Tag: The Spanish Moss Murders

December 6, 1974 Season 1 Episode 9

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

This one begins with Kolchak looking the worst I’ve seen him. He had just gone through something terrible, and we were about to find out. This episode blends Cajun folklore and good old-fashioned monster mayhem into one of the show’s best stories. This episode includes another actor whom I have always liked. Keenan Wynn starred in a lot of movies and television shows and was a wonderful character actor. In this episode, he plays Police Chief Joe ‘Mad Dog’ Siska, who is trying to stay calm…not easy around Kolchak. Chicago must have gone through many Chiefs of Police!

This time, Kolchak investigates a series of strange murders where the victims are covered in Spanish moss, crushed, and drowned far from any water. The culprit? The Père Malfait, a swamp monster from legend, a Cajun bayou boogeyman conjured up by an innocent street musician in a sleep study that takes away the ability to dream. People connected to the sleep subject (Don Mantooth) in unrelated ways are chosen as victims, so Kolchak will have to first discover who (or better, what) is killing them and figure out how to stop it.

The Père Malfait monster was played by Richard Kiel, who also played the Diablero the previous week in Bad Medicine. Producers liked him so much in both roles, they asked him to be available for a second season of the show. This one is highly thought of by The Night Stalker fans. I sound like a broken record, but again, this episode is smartly written and acted. Many times, McGavin would rewrite the scripts if he didn’t like them, and that happened a lot. He got no credit for that. That is probably the reason that no clunkers exist in this series. It also could have contributed to him asking out of his contract at the end of the season.

Kolchak starts digging, and, naturally, finds strange things. Kolchak’s journey in this episode takes him from sleep labs to recording studios,  to morgues, to warehouses, snapping photos and ticking off cops the whole way. Watching Kolchak rant his way through bureaucracy and disbelief is golden. It’s folklore meets journalism, and in Kolchak’s world, that always makes for one hell of a story.

If you want to get ahead…here is NEXT WEEK’S Episode!

If you want to get ahead…here is NEXT WEEK’S Episode!