Here's a case for Darrin McGavin's Kolchak from "The Night Stalker": a writer in San Francisco, investigating the occult, disappears after helping a widow rid her estate of her dead husband, who had risen from his tomb seeking human blood to complete a demonic statue. TV-made pilot for a proposed NBC series was filmed on rainy Monterey locations by "Night Stalker" mainstay Dan Curtis. It barely gets by in the shocks department, with one padded sequence in a motel room echoing "Psycho" and the rest weighed down with talk. Claude Akins has a dire role as the unbelieving county sheriff determined to keep a lid on this thing lest the public be unnecessarily worried; considering that a young woman was recently drained completely dry of her blood from the front seat of her car, you would think Sheriff Akins would be a bit more receptive to the fact a vampire is loose! Open-ended final scene begs for an explanation, but the network wasn't interested. One can see why, this is just a Kolchak redux.
Review of The Norliss Tapes
