What makes it different from others?

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

An abrasive Las Vegas newspaper reporter (Darren McGavin) investigates a series of murders committed by a vampire.It was based on the then-unpublished novel by Jeff Rice titled "The Kolchak Papers". Rice said he wrote the novel because, "I'd always wanted to write a vampire story, but more because I wanted to write something that involved Las Vegas." Rice had difficulty finding a publisher willing to buy the manuscript until agent Rick Ray read the manuscript and realized the novel would make a good movie.This being the first Kolchak story, it really hits hard. We get everything we love about the man (and his boss). And I am so glad that the ratings were so high, allowing a sequel to be made. Horror fans today (2016) who don't know Kolchak and think of Mcgavin as only the dad in "Christmas Story" are really missing out.

"This nut thinks he's a vampire! He has killed four, maybe five women. He has drained every drop of blood from every one of them. Now that is news Vincenzo, news!"- Carl Kolchak, newspaper reporter, to his editor in THE NIGHT STALKER. Produced in just eighteen days by television horrormeister Dan Curtis (DARK SHADOWS) as shoestring-budget program fodder for a network TV movie-of-the-week show, THE NIGHT STALKER became a ratings champion due to its unexpectedly lively mixture of amusing cynicism in the face of unnerving circumstance. Richard Matheson's detailed yet economical teleplay grabs you immediately with a plot of rapidly growing terror. And when director John Llewellyn Moxey unleashes stunt coordinator Dick Ziker and his team of incredible stuntmen you may find your jaw dropping (watch for the melee at the hospital and the swimming pool sequence). The movie's success is also due in no small measure to Barry Atwater's hair-raising appearance as the bloodthirsty fiend, Janos Skorzeny. Atwater doesn't have a single word of dialogue but his image leaves a lasting, unsettling impression.But without question this is Darren McGavin's movie and his relaxed, reactive performance infuses many of the scenes with a sustained and welcome humor. As the chillingly staged murders multiply and the disbelief of the jaded civil servants and one hard luck, bandy-legged journalist begins to crumble, the viewer is borne away into the nightmarish reality of the tale with genuine, chilling fear rising out of the threadbare production. Once again, a whole lot less provides a whole lot more. The follow-up movie, THE NIGHT STRANGLER has its moments but never quite matches the creeping dread of STALKER.

***SPOILERS*** After a number of Las Vegas show girls are brutally murdered with their blood drained out of their bodies hard nosed reporter Carl Kolchak,Darrin McGavin, smells a big story in what he feels is behind those savage killings. Kolchak is certain that it was a vampire who did the women in and he was going to prove it even he ended up becoming one the the vampire's victims himself.With the Mayor and police commissioner of Las Vegas trying to prevent a city wide panic the thought that a legendary vampire was on the loose in the city Kolchak's story is put on hold with his editor Tony Vincenzo, Simon Okland, telling him to drop the whole thing and report on an upcoming beauty contest instead. It's when it become obvious to everyone even the city officials that some supernatural psycho with a craving for human blood is out killing people it's decided to finally go alone with Kolchak's plans in killing him. But only have it kept from the public together with the killer's by now some dozen drained of their blood of victims.The killer turns out to be 72 year old Romanian immigrant Jonos Skorzeny, Barry Atwater, whom it's found out has used a number of aliases in countries like Britain and Canada as well as here in the US over the last 50 or so years. Skorzeny used those phony names in him getting jobs as hospital orderlies and ambulance drivers where there's freshly dead, but still warm, people as well as blood banks available to him where he has access to the life giving human blood that he so desperately needs. Despite Skorzeny's craving for blood he also seems to be immune to bullets or anything thing else that can kill a mortal man and even worse has the strength of ten man despite his advance, in him being over 70 years old, age!***SPOILERS*** Reporter Kolchak finally hits pay-dirt when one of his stooges or informant little Mickey Crawford, Elisha Cook Jr, find out the address-13-13 Black Raven Lane-where Skorzeny spend his days locked up in his coffin. Kolchak now plans to do the guy in, when he's fast asleep and isn't looking, by driving a wooden stake through his evil heart and thus put an end to Skorzeny's regain of terror in the city of Las Vegas. Not quite sure what time of the day it is Kolchak, suffering from sleep deprivation, seemingly having lost his sense of time goes to confront and kill the sleeping in his coffin Skorzeny in almost the dead, or darkest before dawn, of night! In Kolchak not bothering to wait until the sun comes up where it would be suicide for Skorzeny to emerge from his deep sleep!Wild showdown between Kolchak and the vampire Skorzeny with Kolchak's good friend Las Vegas police detective Bernie Jenks, Ralph Meeker, joining in with the vampire in the darkness of night quickly getting the upper hand on the two of them. Just when it looked like curtains for both Kolchak & Jenks an attentive, in him finally knowing it's morning and about what turns vampires off, Kolchak pulled down a curtain in Skorzeny's lair and lets the sun shine in. Together with a crucifix and stake slammed into his heart Kolchak puts him on ice at the local city morgue together with his dozen or so victims. It was just too bad for Kolchak in that he couldn't file his big scoop of a story in what Skorzeny did and how he finished him off. That's in what kin of legal trouble he was in by being threatened by the Las Vegas police department and the city D.A Tom Pain,Kent Smith, with a murder indictment in him killing an "innocent man", Jonos Skorzeny. Since Skorzeny wasn't even arrested indited or tried for his crimes. It was in that way the city officials felt that the true story of the Vampire of Vegas would never see the light of day. Which was far more important to them then preventing the mass killings that Skorzeny committed in the city that Kolchak did everything possible, including risking his life,to prevent!

This.....THIS film is the reason that an eight year old kid lost a lot of sleep in the '70's. I used to sleep with all the blankets tucked under my chin in case the Vampire came at me in the night....he'd have a hard time biting through all that cloth. The great thing about Darren McGavin's Kolchak is that he is a stubborn, obsessed reporter in dogged pursuit of the truth, but once he finds it, he's scared to death. Barry Atwater makes a chilling vampire, totally silent until the moment he opens that closet door and all hell breaks loose! I remember three-quarters of the way through this movie in 1972, my father asking me: "What's wrong son"? "I have to go pee Daddy." "Then why don't you go upstairs and go to the bathroom"? "Are you CRAZY??" The realistic way that this movie ends is with these now classic lines: "Judge for yourself its believability, and then try to tell yourself, wherever you may be, it couldn't happen here."