Kolchak: The Night Stalker

As for this episode having no humor? I have to disagree. A prime example would be Kolchak's interview of the first victim's fellow poker players. Ned Glass, who had appeared two weeks earlier on "The Spanish Moss Murders," makes a reference to one of Kolchak's con jobs in that previous ep.



JOE: "Hey! Didn't you used to work for the Health Department?"



KOLCHAK: "Oh, no! You must've mistaken me for my cousin."



In addition, Phil Silvers--who played the ill-fated Harry Starman--was a veteran comic actor! During the Golden Age of TV, he played the delightfully larcenous Sergeant Bilko on "You'll Never Get Rich." And, in the circa 1964 comedy classic "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (loosely remade, years later, as "Rat Race"), he played the greedy tourist who double-crossed Jonathan Winters en route to that cache of stolen bank money.



So, I can't imagine him having NOTHING humorous to say prior to his character's death scene! It would have been uncharacteristic--to the point of blasphemy--of both him and the episode's writers.

This episode is perhaps the darkest--and least comedic--of all the Kolchak episodes. Correspondingly, it diverts from the established structural device of allowing the creatures in each episode to feast on the young, attractive, and affluent. In "Horror in the Heights", the victims are aged Jews, retired and impoverished. Whereas the victims in earlier episodes in some way or another contributed to their own deaths--through stupidity, lust, avarice, or hubris--the victims in the "Heights" are totally innocent, their greatest crime being participating in a penny ante poker game.



And all this is what makes Kolchack: The Night Stalker such a special TV series. Can you imagine a storyline in the shows offered over today's major networks focusing on the murder of elderly Jews and whose only hope for the salvation of the community comes from an 80 year-old Hindu? The core group of 19 year-old nitwits today's TV execs cater to (not that there are no intelligent 19 year-olds; it's just that the networks don't care about them) would be changing the channel as fast as possible to a reality series.

Kolchak, whose police scanner interceptions often lead him to grisly murders, comes upon the law investigating an elderly man apparently devoured by rats. But Kolchak himself smells a rat. Soon enough, his investigative skills come into play, as he realizes that rats aren\'t the problem at all. Swastikas in a Jewish neighborhood lead him to an elderly man who calls him a \"rakshasa\". From there, an Indian exhibit reveals more, and he soon pieces together the truth: a flesh eating demon with an special ability is the culprit.



It\'s that special ability: the ability to discern who the victim trusts and to project that image, that makes this particular monster so unsettling. We never even see it as it really is until quite near the end of the show; WE know that people greeting old friends are about to meet a horrific end, and we want to yell at them to run! That\'s where the show succeeds: by making the ordinary person horrible.



Ultimately, Kolchak triumphs, as he always does. But this time, he almost doesn\'t. He knows that the person approaching is not who it appears to be, and yet... and yet... he almost doesn\'t shoot in time. Always cynical Carl Kolchak has a soft spot for someone, and it very nearly costs him his life. That tension, right up to the end, makes this a stand out episode.