the first

vacation I'd had in two and a half years...

...because the story is so big

that no one else can handle it.

Rumor has it that the day Anthony

Albert Vincenzo was born...

...his father left town.

The story may be

apochrophal... but I believe it.

The only point I wonder about...

Is why his mother didn't leave, too.

Good morning, slaves.

We are NOT amused.

Kolchak, you are on it.

- A two-day-old, third rate

murder? - YOU ARE ON IT!

- What about them?

- They have other assignments.

You're beautiful when you're angry.

OUT!

First stop:
County General to

see one of my most reliable spies.

...at least he used to be reliable.

Hello Carl.

Aww, I thought you were

disbarred for malpractice.

...and I thought we were

rid of you for two weeks.

Yeah. So did I...

Well, about this uh...

Cheryl Hughes thing...

Why does it say "Officially

Undetermined" under Cause of Death?

Why don't you ask the Coroner?

Aw thanks. C'mon. You're my spy here...

Haven't I kept quiet about all those illegal

operations you've been performing in closets?

C'mon, tell me true now, John. Was

there anything unusual about the autopsy?

No. All I know is she

lost a lot of blood.

Some spy.

I'm just a poor, hard-working doctor that

occasionally takes pity on an aging reporter.

- Doctor Obrien. Any messages for me?

- Felt like a Pulitzer Prize story to me...

Second stop:
The Gold Dust Saloon.

...and a chat with Gail Foster...

one of Cheryl Hughes' fellow workers,

...and a rather close friend of mine.

Poor Cheryl. I feel just

terrible about it, Carl.

Well if you don't want to talk

about it, you don't have to...

No. I want to help if I can.

You said that she never

had any boyfriends?

No. None that I'd ever heard of...

She dated... once in a while.

But never the same man twice.

- I don't think she liked men.

- Yeah?

Yeah. She even took karate lessons...

in case one got fresh with her.

You mean that she knew Karate?

Yeah. Brown belt.

Oh I see him. I've gotta go.

Bye bye.

In any town the size of Las Vegas, the murder

of one young woman hardly causes a ripple.

...but then the ripples started.

Thursday, May 20th, 7:02 am.

It's over there.

I didn't go down. I couldn't.

Okay, okay. Don

- take his statement.

What took you so long, Kolchak?

I got a flat tire.

Not a footprint in sight.

Is that physically possible?

If it happened, it's possible.

Well, it sure looks like it happened.

Now come on...

Bonnie Reynolds:
27, divorced,

...cocktail waitress at

the Harem Room Casino.

Look at her throat!

She must have lost

an awful lot of blood.

Cheryl Hughes lost a lot of blood, too.

You read that in the

newspapers, did you?

No. I didn't read

that in the newspapers.

This girl lost a lot of blood, Sheriff.

...but she didn't lose it here.

Anything?

We found a purse.

There's signs of a struggle up here.

...but nothing in between...

...only our footprints.

What'd he do? Throw her?

Who said Bonnie Reynolds was

thrown 22 feet into that culvert?

The Coroner? I haven't heard about it.

Who said this new killing is connected

with the Cheryl Hughes murder?

The Police? Not to me they haven't!

Who said that Cheryl Hughes

died of massive blood loss?

The Coroner again?

You know, he hasn't even

turned in his report yet.

And who, may I ask, said that a 'super-powerful

madman' is running loose in Las Vegas?

Are you hearing voices, Kolchak?

- I did not make up the facts in this story!

- Oh I know. You're bored...

...a big time reporter like you? Condemned

to the sticks with us journalistic rubes?

- I did not make up...

- Oh I know you'd like a big, fat byline...

...on a big, fat story so you can pay

your way back to a big fat city job!

- I DID NOT...

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Richard Matheson

Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of I Am Legend, a 1954 science fiction horror vampire novel that has been adapted for the screen four times, as well as the movie Somewhere In Time for which Matheson wrote the screenplay, based on his novel Bid Time Return. Matheson also wrote 16 television episodes of The Twilight Zone, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel". He adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay directed by a young Steven Spielberg, for the television film of the same name that year. Seven more of his novels or short stories have been adapted as major motion pictures — The Shrinking Man, Hell House, What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere in Time), A Stir of Echoes, Steel (filmed as Real Steel), and Button, Button. Lesser movies based on his work include two from his early noir novels — Cold Sweat, based on his novel Riding the Nightmare, and Les seins de glace (Icy Breasts), based on his novel Someone is Bleeding. more…

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