Are You In The House Alone? by Amanda Reyes

Author:Amanda Reyes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909394452
Publisher: SCB Distributors

Tie-in novel promoting The Night Strangler.

Darren McGavin fends off Barry Atwater in the highly rated and well-loved The Night Stalker.

THE NIGHT STALKER

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey

Starring: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker

Airdate: January 11, 1972 Network: ABC

Incorrigible reporter Carl Kolchak hunts down an ancient vampire in modern day Las Vegas, infuriating the city authorities.

When first we meet reporter Carl Kolchak (McGavin), he’s putting the finishing touches on his latest story, listening intently to the contents of his tape recorder to ensure he has all the details straight. It’s a tale of murder, the saga of a crazed killer stalking the dark streets of Las Vegas and gruesomely dispatching young women. Despite the official police reports, though, which couch the killings as the work of an ordinary maniac, Kolchak knows there’s much more to the story. For as he delved deeper and deeper into the twisted tale, Kolchak realizes that the oddities surrounding the case all lead to one inescapable conclusion: the killer is a centuries-old vampire.

As the narrative proper begins, we’re invited to experience the story from the beginning, as Kolchak lived it, so that we might see what he saw and better understand how he reached his startling conclusions. Thus, we follow along as Kolchak is first introduced to the case, and proceeds to wend his way through the Las Vegas underworld tracking down the bloodthirsty murderer. We witness Kolchak’s frustration as he battles the brass, annoyed at his incessant attempts to sidestep their authority; we meet Kolchak’s constellation of inside men and women who keep him up on the latest tips, and ensure he’s one step ahead of the men in blue; and we watch as his skeptical investigations into the occult evolve into an unshakable belief in the terrifying truth.

Though the film’s lurid vampire particulars certainly have a grisly appeal, the real fun here comes from being so intimately involved in Kolchak’s detective work. Richard Matheson’s cunning screenplay makes deft use of Kolchak’s tape recorder, scattering the reporter’s voiceover narration throughout the film. This creative device at once allows explicatory information to be conveyed quickly and efficiently, and ensures we experience the story via Kolchak’s eyes. What’s more, owing to the magnetic personality of Kolchak the man, as brought wonderfully to life by Darren McGavin, we are also quickly won over to Kolchak’s point of view.

As the story progresses, and our understanding of Kolchak intensifies, we realize that the mystery of Carl Kolchak is just as fascinating as the mystery of the vampire. In fact, the entire vampire storyline seems to function, at least in part, as a vehicle to explain Kolchak’s life story. Like Janos Skorzeny, the ancient bloodsucker he is tailing, Kolchak seemingly cannot find a home, forcibly removed from town after town once his antics became insufferable. Thus Kolchak spends much of his life roaming around the dark streets of cities, searching desperately for the next scoop, his lifeblood, so to speak. For Kolchak, catching the vampire isn’t just a noble act of public assistance, or even the closing paragraph at the end of a great news piece.

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