kolchak: the night stalker -- episode 16: demon in lace
not so's you'd notice, but i haven't been here for a couple of weeks. i took some time out of my weird life writing about fake football while moonlighting as a reviewer of an offbeat 1970s sci-fi/horror reporter-based dramedy. i decided instead to go be weird across parts of western europe. one day, i might even write about some of my misadventures. one day.
the euros got their fill of me and sent me back after 10 days. which works out well for you. because now you get to hear all about the time our man carl kolchak went back to college.
on the campus of illinois state tech ... alright, wait. we need to stop right here and talk about this.
illinois state tech? really? illinois. state. tech. i know there's an illinois state. and a quick google search informed me of an illinois tech. but we couldn't come up with any other names?
no?
okay.
anyway ... on the campus of illinois state tech (i mean, really?) healthy, strapping young men are just dropping dead. the latest is star running back don riner. don was last seen frolicking through a meadow with a sassy little blonde number. the frolics continued their natural progression to the turf. where it was all good. until it wasn't.
remember that scene in the shining where jack goes to the one room where danny says he saw a lady? jack walks in and there's a hot naked chick coming out of the bathtub. they make out. then the hot naked chick turns into an old, bloated, decaying, toothless, stringy-haired demented granny. yeah, that's pretty much what happened to don riner.
but with far less nudity.
and much worse makeup.
and stanley kubrick wasn't directing.
otherwise, it was exactly the same.
halloween. circa 1990.
13-year-old marcas is at a church youth group halloween party at the home of the youth group leader. after snacks and some good ol' fashioned children's hymns. we gather round the tv to watch the shining. we were warned that there was a little violence but that it wasn't too gory. which is true. what was forgotten was THAT scene. i remember an envelope being held up to the screen to hide the surprise naughty bits. but they never turned it off. to this day, i appreciate the fact that they let a bunch of pre-teens keep watching the movie while trying their best to keep it a christian family event. grown-ups don't always suck. thanks, tommy and karen.
kolchak gets wind of the deaths over the police scanner and goes to ol' state tech to check it out. both riner and the blonde were found dead side-by-side. only riner had a look on his face like he'd been scared to death. sorta like another body that had been found on campus recently. which isn't the sort of information captain joe "mad dog" siska would like a fella like kolchak overhearing.
yep. siska's back. our favorite anger-managing law enforcer who we first met back in episode 9. it would have been nice to have more consistency among the rotating police cameos on this show. siska would have been a great foil. alas, it was a realization likely realized too late.
after the captain huffs and puffs, kolchak blows away in the acquaintance of one rosalind winters of the campus' blue monitor. she tells kolchak about pete burdette, the other body that was found recently. like don riner, burdette was also found next to a dead girl.
look, scooby ... it's a clue!
our reporter's first stop is the office of the school's coach. i don't know what he coaches. it's never explained. he apparently coached riner, who was a football player. but he also had to cut someone from the swim team. none of it makes sense. which makes it even fishier that somehow "coach" is in charge of the athletes' health files.
according to coachy mccoachface, both riner and burdette were the pictures of health. though coach suspects that don's playboy lifestyle caught up to him in the form of "germs". yes, he said germs. not some sort of std. but germs. like that can be killed with dial soap. in fact, coach prescribes a lifestyle of extreme physical hygiene ... and cans of tuna fish. this man's medical opinions are not to be trusted.
while we explore what the good dr. coach has to say about tuna, craig donnelly and betty walker were about to explore each other. drunkenly. until betty fell down the stairs to an untimely death. drunkenly.
as live craig ran to call 911, dead betty got up and ran away leaving only a horrific stench. which isn't particularly sexy.
dead betty -- looking decidedly not dead -- shows up at the fraternity bedroom door of mark hansen, who is a healthy, strapping young man. she gains entry, begins flirting and starts to caress his face when...
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
aaaaaaaaaand we're back. and mark is dead. and dead betty is dead. again.
kolchak is now on this story like knee skin on pavement. he uses some info from siska to track dead betty back to live craig, who explains his version of dead betty's lush-life demise. however, getting stonewalled by a school registrar (wanna see morticia addams without the black wig?) puts up a temporary roadblock in getting info on the deceased young men.
by the way, this whole episode is kolchak investigating the men's deaths. the dead women are pretty much afterthoughts. i'm sure they have family, too, kolchak. someone that would care to know where they are. **shrug**
a little research turns up a few things about the dead men. the women they were found with had all been ruled dead several hours before they were found in apparent cavort with the college boys. also, they were all connected in one way or other to dr. c. evan spate -- an anthropology professor and man who dresses like he's slated to direct the next dorothy lemay feature.
dr. spate, having lost a couple of lab assistants to mysterious deaths in recent short order, is now grooming another potential assistant. mike thompson is a healthy, strapping young man willing to accept the gig.
(maybe it's the too-tight sansabelt bellbottoms or his obvious predliection for tall, well-built attractive brunette males ... but dr. spate felt like a creepy predator. I NEED AN ADULT!)
while accepting the position of research assistant, mike introduces dr. spate to his date ... the lovely maria venegas. which is pretty amazing considering maria had been found dead in her apartment after asphyxiating due a gas leak in her apartment. nonetheless, here is dead maria, looking not dead and shaking the hand of dr. spate. and laughing all creepy-like.
at this point, i have to fault mike. you're about to accept a pretty cool gig, if anthropology is your thing. don't bring along some girl you just met an hour ago to meet your potential new boss. but ladies ... if i somehow introduce you to my boss on our first date and you start giving him crazy eyes and creepy laugh, the chances of a second date decrease significantly.
i could try to explain in some detail where the episode goes from here, but it's a jumbled mishmash of ancient mediterranean mythological names and stories. here's what you need to know...
succubus. a female demon that uses the reanimated freshly dead corpses of young women to seduce and kill hot young men. which is rude.
the whole thing is foretold on a giant tablet sitting in dr. spate's office, waiting to be fully translated. but while dead maria (aka the succubus) is about to mow down on mike thompson's face, kolchak is trying to bust up the accursed tablet.
that doesn't sit well with ol' succy, who takes her true form and drops mikey like a bad habit only to show up at dr. spate's office and wrestle with kolchak. that doesn't work out so well. the tablet breaks. she turns to dust and blows away.
in the end, kolchak does his wrap up which is something like "never trust a big butt and a smile." um. yeah. whatever.
reporter's notebook
this show has a weird, condescending view of women wanting to be writers or journalists. rosalind is at least the third woman in this series professing a desire to be a reporter. kolchak has mansplained the hell out of all three of them. i know this is 2017 marcas watching it. but it's kinda uncomfortable.
tony vincenzo is slowly being driven to madness. at one point this week, he was in his office talking to the ceiling about wanting to report on only happy stories. too bad his motley crew of writers doesn't understand happiness.
updyke update: he appears this week! and even gets to speak a significant number of words. i'm happy for you, ron.
even in 1974, frat boys were all persnickety about people calling their frats frats. though siska threatening to search their rooms for "funny vegetables" seemed a bit overboard. although the term "funny vegetables" makes me giggle.
quote of the week
"there's no law against dropping dead." - capt. joe "mad dog" siska
that would be putting the corpus in habeas corpus.
next week on kolchak: the night stalker: clues at the scene of four bizarre murders lead kolchak to believe that ancient aztec sacrificial rites are being re-enacted.