'The Night Strangler' by Richard Matheson and Jeff Rice

In Seattle, Tony Vincenzo stops off at the ‘Press Club’ for a drink and bumps into Carl Kolchak, who is arguing with a critic over the authenticity of his Las Vegas vampire story. Against his better judgement, Vincenzo arranges for Kolchak to meet newspaper owner Llewellyn Crossbinder; the aged and temperamental publisher agrees to hire Kolchak, providing that he stays out of trouble. Kolchak’s first assignment is to investigate the murder of an exotic dancer, whose neck has been inexplicably crushed and blood drained from the body. After another such death occurs Kolchak discovers that each victim’s neck was crushed by someone with superhuman strength, and that rotting flesh was found on their throats. While city officials become concerned with an apparent serial killer, Kolchak teams up with fellow reporter Titus Berry, who tells him that five similar murders occurred twenty-one years earlier. Further research shows five more strangulations took place not only in 1952, but also 1931, 1910 and 1889. Vincenzo agrees to run Kolchak’s story along with a sketch of the killer, only to come into conflict with Crossbinder, the police and the city officials. Realising that the killer will commit a further three murders in the next few days, Kolchak sets out to find the murderer, only to be almost killed that night while witnessing the assailant throwing police aside like rag dolls before vanishing behind a fence. Kolchak deduces that the killer is hiding in the ‘underground city’, the original Seattle that burned down, upon which the new Seattle was built; he and his girlfriend Louise join a tour of the disused buildings, but are unable to find anything. Kolchak then meets Professor Crabwell, an old university instructor and expert on the occult, who tells him of a myth concerning an elixir of life made with blood that gives the user everlasting life and super strength; Kolchak realises that the murders where all committed by the same man, Doctor Richard Malcolm, a surgeon in the Union Army during the American Civil War, who returns to Seattle every twenty-one years so that he can create the elixir. After having his story stopped once more by Vincenzo, Kolchak decides to take matters into his own hands; using Louise as bait, he sets off to find Malcolm’s lair in the underground city. However, the two of them soon get separated - leaving Louise at the mercy of the ancient killer…

Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak), Jo Ann Pflug (Louise Harper), Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo), Richard Anderson (Doctor Richard Malcolm)Scott Brady (Capt. Roscoe Schubert), Wally Cox (Titus Berry), Margaret Hamilton (Professor Crabwell), John Carradine (Llewellyn Crossbinder), Nina Wayne (Gladys Weems, the Charisma Beauty), Al Lewis (Tramp), Ivor Francis (Doctor Christopher Webb), Virginia Peters (Wilma Krankheimer), Kate Murtagh (Janie Watkins), George Tobias (Stacks / Jimmy Stackhaus [scenes deleted]), George DiCenzo (Underground Tour Guide)*, Regina Parton (Merissa / Ethel Murray), Anne Randall (Policewoman Sheila), Diane Shalet (Joyce Gabriel)
Produced and Directed by Dan Curtis

TX (US): 16th January, 1973

Running Time: 74 minutes

Notes:
*Featuring Carl Kolchak and Tony Vincenzo

*Working title: 'The Time Killer'

*The version that was recently released on DVD has some deleted scenes reinserted; these feature the tramp played by Al Lewis, and also Kolchak's co-worker, Janie Watkins

*Some syndicated versions also include a deleted scene in which Kolchak consults a reporter named Jimmy Stackhaus, played by George Tobias, who also investigated the case