NIGHT STALKER OLD VS NEW

NIGHT STALKER OLD VS NEW?
By Ken Leicht

I really hate to be one of those guys who are all about the original being unsurpassable. Far from it. I have no problems with remakes and re-imaginings as a whole. The new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA blows the doors off the original if you ask me. But when you seek to remake something where the main character or the actor who played them is so intrinsic to the piece as a whole (like the recent HONEYMOONERS movie), it can get dicey. Sadly, the new NIGHT STALKER suffers from the wrong kind of re-imagining.

There have been many attempts over the years to do a new version of the NIGHT STALKER but none of them ever materialized. With the success of LOST, the floodgates were finally open for horror and sci-fi suspense shows so the time was right at last. Sadly, what actually made it to the screen plays more like the X-FILES, and not in a good way.

What made the original NIGHT STALKER TV show work was the unique point of view of the Kolchak character. The new show casts Carl Kolchak as some moody milquetoast who longs to find out about the mysterious death of his wife (a sorely un-needed idea). He works for some news entity stalking cases which inevitably have some supernatural angle. But the Scully-esque skeptical partner(another un-needed idea) is along with him to…you know come to think of it, I just don’t have the energy to continue…so let’s be brief.

The new NIGHT STALKER is basically the X-FILES but this time it’s a news guy instead of an FBI guy. It’s kind of funny considering that the X-FILES was basically the NIGHT STALKER but instead of a reporter it was an FBI guy. What I gradually got bored with on the X-FILES is all too evident here: the skeptical partner, the techno-babble (there has to be a logical explanation for everything shtick), and the boring boss who cares. This is a real sore spot for me. The relationship between Carl and his hot blooded editor Tony Vincenzo was crucial to the old show. Simon Oakland must be rolling over in his grave.

Because the supernatural force of the week premise is too good to abandon totally, I feel compelled to watch a few more episodes than the first two that I saw but ultimately I’m just going to end up sad. I’m not totally against re-imagining things but the spirit of the original work was in the characterization of Kolchak. Instead I get Fox Mulder as a reporter. The X-FILES was a good thing that ran on too long. This new Kolchak feels like the last few seasons of the X-FILES. There’s a conspiracy to keep the knowledge of the supernatural from the public…and nobody cares any more. Least of all me.

The best thing about the new NIGHT STALKER series is that it finally goosed Universal Home Video to release a box set of the original series. Long overdue is the understatement of the century. The set itself is sadly devoid of extras. Given the talent involved in the original show is all still alive, this is a disgrace. But at least the show is finally all in one place in non-bootleg form. The transfer is no prize winner but it’s better than nothing.

With no special features to write about, I’ll just concentrate on the episodes themselves. Standouts include “Horror in the Heights” where Kolchak fights an evil spirit that takes the form of someone you trust before it tears you apart and “The Spanish Moss Murders” where a sleep experiment subject dreams up a childhood horror that wreaks havoc amongst the local Cajuns.

The great thing about the old show was how the evil forces would function in a contemporary setting. The naturalistic shooting style of the show and the great score made it quite scary. It stands up today quite well. I can’t recommend it enough.

Given the talent involved in the original show (David Chase, Richard Matheson, Robert Zemeckis, Jimmy Sangster to name a few), and the greatness that resulted, it’s no surprise that Chris Carter sighted it as a major inspiration for the X-FILES series. As great as the X-FILES was when it was good, it was a different type of storytelling and a wholly different vision. While that vision worked for the X-FILES, it doesn’t work for the NIGHT STALKER. I don’t want Mulder and Scully. I want Kolchak. Maybe if the show runs long enough, more of the original spirit will become evident. If not, there’s always the old show on DVD.