The Night Stalker

Many call this the finest made for TV movie ever made, and at one time it was the most popular. Darren McGavin is Kolchak, a Las Vegas reporter who is determined to get to the bottom of a series of strange murders involving bite marks and a loss of blood in the victims. He challenges his bosses, the cops, and anyone who gets in his way that they are dealing with a vampire, but of course no one believes him. It's fairly suspenseful at points, but the real terror doesn't come from the scenes with the vampire, but the scenes in which Kolchak has compiled mounds of evidence that they are dealing with a vampire, but the authorities still refuse to believe. It becomes even more terrifying when they are finally convinced of the vampire and how they react. Richard Matheson who was also responsible for Duel wrote the script, and no one does this kind of thing better, but my one problem with his scripts are their use of voice-over. Understand, I'm not one of those anti-voice over Nazi's, but I've never liked the way he chooses to integrate it. Other than that, it's made for TV at its finest.