The
Night Stalker/The Night Strangler Double Feature
(1972, 1973/ABC Circle Films/MGM/Remastered DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Telefilms: A-
PLEASE
NOTE: This DVD is out of print, but both films have been
issued separately in upgraded Blu-ray editions in the U.S. with 4K
scans of the original 35mm camera negatives, better sound and far
more extras (including the ones here) that are the preferred choice
to get. Hopefully, actual 2160p Ultra High Definition 4K Blu-rays
will follow. The rest of this coverage applies, especially since the
films retain their same running times.
When
Anchor Bay issued the two Carl Kolchak TV movies back in 1998, The
Night Stalker
and The
Night Strangler,
they were some of the very first TV programs ever issued on DVD.
This was at a time when TV on DVD was considered a joke and a niche
at best. Now, the entire industry knows better. Since then,
telefilm owners ABC were bought out by Disney and the best selling
Anchor Bay DVD eventually went out of print. Six years later, MGM
has surprised the industry by licensing many of the titles ABC holds
(ABC telefilms, Cinerama, Palomar, and Selznick feature films) and
they have reissued the popular double feature.
The
immediate question is if it is better or different or worth getting
to replace the Anchor Bay copy. For the most part, yes, it is an
upgrade. Even though the Anchor Bay edition was stunning for a
full-screen DVD in its time, typical of that company's efforts, this
new set just about surpasses the older set in just about every
technical way possible. The explanation of how will be followed by
the content of the actual films.
In
the case of The
Night Stalker,
a classic that remains one of the most commercially and artistically
successful feature-length films ever made for TV to this day, its
influence continues to grow strong (possibly even having extended to
Roman Polanski's Robert Towne-penned Chinatown
from 1974) and it has been in print more often of the two.
Originally, Magnetic Video licensed the ABC films, a company that
later became CBS/Fox, then Fox Video. Fox not only did
videocassettes of the film, they even issued a 12-inch LaserDisc
where the eyes of killer Janos Skorzeny were turned greenish versus
red, a TV print consideration to meet network standards and practices
against showing even a hint of blood. It even has a faint few frames
of where to put a commercial break. When Anchor Bay got their print,
the blood red was back overall, and the new print was cleaner and
sharper. Though the LaserDisc offered the sound in PCM 2.0 Mono, the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Anchor Bay's DVD was clearer and more
articulate, even with the potential fullness PCM has over the Dolby
equivalent.
In
one of the few things Disney/ABC has done inarguably right all year,
they have supplied new prints of both films to MGM that pretty much
outperform all previous versions. Both films were shot in the TV
full frame 1.33 X 1 aspect ratio. The new Night
Stalker
print has more area on the left and below, is about the same on the
right, and is missing a sliver of picture information at the top.
The Video Black is also better, which MGM can particularly be happy
with. The clarity, color range and depth is impressive. Recently, a
friend commented on how clear the Anchor Bay print was, but the MGM
is even better. The flesh tones and colors like yellow and silver
are not always as good as the rest of the scale, as the first attack
has some detail on the Anchor Bay and the silver dress we first meet
Carol Lynley's Gail Foster in has some issues, but the rest of the
print is superior and more complete. Michael Hugo did the
cinematography for the film and it continues to endure all these
years later, looking better than most digital-obsessed feature films
(especially in the Horror genre) we get today.
The
improvements in The
Night Strangler
are even more impressive, offering more frame image area on all four
sides, having much better clarity and much better color range. Prior
to the Anchor Bay DVD, the only copy of the film to be issued was
very briefly (if that) on VHS from Fox. Anchor Bay's release was
much celebrated for what turned out to be an underrated sequel,
though also still very commercially and artistically successful, it
has also been very influential. Despite the increase in comedy, the
film is actually thematically and visually darker, shot by
cinematographer Robert Hauser, A.S.C., and offering one of Kolchak's
most memorable villains. This inspired The
X-Files
Eugene Toombs and the darker visual style of that series, the early
Kolchak:
The Night Stalker
episodes and Millennium
(reviewed elsewhere on this site).
Though
a search was done for missing footage, this is still the
90-minutes-long version of the film issued in the previous versions,
but there is no print damage and both prints are very clean and
clear. Technicolor produced both prints, which is likely why they
look so good now. These combine to be two of the best full-screen TV
presentations yet on DVD, much more impressive now that so much TV is
on DVD and it is a boom market.
Then
there is the sound. If the Anchor Bay was an improvement from all
versions of the films issued before on home video, this MGM version
is a trade-off. Hiss and background noise has been reduced in this
new MGM version, but a slight spectrum of highs seem to have been cut
into, yet there is sound detail here (despite some slight
compression) not on the Anchor Bay version. To compensate, you will
have to turn the volume up louder and maybe even readjust treble.
Fans will be happy to know the missing loop from the Anchor Bay DVD
when Kolchak is called to the courtesy phone in the back of the hotel
has been restored on this MGM copy.
Those
who love the films likely own the Varese Sarabande CD soundtrack The
Night Stalker & Other Classic Thrillers,
a 2000 CD release of several of the Horror score Robert Cobert did
for Dan Curtis' TV productions. Of the ten extended tracks, two of
them (namely #3 & #4) offer medleys of the scores for each film
that easily outperform their Dolby Digital appearance on either DVD.
Sadly, Cobert recorded the score monophonic, but it would be nice to
still see some kind of multi-channel or surround mix like MGM
currently offers for the Thunderbirds
feature films in both Dolby & DTS. Those films were pretty mono,
but a remix could pull out more sound and should be considered
whenever these films are issued in a Blu-ray version.
