Kolchak: The Night Stalker – The Werewolf

November 01, 1974 Season 1 Episode 5

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I’m loving going through these episodes. Like the X-Files, this show has a monster and humor. Sometimes serious and sometimes camp. There is something for everyone. With Star Trek and Twilight Zone, I tried to hide what the monster or whatever was, but with the titles to this series, not much cause for that. 

This is one of the great atmospheric episodes in the series. This time, our ever-skeptical reporter Carl Kolchak (played with perfect disheveled energy by Darren McGavin) finds himself aboard a cruise ship bound for New York, covering what should have been a puff piece about fun on the high seas. Naturally, things go sideways when passengers start turning up brutally mauled, and the only clues are shredded clothing and what look like animal bites. Kolchak’s sense for the bizarre kicks in, and soon he suspects that a werewolf might be loose on the ship, a premise that turns an already claustrophobic voyage into pure nightmare.

The episode cleverly uses its limited setting to heighten suspense. The cruise ship’s narrow hallways and locked cabins create a sense of entrapment — there’s nowhere to run when the full moon rises. The story also dips into old-school monster-movie tradition: silver bullets, cursed bites, and the doomed man who becomes the beast. The makeup effects, while modest by today’s standards, deliver a creepy punch, a classic, snarling wolf-man straight out of a Universal horror movie. Kolchak, armed only with his typewriter wit and some makeshift silver, must find a way to stop the creature before the ship reaches port.

This episode is a good example of the show’s formula: horror meets journalism, with humor and cynicism woven through. The episode’s director, Allen Baron, keeps the pacing tight, and the contrast between McGavin’s wisecracking performance and the grim killings maintains that strange Kolchak balance between camp and dread. It also helped solidify the series’s reputation for finding horror in everyday or unexpected places, in this case, a pleasure cruise turned into a deathtrap.

This episode feels like a monster-of-the-week done with a touch of humor and melancholy. This one has the feel of a late-night drive-in flick, half spooky and half funny, and it remains a fan favorite…per IMDB. Two standout guest stars were Nita Talbot as Kolchak’s cohort, Paula Griffin. She was no one’s fool and quite a match for Kolchak. Also, Eric Braeden as Bernhardt Stieglitz who plays the title role of the show. 

The FULL EPISODE! The reason I don’t embed the video is that Dailymotion just keeps playing every time you pull up my site. It gets on your nerves and mine as well. 

 
 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

27 thoughts on “Kolchak: The Night Stalker – The Werewolf”

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  5. One I’ll (again) check out tonight in the comfort of my darkened living room, with only the flickering shadows on the wall keeping me company. (The missus don’t like horror flicks, ‘The Munsters’ were enough for her.) The premise sounds perfect- the only way of getting away is fight or flight. Talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

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    1. Yea mine don’t like horror either. Somehow on Halloween 2016, Bailey and I talked her into going to see The Shinning…never again lol.
      Yea you are stuck on a ship…unless you can swim really well or are near Gilligan and his Island.

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      1. Oooooh, Kubricks ‘The Shining.’ That is the best/worst Horror flick to show a ‘new to Horror, try it you might like it?’ partner. I personally loved the schlocky Hammer horrors and laughable AMI atrocities. It was like Jackson Pollock had gone berserk with the red tempera or something .

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      2. Yep! In the theater no less!
        Oh I love those Hammer Horrors and Amicus anthology horror movies like Tales From The Crypt with Joan Collins.
        You know what I think when I see them? Oh I would love to have that table, lamp, or that shirt he is wearing lol.

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    1. Those oldies are great bloody fun aren’t they? Lisa, have a look at the best/first part of ‘Ghost Ship,’ 2002; it’s a more modern take on the ‘Mr Director, are you frikkin’ serious???’ kind of horror flick

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      4. I saw this as well…when you described the plot…I remembered it from long long ago…I then found it with your description…like I said…didn’t want to butt in a conversation…but it’s like telling me “Max don’t touch the red button”…. the button will be touched!

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    3. Yes…you are trapped…this one is cool and I like the female actor that Kolchak is with…she doesn’t take crap from him….in one scene she said something like “stop trying to con me, just lay it on me” …I instantly liked her after that.
      Plus the big guest star…you will remember…he was soap operas but also on some movies.

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