Otherwise,
this is one of the best DVD reissues of the entire year and will
hopefully do well enough to get the separate owners of the TV series
(only issued to this day on VHS from Columbia House, now all out of
print as of this posting) to finally put all twenty episodes out on
DVD once and for all. With all The
X-Files
now on Blu-ray in HD upgrades, joined by a few X-Files
mini-series revivals on Blu-ray, a Blu-ray of both films were
apparently held these up by Johnny Depp remaking the first film, but
that fell through after some personal scandals and his box office
souring.
Produced
in 1971 and broadcast January 1972, The
Night Stalker
was penned as a teleplay by the brilliant Richard Matheson, based on
the unpublished original work The
Kolchak Tapes
by Kolchak creator Jeff Rice. Carl Kolchak (the late, great Darren
McGavin) is an aging reporter who has been looking for ''the big
story'' to make him the hottest newspaper reporter in the country.
When a series of showgirls in Las Vegas turn up dead, he may have
lucked out, until it is apparent this is bigger and uglier than he
could have ever imagined. He uses his well-honed connections to be
the first at every crime scene, much to the disgust of Sheriff Warren
Butcher (Claude Akins, when he was still playing tough guys and
well). As the murders become more gruesome and killer more elusive,
Kolchak has to take on the killer, the authorities and his editor
Anthony Albert Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) to get the story out. His
girlfriend Gail (Carol Lynley) even suggests, much to his surprise,
that it could be a real vampire.
The
Night Strangler
was made late in 1972 and broadcast January 1973. At first, it seems
like the killer from the last film might be on the loose again, but
then something more extraordinary turns out to be taking place. Jo
Ann Pflug is the hilarious Louise Harper, Nina Wayne is her dancing
co-worker dubbed Charisma Beauty, Wally Cox (the original voice of
Underdog
among his many credits) is newspaper researcher Titus Berry and Simon
Oakland is back as Vincenzo. Both films have even more name cast
members, but we'll save that for viewers willing to take our advice.
Needless to say, The
Night Strangler
suffers a bit of pre-home video sequelitis, but it also has a very
clever, original storyline that makes it a very worthy follow-up to
the original.
The
previous DVD was basic and totally void of extras, unless you count
some text by Night
Stalker Companion
author Mark Dawidziak in a paper foldout. There is no such paper
anything in this MGM edition, but it does have new interview clips
with producer Dan Curtis especially for this release. He discussed
the first film for 15+ minutes on Side One, 7+ minutes for the second
film on Side Two. As he has done with MPI for his Dark
Shadows
series, and some other horror telefilms Curtis licensed to them,
Curtis has more great stories to tell. However, I was surprised
there were not more extras. For one thing, there are radio spots, TV
spots and even print ads for both films that have yet to surface, but
are somewhere. The second film was even released theatrically in
Europe, so how about some of that press material? Though Curtis did
not do an audio commentary, he directed the second film and produced
both. John Llewelyn Moxey directed the first one and had already
done on camera-interviews and audio commentaries for VCI's restored
version of his City
Of The Dead
(aka Horror
Hotel
from 1960) and Blue Underground's special edition of Circus
Of Fear
(aka Psycho-Circus
from 1967). Why could MGM not get a hold of him to do the same here?
That is the saddest of all missed opportunities.
So
there you have it, as great a Horror double feature as MGM is ever
going to issue, which says something considering the huge number of
Midnite Matinee series titles they have issued. As we wait for the
TV series to come to DVD, we can only hope it will look and sound at
least as good as this. In the meantime, though a Kolchak feature
film starring Nick Nolte through Morgan Creek collapsed many years
ago, the first TV movie here was turned into a comic book by
Moonstone and two Kolchak series continued to successfully run for a
long time. Dawidziak did a novel called Grave
Secrets
that was well done. A limited edition volume of the teleplays here,
plus a third, unproduced Kolchak TV movie were recently issued.
Richard Matheson penned all, except William F. Nolan joined him on
the third, and it was called The
Night Killers.
Set in Hawaii, politicians are being replaced by androids, an idea
that happened to the Westworld
(1973) sequel Futureworld
(1976). As usual, Kolchak would have been on the cutting edge of
genre. Another idea has Janos Skorzeny alive in New York (which
would have ruined the original film, if you think about it) and one
on Jack The Ripper. Matheson refused the latter, since friend Robert
Bloch (Psycho)
had just done a novel about The Ripper. When the series was launched
in 1974, that was the first monster, but from someone else's script.
At the time of the
original posting of this review, the TV series that followed these
films had not been issued and thanks to the terrible ABC/Disney
revival of the show based only on these films, the original was
issued on DVD and so was the failed 2005 series. The links to those
reviews are:
1974-75
Show
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2888/Kolchak:+The+Night+Stalker+(1974-75+series
2005
revival
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3809/Night+Stalker+(2005)+-+The+Complete+Series
Until
X-Files,
Kolchak may have set a record for most TV shows and feature films
trying to duplicate it unsuccessfully, but he and his adventures are
original and this remastered DVD double feature of The
Night Stalker
and The
Night Strangler
does both films justice like never before. The 2005 version was one
of the most unsuccessful of all. It is worth getting to replace the
Anchor Bay edition if you actually have it, a must-have if you never
owned it to begin with and a must-see if you have yet to see either
film. We cannot strongly recommend these classic telefilms enough,
if you can get a copy.
- Nicholas Sheffo
